Barb was an elementary school music teacher, Red Cross disaster responder, market gardener, and tough mom. She has always been full time nature lover, and she is presently the family genealogist, a grandma and public pain in the you-know-what in various volunteer capacities.   She spent most of her life preparing for a wilderness retirement with her soulmate husband, who died unexpectedly soon after they made that move.  Lost in both a figurative and literal wilderness, she found a new identity and new reason to be as a writer.  Writing was at first her catharsis, but when she discovered that others enjoyed her scribblings, she became a humorist and advocate for the retiree culture in magazines throughout central British Columbia, Canada.   Many of her magazine articles are included among the mostly light-hearted stories and perspectives which comprise her two books -- Raven Tricks: It's All Wrong; Yet It's All Right! and Good Intentions Gone Bad!  Both are easy, entertaining reads involving twists of fate and fancy -- those ironies of life which tend to detour us unexpectedly.  Her stories have readers laughing one minute and crying the next as she finds wit and wisdom in ordinary situations.  Barb's books have been compared to an afternoon outing with a feisty old friend.