This week, 
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ONE
I’ve Held All Kinds of Interesting Jobs
Over the course of my life, I’ve worked in a factory with machines that wove the Goodyear Blimp, worked at a wild animal safari, worked as a hairdresser (licensed more than twenty years) and salon owner, worked as an over-the-road trucker as a team driver as well as solo, and worked as an emergency medical technician. Health issues keep me homebound these days, but my resume is colorful and diverse.
At the wild animal safari, I gained experience handling many different exotics. Employees often got to take baby animals home to socialize them and make sure they had care round the clock. Let me just say that monkeys are not a species I’d make a pet out of. Skunks, however, are a pure delight. And bears…well, I never took a cub home, but my hand “bears” a through-and-through scar that I never told my employer about.
As a long-haul truck driver, I saw every state in the continental U.S except Vermont and Maine, frequently crossed the Canadian border, and once I watched in horrified humor as my dog peed on the Mexican border fence. I’ve been caught in a blizzard on Donner Pass without chains, petrified my dog’s fur with salt at a rest area near the Bonneville Salt Flats, dropped out of the mountains into Kingman, Arizona running triple digits (not by choice—long story,) and drove through a straw in Pennsylvania. (Hint: those old Road Atlas “truck route” maps will sometimes lie to you.) I loved that job and I was good at it. I started for twenty-six cents a mile with a company that shall not be named (even I have my pride,) and ended that career on a high note driving for a BCO leased on to Landstar Ranger. The truck I retired from was a chromed-out Freightshaker XL with all the requisite chicken lights and big reddio. And let me tell ya—I had a blast.
TWO
I Loved to Train and Show Horses
Most little girls carried dolls around with them. I carried a Breyer horse. I bought my first real horse at age seventeen and spent the next twenty years astride. I was healthy then, slender and fit. My specialty was rehabilitating frightened or abused horses and proving their mettle in the world of Combined Training.
Recently, the ranch where I learned everything I know about proper horsemanship was featured in a LaGrange Living article. I’m still in touch with Joan (read about her HERE) and love her dearly. I don’t keep horses now because lupus and rheumatoid arthritis makes it impossible for me to provide the labor-intensive care they need. But I still dream about them and find me a velvety muzzle to kiss every chance I get.
THREE
I’m a Published Author
This fact really isn’t so obscure for most people who know me. I have two novels in print, one of which peaked at number seven in its category on Amazon. The books are sequential, paranormal fiction, and I will eventually write a third in the series. I also expect to release a literary suspense novel later this year on a Steemhouse imprint.
Here’s a link to my author website, where you can find more information about “Talking to Luke” and “Wingspan,” along with buy links if you think they’d interest you.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.authordianeryan.com/uncategorized/the-road-to-steemfest-three-fun-facts-about-me/