ABOUT

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

During the majority of professional life, as trainer and staff development specialist, I facilitated learning in the workplace to enable success in individuals and teams. I viewed my mission to help people live one step beyond where they were the day before.

At different journey points in my career Iconducted organizational development, curriculum design, marketing and promotion, college teaching and advising, and initiated informal and formal learning communities. For the most part, I filled newly opened positions; creating jobs from scratch became my forte.

My favorite quote on writing (and life) comes from E. L. Doctorow. “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

MY TRAVELS AS A GIRL AND YOUNG WOMAN

From fourteen to twenty-seven, I traveled as a young girl and single young woman. The young girl traversed Arkansas alone as a fourteen-year-old girl by train. At fifteen I toured seven European cities and attended the Seventh Baptist Youth World Conference. Then at seventeen and nineteen, I lived in Hawaii and Salt Lake City, Utah, which were different cultures within my own United States. And at age twenty-seven, I pulled a backpack on and trekked through Great Britain and Ireland. These journeys set the stage for independence and interdependence, both necessary to a healthy sense of achievement and resilience, then later a mutually strong marriage.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVELS WITH MY HUSBAND

Over more than thirty-five years with my husband Lynn, I journeyed to unique places for different purposes and typically for extended stays, often based on his work assignments.

• As a couple we accompanied twenty-four 4-H students on an exchange trip to Japan. The two of us lived with a family of seven in 600 square feet for a month (1985).
• We attended his international conference and an agricultural tour in Ireland for two weeks (2001).
• The two of us team taught a week-long inservice training for MangosuthuTechnikon faculty in South Africa. Then attended a conference, cultural tours, and a photographic safari, totaling three weeks. (2002)
• We vacationed after his work was completed in France two years in a row (2003 and 2004) and in Australia (2005) for two weeks each.
• In 2007, we spent three weeks in Costa Rica with a team to plan an international conference for the following year, experiencing the country end-to-end and coast-to-coast.
• Lynn’s work took us to Turkey on a three-week university agricultural assignment for his consulting job (2008).
• In 2015, we visited friends, natives of Lima, Peru, to explore the city with the family, conduct a volunteer seminar on Experiential Learning at a local university and attend the family’s youngest daughter’s communion.
• And finally, we have traveled to Mexico (both west and Caribbean coasts) for forty years to vacation. Since 1990 we have spent extended time in Isla Mujeres every year. With girlfriends from the island, I explored San Miguel de Allende, MX in 2015 and San Cristóbal, MX in 2016.
• In 2024, I traveled to Cuba with a local liberal arts university as a community member on an educational visa to learn its history, culture and current socio-economic conditions.
• In 2025, I cruised the Garrone and Dordogne rivers in the Bordeaux region.

BLOGGING

My writing, a lifelong dream realized during retirement, gives me a chance to share travels, reflections, and current ideas about travel; however, I realize many people will never get the opportunity to travel as I have. For me the concept of “travel” is to open oneself to new people, different ideas, unfamiliar experiences – all of which can happen at home or wherever we find ourselves.

• Think of “travel” as traveling by books, what we read.
• Consider travel as taking a conscious walk in your neighborhood.
• Take the time to attend a community event you wouldn’t typically and reflect on it as if you were a tourist.
• Make friends with a person from another country in your hometown to learn more about their culture.

You don’t have to go around the world and back. Find the unfamiliar in your own backyard.

When I formed the blog title, Paying Attention: The Best Investment You’ll Ever Make in Life, Travel, and/or Writing, I believed our task is to be curious, explore our wonder-filled world, reflect and find the awe in life. More recently, research is confirming what I’ve thought, the act of attention creates a life full of awe, which slows down our sense of time andreduces stress. Paying attention is a life-long undertaking, one baby step at a time. I hope you and I can do this together.

THE CRAFT OF WRITING & PUBLISHING

As an adult educator and trainer, I want to share with you what she is learning about the craft of writing (and sometimes travel writing specifically) and the publication process. You will see blog posts about these topics. See the website menu item entitled, “Workshops” for descriptions and content.

NEXT STEP FOR YOU

Order my historical adventure novel, Song of Herself, on Amazon. 

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• Read Rhonda’s book and comment here, or better yet, review it on Amazon, Good Reads, or Facebook

• Follow some of the links she offers that are of interest to you

• Invite Rhonda to your book club or other group for a book reading and/or signing

• Attend or invite her to conduct any workshops listed on the website

Join me often, enjoy, and share the journey of  learning to Pay Attention more closely to life, nature, and yourself. I hope to see your name and hear your voice often on this website and blog.