I live in Austin, TX with my husband and four sons. Three of them are adults now, on paper anyway. We have three spoiled dogs who are their own girl pack and part of the family.

One of our sons has Down syndrome and is known around town as a hype man, a real party starter who must be on the guest list if you want to get the dance floor going. His twin brother is an athlete with a heart of gold who is heading off to college soon. I'm not sure how we are going to cope with that as a family since we all rely on him so much. Our eldest son has autism and now that he graduated high school, he is working on acquiring skills so he can find and keep a job. Our "baby" is turning 13 next month and has suddenly shot up about 6 inches since Thanksgiving. It's happened to all the boys during seventh grade but seems much more dramatic this time, perhaps because his voice dropped like three octaves overnight.

Life is never boring, on the contrary I can't ever seem to catch up. I enjoy local politics but national politics exhausts me, especially right now.  I was a public school teacher in Houston during my 20's and remain a huge supporter of public schools. I have stayed active in public education one way or another my entire adult life. I've done a lot of advocacy over the last 20 years, most of it related to special education and educational civil rights for people with disabilities. Texas has always been home and I've probably driven along every highway, farm road and mail route in the state. I love road trips, especially alone because it's when I do my best thinking. I taught fourth grade Texas history and have read the books, visited the places and heard enough colorful stories from the liveliest of characters that I consider myself to be a "Texpert." This makes it all the more surprising that we will be moving to another state soon, something I never thought would ever happen and I feel pretty angry about.