About
Personal information: (as of 8/25/07) I’m 43 years old; I’m married; I’m a stay-at-home Mom with two children, ages 14 and 12 (the ones in the second photo)
Volunteer activities: I’m blog manager for Off The Map, an organization which promotes otherlyness, the spiritual practice of serving. Off The Map has been “helping Christians become normal” since 2001. I host the blog Conversation at the Edge sponsored by Off The Map: it’s a conversation between Christians, atheists and people in between.
Musical interests: I love music, especially classical; I play the piano and violin. I played in a community orchestra until I got too busy with the children. I picked up playing again when they were a little older, first at church; more recently I was playing in the Windy City String Ensemble (WCSE) along with my children. This group is led by their violin teacher. I decided to step down from playing in the group and return to being a parent-supporter of it as of this fall.
My children are learning piano and violin; they’re both very musical although they don’t always enjoy practising! (They have professional music teachers but I help them practise between lessons). As well as opportunities to play violin, my childrens’ involvement with music sometimes results in me playing the piano accompaniments for violin students. I used to accompany Ben and Esther in all their recitals but now their accompaniments are way too hard for me! Ben has been asked to accompany his friends in recital performances a couple of times recently.
Other things I love: mountains, lakes, waterfalls, reading, cats, people who are relaxed and can see the humorous side of life.
You would know if you heard me talk: that I was born and grew up in England. I moved to the Midwest with my husband Steve, after graduating from college (I like it here except that it is sooooo flat!). My Dad is British; my Mom is American (first generation; her parents are German Jews who left Germany and settled in the US in the early 30s).
My profession-before-children: I’m a qualified actuary (no, it’s not a home for dead actors! - it’s a professional who uses statistics to estimate the risk of future events). That means I took even more exams than accountants have to and now I have the letters F.S.A after my name (but this is of limited use in my current homemaker position :)!)
Before I had children I worked full-time for six years for a consulting firm, working out how much money our client companies needed to put in their pension plans to keep them legal and helping the clients make design changes to their plans, when they wanted to or were forced to by tax law changes. If I do go back to work at some point, I’m not sure I’d want to return to actuarial work. I’d rather do something more ‘people-oriented’ - although I have no training in that type of work.
My beliefs/doubts: I was a committed Bible-believing Christian from young adulthood until recently (about 17 years). I began to have serious doubts about my faith about six years ago. As a result I’m not currently actively involved in any church or Bible study groups. You can read more about this at various links on the page Why I don’t go to Church Anymore.
For more information: read my ‘interview with myself’.
