About The Author

Hello, and thanks for tuning in to my amber page. This project started as a way to help out a professor friend and ended up being time consuming, like keeping up maintenance on a house. Do you realize how hard it is for a reformed technophobe to learn how to do more than play solitaire on the computer? Anyway, I learned to make pages, to work the Adobe photoshop, and now I am a Web junkie.

Just to prove that anyone can do this, I was not your typical college student.  Being a non-traditional student, means I last saw age 25 many moons ago (I stopped counting), but this go-around as an older and more mature student has been more fun than a barrel of monkeys (some of which I had class with). I graduated from the University of Kentucky in December of 1997, and have earned my B.S. in Anthropology. I'm still working on a geology minor and hope to pursue a Master's degree soon. An interest in geology and paleontology led me to read the books on amber, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have loved science all my life, and it took me awhile before I found the branch of the tree of science that was right for me. I have been married for 21 years to my hubby, Greg, and we have two beautiful, most times wonderful (sometimes not) children. Emily is 19 and a working secretary for a locally owned business. Todd is 16 and a junior in high school.  They will just freak when they see that I've put them on my page. Wonder what I could accomplish with embarassing photos? Maybe they would do their chores on time?

For all out there who think that being over 30 means you are too old to go back to school, I say Bah Humbug and nonsense! And for those who think they will never be able to learn computer technology and apply it to their lives, double that! This has been more fun than anything I have ever done in my life, it has also been extremely difficult at times. With help, love, and support of family, friends and great professors who believe in you even when they have unexpressed doubts, anything is possible. If Nike Corporation has done anything right (in spite of abusing their low wage workers in 3rd world countries), they have come up with a slogan to live by: Just Do It. Go for it, achieve it, and hokey as it sounds, follow your dream, BE PROACTIVE! Have fun and make the best of your talents. Realize that other people need what you have to give and if you learn something in the process, every one is the better for it.

I have always been passionately interested in Native American history. I have Cherokee and Choctaw ancestory and my children and husband are direct descendents of Chief Powhatan and his daughter Matoaka, commonly known as Pocahontas (I have the geneology to prove it). On the Internet, I found information on the Lakota Sioux that intrigued me. I think the Lakota Instructions For Living can apply to us all:

Friends do it this way - that is, whatever you do in life,
do the very best you can with both your heart and mind.
And if you do it that way, the Power Of The Universe
will come to your assistance,
if your heart and mind are in Unity.
When one sits in the Hoop Of The People,
one must be responsible because All Of Creation is related.
And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.
And the honor of one is the honor of all.
And whatever we do effects everything in the universe.
If you do it that way - that is,
if you truly join your heart and mind
as One - whatever you ask for,
that's the Way It's Going To Be.