I'm not sure how many people actually read About Me pages, so I will write this as if I'm my only audience and I plan on talking myself up a lot so I can be really impressed with myself ;) Let's see.... I was born in Miami, FL and have moved extensively throughout my short life. (33 years is short, right?) I have lived in 9 states (FL, GA, NY, MS, HI, PA, UT, MN, & TX). In those states I have lived in about 18 cities. I have also spent time living in Hod Ha'Sharon, Israel, Cape Town, South Africa, and multiple cities throughout the south of England.
Currently, I call the great state of Texas home. I live with my sweet little family in a small suburb outside of Dallas. I am married to the most wonderful man who kindly puts up with, and sometimes even encourages my many, many pursuits in this life. My husband is half Samoan and half German-American. Our gene combination has somehow managed to produce the world's whitest polynesians (I married brown to try to upgrade my children's skin color from the transparent skin that I have, but they're only about a shade or so darker than me) but even with my coloring, we have 2 beautiful little girls. My husband is also working on convincing me of adding a boy or two to our brood. He's seems to be unaware that there's not currently a wish list registry in my womb. But, he's very persistent, so he'll probably get a boy or two at some point. Together, with some close friends, we own and run an online precious metals company called ProvidentMetals.com and we love the opportunity we have to be so close to so many wonderful people who have all moved to Texas to work with us.
My husband and I met at college. We both attended BYU-Hawaii. I was there for 2 years, my husband only came for 1 semester, but that was enough for us to meet and fall in love. Well, at least for me to fall in love with him and wish and hope and pray that I'd hear from him again someday after he left the island. One of the greatest days of my life was when I received a phone call in my little house in Laie, HI, across from Foodland. The house was called the Crate House, and I lived there with 2 of my best friends, Meredith and Charity. I think Charity answered the phone at first, but I knew who it was the instant I heard his voice. He had managed to track me down, in an era without much information on the internet yet, without much access to cell phones, and with the transiency of being a college student. We proceeded to spend countless hours, racking up countless dollars on landline phone bills, talking to each other as often as we could. We dated for 5 years. For a year and a half of that he waited for me while I served an LDS mission to London South. He planned our wedding while I was gone, and we got married in the San Diego Temple on Dec. 7, 2001. We just celebrated our 10th anniversary and life just keeps getting better everyday.
If you notice my moving around habits, it sometimes put a damper on finishing my college degree. A couple of years ago, I finally finished my Baccalaureate in English and American Literature. It took me 13 years. "A lot of people go to school for [13] years." "Yeah, they're called doctors." Well, I'm not a doctor. I hope to be someday. A doctor of books, like my last professor's son called him. "Toby's dad's a doctor." "I'm a doctor too." "You're a doctor of books. That doesn't count." Ha ha. But, I do love words, so eventually, I would like to possibly be a doctor of books. Maybe a doctor of something else. I'm kind of non-committal, but I don't really want to commit to that description of me.... Nothing's set in stone, right? Or at least not much. I also love studying other languages. It's so satisfying to learn something so completely new. I speak Spanish pretty well, and I have also studied Japanese, German, Russian, Hebrew, and a little bit of Samoan. I would love to be fluent in as many languages as possible someday.
I also want to be a writer and a songwriter. Before I went back out to BYU-Provo a couple of years ago to finish my degree, I had a very vivid dream. This was not a new phenomena, I have incredibly vivid dreams regularly. But this dream struck me. As I retold it to my husband, I felt the value of the story and also felt compelled to write the story. Over 500 pages and 2.5 years later, my story is currently being edited. The main character in the story is a songwriter and I also wrote 12 original songs to be used as a soundtrack to the book. I am recording the last few songs on the soundtrack this month. I will be submitting my work to various agents to see if anyone is interested. If someone is interested, I will consider their offers. If no one is interested, I will forge ahead and publish my own book.
