So I got a late start.   I returned to New Orleans at age 27, re-invented my life, heard about all the things I missed out on during the 60s, got used to makeup and hairstyles and fashion again, and re-learned how to walk in high heels.  I did good.

I continued college where I’d left off in the convent, switching my major to psychology.  Eventually I met my future hubby through some good friends.  We married and two years later our first baby arrived.  What a rocking wonderful event that was!  When I was wheeled out of the delivery room I said to everyone in the hallway We’ve GOT to do this again! 

With our baby in hand, we moved to a small town outside of New Orleans.  Slidell, LA.  Back then there were T-shirts that said Where the Hell is Slidell?  but I think it’s on the map now.  Slidell is where Hubby opened up his own business and I worked there as a bookkeeper-type.  We went into the venture severely under-capitalized so spent the next eight years robbing Peter to pay Paul and having two more babies.

Three kids: each one — Sara, Bess, and Michael – absolutely unique and wonderful!  Then came the fuzzy kids —

Hubby was an amateur sports-car racer and suggested one day that I should have a hobby as well.  That was his biggest Oops ever.  We had a standard schnauzer at the time, and the breeder was trying to talk me into showing him.  OK I did.  Hubby warned me not to expect to win anything, but we came home with first place the first time we showed.  I had a champion-in-waiting and knew it.  Showed him to his championship, then:

• bought a female (bitch, to breeders)
• had a litter of 12 puppies, all healthy
• continued breeding and showing dogs for six years before our world fell apart

It was a financial fall-apart, with interest rates skyrocketing to maybe 22%.  We put our business on the market and somehow, through some kind of stranger-than-fiction magic, it sold, and we pocketed a nice chunk of cash.  We were now ready to move on.