It's Your Choice

Laura was a great CPA. Probably still would be if that is how she had chosen to continue her life. 

Dating my stepson, Laura was an up and coming star at a large regional CPA firm and she was nearing the end of the grueling 80-hour work weeks that make or break young CPAs but which expose them to a wide range of businesses. College was paid off. The future was gravy. 

However, Laura was a victim -- a victim of a culture that says 18-year olds should know what they are going to do for the rest of their lives when they pick a college major. By the time Laura was a senior, she pretty much knew she didn’t want to be a CPA. But her parents had all that money invested in her (not a small consideration when one’s parents have sacrificed) and, well, she was about to get her degree. The time for choosing something else was over. 

Laura put in her time at the firm, working weekends and holidays when necessary…until gradually she came to a startling conclusion: she wanted to touch lives. Literally. 

She wanted to become a massage therapist -- specializing in pregnant women -- and a labor doula. So she saved her money, quit her job and did just that, enrolling in Seattle's Ashmead College, then continuing her pregnancy focus with Doula training from Seattle Midwifery School. 

Today, Laura’s dream has gotten even bigger. She’s now pursuing a degree as a Nurse Practitioner Midwife, still focused on pregnancy. Touching lives. She’s touched mine.

A Peculiar Path...

As a jewelry artist, my inspiration comes not only from my day-to-day life but all the encounters I’ve experienced in a pretty  unconventional and peripatetic life.  My father traveled – and we with him -- to where there was work. Farmwork in southern Minnesota; orchard work in Washington, haying  in Yuma, logging in Oregon, carpentry in Idaho...and so on, often housed in our 40’ x 8’ Spartan trailer house, our home on our backs, so to speak. Attending 14 schools in 11 years, I completed four years of high school in three. College was equally spread out: Texas, Oregon, Hawaii and California – finally graduating close to my 40^th birthday.

Workwise, I’ve picked beans and hoed strawberries, been a teaching assistant, a secretary, an accounting clerk, an entrepreneur in the food business, a cocktail waitress and bartender, worked in Apple Computer's business development and sales, managed a quaint off-the-beaten-path resort in the South Pacific, worked in Hewlett-Packard's channel marketing and distribution...and now I'm a jewelry artist.

As Raul Malo from the band, The Mavericks, has said, "if most people did what I've done in my career, they'd be driving a taxi by now."