About Me

I am a  mother to six amazing children, wife to a marvelous husband, daughter to loving parents, and sister to four wonderful siblings. My oldest daughter passed away in April of 2012, just before she turned 13. My oldest son has a congenital heart defect and had open heart surgery in 2005 at two weeks old. I believe our experiences in life can shape us into being our best selves if we let them and trust in God. It’s a continuing journey. I am in no way perfect, but I hope that I am a better person today than I was yesterday and that I will be better tomorrow than I am today.

 I love writing (I have 3 completed novels that I am currently querying/editing and more ideas brewing), hiking, and music (I teach and play piano and french horn).

I have been blogging for about six years now, and recently with little consistency, but I am renewing efforts and hope to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday – so look for fresh posts then.

Thanks for coming!

If you want to know more about my zany existence you can keep reading below…

I have never done a 100 things about me post, but I decided it might be fun to do and put on my about page, so here goes:

1.  I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2. I love to write! I have completed one middle grade book, and 2 YA novels.  While I’d like to be published some day, it’s not what drives me. I love the process of writing, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of bringing my imagination to life.

3. I am the youngest of 5 children.

4. When people asked my parents how many children they had they would say, “2 girls, 2 boys, and Julia.”

5. It always made me feel important because I was the only one they named.

6. I have 6 children – three girls (Elizabeth, Dorothy, Emily) and three boys (Jacob, James, Robert) – in that order.

7. My oldest son, Jacob, was born with a heart defect – TGA (Transposition of the Great Arteries)

8. I am a stay at home mom.

9. I am a piano teacher.

10. I have played the piano since I was about 4 or 5 years old.

11. I play the French Horn too (and organ and trombone)

12. My nickname all through my childhood was “J” – which my initials spelled too (JAE) – It is still my main nickname in my family, most of my nephews and nieces call me “Aunt J”

13. When I married my husband my initials changed to JAW – at the time Paul was preparing for dental school and we thought it was very funny.

14. I met my husband in the French horn section in band at Ricks College.

15. I married him one month before I turned 23.

16. I was born on July 19 – I was early – which was a huge surprise to my mom.

17. My fifth child was early too – kind of a fun coincidence. 🙂

18. 4 of my 6 children were water births – one of those was born at home.

19. I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile – I was in the Chile Antofagasta mission.

20.  I cut off part of my big toe on my left foot with the lawn mower when I was a senior in highschool.

21. Yes, I was wearing shoes.

22. Because it still hurt to walk normally, I attended my highschool graduation with a cane.

23. I have never broken a bone.

24. I must have hard bones because I am a major tomboy and have fallen numerous times from trees – or maybe just jumped.

25. I grew up on a small hobby farm in Pennsylvania.

26. I used to jump out of our hayloft window into the well limed manure pile.

27.  I had short hair as a kid and was commonly mistaken as a boy.

28. I love thunderstorms.

29. I love lightening bugs.

30. My mom made us a teepee when we were kids. We used lightening bugs in jars as lamps when we slept in it.

31. When we slept in it my sisters would tell me scary stories so I would get scared and go back inside.

32. Maybe that is why I was such a pesky little sister – it was retaliation. 🙂

33. I used to play rafter tag with my siblings on the rafters of our corn crib.

34. I love frogs, snakes, and lizards.

35. My favorite animal as a kid was the raccoon.

36. I don’t really have a favorite color – they are all pretty, but if forced to choose I will choose green or purple.

37.  I can sew.

38. I love to read.

39. I like to scrapbook.

40. I got rammed by one of our sheep once – it was funny, but knocked the wind out of me.

41. My brother, Paul, hit me in the head with a baseball bat once – he had a habbit of throwing the bat after hitting the ball.

42. He also jumped on my jaw once – it was an accident… sort of.

43. My brother Kimball was swinging me around the living room when my hand collided with a cactus.

44. I tried not to squirm too much as he pulled out every spine from my hand.

45. Cough syrup makes me nauseous.

46.  I hate brussel sprouts and okra.

47. When I was in high school I was dubbed Goofy.

48. It was mostly because I was a klutz and had a habit of doing rather stupid things.

49. I got blood poisoning in my leg when I was in high school.

50. Luckily my mom got it taken care of without having to take me to the hospital.

51. One of the reasons I am a klutz is because I have weak ankles – I could be walking down a sidewalk and it would turn and I would totally biff it.

