About Me

Ive had a really unique, wonderful, amazing life. More than I could have ever dreamed of or asked for. I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and fell in love with the bay the day I was born. I accomplished so much in my life people say Ive lived 10 lifetimes in one. 

I had an amazing giving family who gave me so much love and support and always encouraged me to be independent and follow my dreams.

I grew up on a big farm and my father was a US Marine, Korean War. My mother was simply amazing as there wasn't anything she didn't do. They ran a new car dealership so I grew up driving every muscle car ever built in the 70s and working at the dealership.

My grandfather was in the Navy, WWII. He and my grandmother built a large marina with seafood restaurants on the Kent Narrows Maryland, and I grew up working there too. My grandfather taught me how to fish and hand tong oysters when I was 5. My grandmother taught me how to wait on customers and run the cash register when I was 7.  I also worked in the boat yard painting boat bottoms and brightening teak and chrome. 

I loved power boats, crabbing boats, and sailing. I worked for a short time for the famous boat builder Charlie Morgan in Annapolis, and raced sloops in the SORC when I was 16. In 1977, I was the first woman to ever windsurfer across the Chesapeake Bay.

I also grew up as a competitive swimmer and diver. I think I was the first woman to swim across the Chesapeake Bay. I did that one day on a whim when I was 15, and thankfully my parents never found out because I almost got ran over by a ship.

At the request of my teachers, my parents sent me to boarding schools. I earned a free scholarship to the college of my choice but at that time in the 1970s, there were NO jobs for women, even with college degrees.

I asked my father what I should do. He gave me the best advice a father could ever give when he said to me,
" I will be proud of you no matter what you do, but always do what makes you happy, and you'll never have any regrets." 

That's when I told him I had just been accepted to the Naval Academy, the first year they accepted women, and I think he almost had a heart attack.  

I had a dated a couple of guys at the Academy, and I taught windsurfing there one summer too, and the whole 4 yr long military scene wasn't that appealing to me - and the fact there was only going to be 12 women and 3000 men.  

 So, I went to a military maritime school in southern Maryland instead and joined the US Merchant Marines at age 18. They sent my butt out to sea, really fast. 

 For the next 4 yrs, I lived on super tankers running crude oil around the world. I became certified to work in every department on the ship. As an able body seaman, I often steered the ship at sea and even up the mighty Miss-a-sip. I learned everything a mariner could learn and navigated across the ocean with a compass and by the stars. (We had NO computers back then.) 

 I also took remote study courses with Unv. Of Miami for 3 years until they ran out of books to send me on everything relating to oceanography and marine sciences.  

 The last ship I was on, I was drafted into the Navy Reserves Military Sea-lift Command by Reagan. Next thing I knew, we were running jet fuel from the Caribbean around Capetown to the Persian Gulf.  We went in at night, with no lights on, and covertly pumped off 600,000 barrels under high pressure in 8 hours, running side by side to a Navy fuel vessel. 

 That was enough for me! After 3 tours in the Persian Gulf War, I ran down the gangway at Truman Annex in Key West in 1983, and I never looked back. 

I just wanted to be like Hemingway. Go fishing and write a novel or two or three. But then I accidentally went to work as a salvage diver, recovering treasure from a Spanish Galleon that sunk off the Dry Tortugas in 1677.   

I met a lot of wild characters in Key West in the 1980's, but one person who found me snorkeling one day, asked if I could help him. He wanted to buy some marine specimens. He was the curator of Miami Seaquarium.  

The next thing I knew, I was working for an aquaculture facility breeding tropical fish and seahorses in captivity and on the side, I was training dolphins.  

On a whim, and with the help of my parents for the down payment, I bought a piece of commercial property. I built a large saltwater holding facility. 16 years passed by, and I had done over 14,000 dives, and shipped live marine specimens to almost every zoo and public aquarium in the world.  

For several reasons, I sold everything in 1999 and moved to the NC mountains. I started a business online for a hobby of mine, and I started a residential construction business. That went on for 20 years. 

GreatVintageJewelry.com is the ecommerce site I've had for 20 years and all profits from that site are donated to Lady Dragon Rider Blessings.

For reasons I wont go into that had nothing to do with me, in the end I lost it all. Lost every penny I ever made and everything I ever owned. 

Ive struggled to recover but Ive been told by many that it was necessary to save my life.  They said my x of 33 yrs wasn't going to make it. They told me there was no help for him, that he could not be saved, and it was best if I left him. I made a promise to God that I would give up everything if he spared my life, so I did.

God knew I'd done nothing to deserve this. He sent angels to me - to tell me he had something more important for me to do.  I promised God that if he spared my life and let me start this blessing mission, that I would never ask for anything for myself ever again. 

I have seen the destruction of lies and greed done by men, and how "things" dont mean anything in the end.  The only thing that really matters in this life is what you fill your heart and soul with. That's all you'll be allowed to take with you in the end anyhow.