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i was raised on a farm in rural iowa

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where my parents raised corn and

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soybeans and cattle and hogs

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so it was a huge culture shock for me to

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go to a big city of houston for graduate

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school

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and while i've adapted to living in a

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city i still maintain my country roots

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my husband and i own farmland in iowa

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that my brother

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farms along with his farm and my parents

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my father got his private pilot's

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license when i was 10 years old and it

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was the first flight i had ever had in

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an airplane and i loved it

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i raised a lot of chickens and sold them

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for two dollars a piece

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before i had enough money to pay for my

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private pilot's license with with my

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chicken money

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i shared my dream of wanting to become

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an astronaut with dr james van allen

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the discoverer of the van allen

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radiation belt

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and he told me he really didn't think

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being an astronaut was really all that

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important long term that it wasn't

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really necessarily a good profession

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a few years later when i finished

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graduate school i had a phenomenal offer

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from an investigator at the salk

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institute very prestigious uh

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investigator and at a very prestigious

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institute

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but i called him up to tell him i was

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turning him down to take a a

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post-doctoral fellowship at the johnson

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space center

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and he said i was making the biggest

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mistake of my life

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i'm thinking it worked out pretty good

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for me anyway

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i love landscaping and gardening so much

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so that some people consider it an

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obsession

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i am by nature an introvert

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but over the years i have actually found

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that it really is worth the effort to

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work outside of my comfort zone

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and