I was born in California. Raised in Tucson Arizona where I fell in love with the desert and with monsoons. Attended the University of Arizona and got my degree in Literature. I worked in the Optical Sciences department while I went to school. That's where I met my husband, Mark. When he got his PhD and found a job back in California, we moved to the Bay Area. A few years later we bought a house. Not long after that the dotcom bubble burst and I lost my job in marketing communications. Spent quite a bit of time looking for a similar position, but so was every other laid-off marketing person in the Bay Area. So instead I worked on home improvement projects for a bit. And then Mark and I got married. And when the home improvement projects were mostly finished I took a position working retail sales in a nursery garden center. And then came the kids.

I did my reading during pregnancy and knew the kind of birth experience I wanted. I knew I was going to breastfeed. I bought a sling because I knew I wanted to wear my baby. And then I learned that the sorts of things I was planning to do were called Attachment Parenting. I heard some say that I'd need a support group, first just to be a mom and get some adult conversation, but second, because AP was not mainstream and it's nice to have support when going against the grain. I didn't listen.

When Sayer was about 9 months old I decided to look to see if there were AP groups in my area. I wanted to have playdates for her with families that held the same sorts of parenting philosophies. I found EarthyMommies before it was really EarthyMommies. I helped construct the Yahoo group that it was into the web site that it became, and later, after Duncan's birth, bought the site and became 'mom' to the community there.

It was because of a story told by one of the moms on EM that I started Mom's Breastaurant. Now I have two children and two businesses and am just slightly busy beyond belief.

Dislikes

• Tropical fruits.