This past spring I was very blessed to partner up with the incredibly talented Eden Morris. Our little singing/songwriting duo is called Alisha found Eden (visit us at our website or on facebook). Eden and I like the play on words, seeing as how I had been looking for someone to sing with for quite some time and literally found Eden to sing with (well, she actually found me, but Eden found Alisha doesn't have quite the same ring to it), and Eden the place would be idyllic and wonderful to find. Our husbands think the name makes us sound like we might be lesbians. Hey, if it helps us tap into multiple markets, who are we to complain?
Anyway, back to my book for which Eden and I are singing the soundtrack. It's called "Invisible" and my great big fat dream is for it to also become a movie someday. I would probably want to cast Zooey Deschanel and Henry Cavill as the leads. Henry really does look and sound almost exactly like the guy in my dream. And when I had the dream, the only time I had ever seen Henry Cavill in anything was in The Count of Monte Cristo when he was very young. But the guy in my dream looks like Henry Cavill looks now, except with straight hair. And the girl in my dream was me, and my glorified doppelganger Hollywood version is Zooey Deschanel, who also sings and could sing the songs on my soundtrack. See? It's perfect! And if Zooey says no, then maybe Anne Hathaway, but she doesn't have blue eyes. She'd have to wear contacts. When I tell my husband these things, he says, "How about you try dreaming big for a change?" and gives me a mischievous little smile. Yes, I dream very, very big.
I have also had 3 or 4 other dreams that are destined to be books at some point. And I'll probably have more dreams throughout my life. And thank heavens too, because my imagination really kicks it up a notch when I'm sleeping. It's a little lame when I'm awake. At least for story ideas. I'm terrible at making up stories to tell my daughter when she's going to bed. But if she could plug into my brain and watch my dreams, she'd be highly entertained. My waking imagination is pretty good for decorating and crafting, though. I can visualize the finished product pretty well and that's what motivates me to work hard to finish projects.
Is anyone still reading this? My apologies if you are. I will get back on track. So, this is my new blog. I recently discovered the need to eat gluten free. I visited a very knowledgeable osteopath who said of the 40 or so women in his practice with breast cancer, about 5 of them look exactly like me on paper. They don't drink, don't smoke, don't have excessive stress, aren't exposed to many toxins, aren't overweight, eat well, and aren't very old. He said bodies like that shouldn't produce cancer, but theirs are and mine is headed in that direction because of my genetic disposition. My mother had breast, cervical, and skin cancer and in 2000 she was told she had 6 months to live. She opted to forego traditional treatments and instead changed her diet and lifestyle by utilizing various methods of preparing raw foods and juicing. Instead of being dead in 6 months, she was cancer free in about 9 months and is still healthy and well today, almost 12 years later. (By the way, did you know that for medical statistics, for someone to have been "cured" from cancer, they only have to live like 6-7 years after their diagnosis? If they die from cancer in their 8th year after diagnosis, they're still counted as a positive cured from cancer statistic.) I am a firm believer that our bodies are GREATLY affected by the foods we eat. The doctor I visited said that my body, and the other women he mentioned who have similar health to me, have too many gluten antibodies because our bodies can't handle the gluten. These antibodies build up and can eventually cause cancer. At least that's what I understood him to say. I'm sure he actually said it differently. But, I left knowing I needed to cut gluten out of my diet.
I have also known since I was about 3 years old, when I had a horrible allergy test (50 shots up each arm, 100 shots total, and yes I still remember it) that I'm allergic to dairy and whey. I have gone through various stages of strictness with my dairy intake, but since having my girls and seeing their bodies get sick due to dairy, I have cut it out entirely. I know it's hard, but it's definitely worth it. My 7 yr old daughter knows herself how she feels when she eats something she shouldn't. I often let her make her own food choices and 9 times out of 10, she chooses wisely, because she knows it makes her feel better. And that's my hope with this blog, to help people feel better. If I can help you find a way to make a recipe that your family enjoys and is not harmful to their well-being, then I will be a happy girl. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. If I have answers, I'll give them to you. If I don't, I'll try to help find answers. Thanks for reading this far! You really did want to know something about me, huh? ;)
My adventures in eating gluten & dairy-free, as well as fancy-free fabulous craftiness and projects!
