I’m a mom of 5 awesome kids, 2 girls and 3 boys. I even have a grandson now who will be 1 next month. I guess looking back, others would say 4 of my kids had disabilities or disorders of some sort and my 2nd daughter was overweight no matter what we tried. My life as a mommy was a very real one, a very active, and at times, overwhelming one. Since my own life had been full of demons and haunts growing up, my kids were my world. I never saw them as anything but perfect even through all the glasses appointments and surgeries and ER visits. It was our normal and if anything, as a family, we reached out to parents and kids at children’s hospitals, Ronald McDonald houses, and track Special Olympics to try to make them feel like we did.

One of my deepest wounds was acceptance. Throughout my life, I could see I was not the only one. I was, and have always been, genuine and sincere, to all I meet. My kids followed suit. To some, I’m a bit eccentric in my kindness. My friends have accepted I’m really not a weirdo like everyone thinks but a weirdo like them who can be a bit snarky.

Five years ago, my demons of my abusive past, caught up with me. I found myself moving from Ohio to Washington state with my youngest son. My older kids wished to finish high school there and would visit for summers. It was the first time I had EVER been away from my kids. It was not a smooth transition at all. My youngest, 10 at the time, missed his siblings, father, and school dreadfully. Needless to say, a week before school started, he went back to Ohio and began school there. The stress of being in a new place, no other family or friends, had made his epilepsy kick into high gear the doctor said. I put him on an early morning flight, hugged and kissed his forehead, my heart ached severely. I smiled and he smiled back bravely. I spent the next week in a bed sobbing! The next month felt like a coma. The next year…zombieland. The new opportunities and adventure in a new state sunk as well. I found myself alone and jobless which followed by penniless. I fell into an abyss so deep, I look back now and am amazed I crawled out. I had depression and thought about suicide. I wallowed in misery and began to find it as comforting ironically, my new normal. For two years, lying in that void of nightmares, I detached from the world and myself. I walked into a library one day, I don’t even remember why I left the house, and the first book I saw was, “Why Your Like Sucks!” by Alan H. Cohen. I cracked a grin and shook my head. My word. How did such a book get to be in a library and who in their right mind would read it?! I did. I’m so thrilled I did. It started to change my outlook, my life. I created an inspirational page, Inspirational Me, to help me share what motivated me daily. Before I knew it, within a month I had 10,000 fans. There were so many people who needed to know they were okay, that they were going to be okay! Today, it is just shy of 33,000 amazing people I call my family.

I have always been one who uplifted other people, a people person. All my life I was a yes person and a no to me person. Through the dark days, I lost everything but I found myself. I now live right outside Mesquite, Nevada, where the sun shines nearly every day. Three of my children have graduated high school, one will this year, and my baby boy just started high school and is already over 6′ tall. My goodness!! I shoot photography part time when I’m not engrossed in writing or creating somehow. My biggest goal is to reach as many people I can who need something they didn’t know they needed. Not sure if that makes sense. I long for a day when I can walk into shelters and pass out clothes and books and crayons and laugh with everyone as though we were friends forever. I long for a day when there’s no boundaries to the giving I can do, and if the only thanks received is the one I give for that moment, I am perfect with that. Sounds corny, huh? But, not to me. Ask any of my friends. I am like this all the time, my head in the clouds, my heart has wings, and my unicorn is parked in the back 😉 I guess you could refer to the quote about not knowing what you have until it’s gone. I will never forget and because of that, I am thankful for every little thing around me.

So where does Cali and the BF Crew come in? She’s more than a children’s series. She’s a movement of the heart. It may not be clearly seen in the first book, but it will become more prevalent in books to come. Cali is how I feel and react to friends. She’s sincere and caring, she’s funny and a bit of a comedian, but most of all, she accepts who she is and knows that makes her pretty super, and her super power you might say, is to show each she interacts with the glow she sees within them too. My wish is that for all who read her stories, children to 99, they each can relate whether in their present day or remembering back to when they were 4-5-6. Cali is so needed and I can’t wait for everyone to know her. She truly does look at everyone as a potential Bestie and I wouldn’t have it any other way =)