about

My name is Annie.  I am married to a charming and mild mannered doctor named Steve, who matches my crazy with mellow.  Our adventures in marriage have been greatly shaped by the winding, multi-layered labyrinth of his medical training which began almost six seven eight years ago, mixed together with me grappling with the clichéd question: What the hell do I want out of life?.

Although we both spent our childhoods in the Midwest, we now live in Manhattan with Bianca, our opinionated cat, after recently relocating from Southern California.  But probably not the California you are picturing.  While Steve finished medical school, we lived in the Inland Empire where Ford Omni-sized tumbleweeds still roll across the 10-freeway and homicidal level road rage is every commuter’s reality.  I quickly learned that angry is only way to roll on that stretch of road.  Honk that horn and raise that fist! (Right, Liz?)

I am a writer and sometimes artist – sometimes because depending on my mood I may decide to toil with paints, or fabrics, or photography, or Bianca’s stray whiskers, or nothing at all.  During the work week, I am an indentured servant in corporate America.  For now.  I live in a cubicle.  I wear black suits.  I roll my eyes at least twenty times a day.  And if it were legal, my boss would chain me to my desk just because he could.  Everything you’ve ever heard about the heinousness of the corporate world is absolutely true: it really is that bad.  For husbands who cannot believe it is as dire as their wives claim, you have no idea.  Just nod and pat their heads when they cry about the online prostate exam they had to take for their boss, who is an adult toddler.

In a previous life, I attended Bethel University and graduated from the Honors Program with majors in English Literature and Writing.  I carried my over-achiever’s mentality from childhood into my collegiate career by graduating in just over three years which only thrust me into adulthood that much faster.  In other words, not something I would necessarily recommend since we all find ourselves in the adult world paying adult bills soon enough as it is without sprinting towards the academic finish line.

During school and up until Steve and I headed to California, I worked as an interior designer.  I loved my job, spending my days surrounded by paint swatches and dramatic wallpaper for my elderly upper class clients of Minneapolis.  However, my professional world came to a screeching halt when I followed my lovely man to the deserts of the West, naively thinking I would pick up the thread of my artistically inclined career outside of Los Angeles.  Little did I know that due to the roiling economic status of our country and the isolated location of the Seventh Day Adventist society I blindly moved into the midst of, I would instead land at one of the leading international commercial real estate firms as the project coordinator for a religious fanatic who repeatedly claimed I would burn in the depths of Hell because I sometimes said ‘shit’ and refused to let him call me ‘Sister Annie.’  But that story is for an entirely different day.  (And no, I am not a Seventh Day Adventist considering at a medical school mixer for spouses I thought the abbreviation, SDA, was a kind of STD – no offense to the wonderful Adventists I met while there!)

This website chronicles my sometimes rocky, sometimes thorny, mostly lovely path with my husband as we traverse the wide world of marriage, medicine, corporate America and a heap of crazy… not just mine. And when I feel inspired, I will also slip in some fashion, design and photography because those are the things that fill my days with Beautiful Joy.

FINALLY AN UPDATE… It has been nearly 18 months since I pulled myself from the steely clutches of my prior work life and fell into a new professional endeavor that challenges me, inspires me, teaches me, encourages me and hugs me all at the same time. Each day may not be rainbows and roses and life is not always perfect – who would want that anyway? – but I haven’t been able to breathe this easily in a long time. And isn’t that was Beautiful Joy is all about?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE… My lovely boy and I recently moved (again) from the bustling streets of NYC to the outskirts of Minneapolis. Why, you may ask? Well, after nearly a decade of training, my love finished his medical training and was offered a contract for work. Hooray! We are “real” grown-ups and it only took until we are in our 30′s! We also had a baby, little Grey Bird. And we missed our family. So when you stack all of those reasons up, they equal a relocation.

It has been a year filled with adventure as several chapters came to conclusion only for us to open a door into many new experiences. The biggest being the heavily breathing bundle snuggled on my chest as I write these words. Thank you for reading my blog and I would love to hear from you! xo