A bit about me...the Turtle.

For a start, my twin brother and I were a mistake. Such a bad mistake that Ma tried to abort us. Which by the way was illegal at the time. I was front and center during several of her attempts. I was born with a gash on my hip the size of a standard filleting knife and for many years walked with my hip rotated in a strange way as if it had somehow gotten caught and twisted. Because of the lack of prenatal care, we have some medical issues that could have been caught and fixed but weren't. Infact, my leaking heart valve wasn't discoverd till I became ill serving overseas. When I was in my late 20's!

Growing up with my Ma was a major struggle. She couldn't stop having kids she didn't really want. She continued to have the unheard of number of 20! Most were multiples. our family is being studied for the propencity of naturally occuring triplets. Natural triplets are supposed to occur in something like 1 in 20,000 births. Ma had 3 sets, i've had one, My aunt TC's had two. Ma's a triplet and has triplet younger brothers. So that's three generations of something that rarely occurs!

And so many kids completely overwhelmed her. She lost custody of many of us at various times. I think we spent more time living with Gamma or Aunt TC or one of our uncles. Or just plain living with no one, in a tent on the back half of our property because we had run away from state care. THe state workers kept sending us to portland. We kept hitchhiking back to Cascade Locks.After a while, they gave up on us. IT became clear that we didn't CARE about having "stuff". We didn't care about scrimping or having only enough food for half of us at a time. We just wanted our Ma. Which was odd, since she rarely showed signs of wanting us. At least not back when we were younger.

Maybe it was this start that made me "Tuff Shelled". With a little help from my twin brother, who just by luck of positioning in the womb didn't have any physical problems, I was able to overcome just about any challenge. He helped me walk, and later hide the limp that now only shows up when I'm highly stressed out. I learned how to paddle, shoot, windsurf, ride horseback,shoot arrows,throw a ball, and catch fish. Banner and i took karate and other defence classes and became sparring partners. I also learned to do whatever it took to get what I want. I learned to never back down. And to say what you think, even if it's not popular. And I learned how to rely on myself. Most people now are surprised how well I am taking care of myself and my own kids despite my disabilities. We live on an unintentional farm.unintentional because I can never turn away an injured animal that shows up. Right now we have three horses, three goats, a piglet that weighs more than I do,a whole bunch of stray cats, the 6 turtles with bb pellets in their shells.and a partrige(without a pear tree)And I do most of the work. I am also studying for my masters in special education, work at the baptist school at my church, lead youth group, keep records for the softball team and homeschool in the afternoon. Busy? yeah. Would I change it? no.