52. Because of this I learned to have a good sense of humor and to laugh at myself – a lot. 🙂

53.  In college I bruised cartilage in my ankle and was on crutches from the end of January to the beginning of March – crutches in Rexburg, Idaho in the middle of winter is NOT fun.

54.  I didn’t get my drives license until a month after I turned 20 – not because I was scared to drive or anything, that just was the way it worked out.

55. I painted my toe nails for the first time when I was 27 years old.  (maybe that shows just how much of a tomboy I am)

56. I’ve been to Japan.

57. I love to hike.

58. I went on my first 10 mile hike when I was 7 years old.

59. I went on my first backpacking trip with the young women in our stake when I was 15 or 16.

60. The Stake President went with us (along with numerous other leaders) and I nailed him where it counts with a snowball.

61. I liked to turn food green when I was in high school. Once for a picnic I made green egg salad sandwiches, green snickerdoodles, and green lemonade.

62. I still dye food fun colors sometimes – the kids really like it.

63.  I climbed Mt. Fuji in the middle of the night so I could see the sunrise – it was amazing.

64. My favorite flower is the Black eyed Susan – though I love all flowers.

65. I have been to all but 2 or 3 of the connected United States (still haven’t made it to Alaska or Hawaii).

66. My favorite nickname my Mom gave me was Juliana Hossen-pheffer Jingle-heimer Schmidt.

67.  Paul and I were married in the Portland Oregon Temple.

68. All but our oldest and youngest children were born in Oregon.

69. Our oldest was born in Utah and our youngest was born in Ohio.

70. When we got married we exchanged rings in the atrium – beside the lobby of the temple.

71. I couldn’t get the ring on his finger so he had to do it himself.

72. I still get nervous in the dark – I think I can blame the movie “Gremlins” for this because it terrified me as a kid.

73. I am horribly scared of spiders.

74. I bite my nails – it annoys me and I would like to stop.

75. Paul and my “song” is “Jupiter” by Gustav Holst – we played it together the term we met in college, before I left on my mission.

76. People thought it was really weird that we had a classical song, so we chose a secondary song “You’re My Inspiration” by Chicago.

77. I love to dance – by myself, with my kids, with my husband – and especially in the kitchen.

78. I love to make of corny lyrics to songs I know that go along with whatever I am doing at the moment.

79. I love to tease and be teased – nicely of course.

80.  I am usually a positive person – hey, every one has their moments 🙂

81. I used to read with a flashlight under my covers when I was supposed to be sleeping.

82. Somehow my Dad always knew and would stomp on the floor (his room was above mine) telling me to turn it off and go to sleep.

83.  My favorite ice cream is Bryer’s Mint Chocolate chip.

84. It is my favorite because it was my Dad’s – he would get it out after we went to bed and I would often go up because I “couldn’t sleep” and he would let me sit on his lap and feed me a spoon or two before sending me back to bed.

85. My mom taught me to play the piano, and do most everything else I do – she taught me to believe in myself.

86. I really dislike doing dishes.

87. I dislike doing laundry even more.

88. I like to goof off with my kids.

89. I like to dance in the sprinklers or under a hose with them.

90. I have always loved the water and swimming.

91.  We burned our trash in a burn pile when I was a kid.

92. My brothers and I loved throwing old aerosol cans in it and then running for cover as they exploded.

93. I love the ocean – especially swimming in it.

94. Someday I want to go to Europe.

95. Negativism bothers me.

96. I look forward to ‘dating’ my husband every week.

97. We do fun corny stuff together.

98. One of our favorite things to do is people watch – we make up entire conversations for them.  It gets pretty hilarious.

99.  I am usually willing to do stupid things for a quarter – such as lay in the middle of the road, or do jumping jacks in a parking garage entrance – I earned a lot of quarters from my Mom.

100. I love my life.