About Me

I loathe icebreakers.

They absolutely send me into a panic. What's the scariest thing you've ever done for fun? Who do you admire the most? What song describes your life? What is something your friends would be surprised to learn about you?  My pulse rises, I frantically search my mental archives and ultimately settle on something (anything!) to fill my allotted time. And then I replay my answer in my mind for the rest of the night and come up with approximately fifteen answers that would have been so much more fitting and entertaining. This page feels a little like one ginormous icebreaker.

My name is Ann-marie. Yes, hyphenated with a lowercase "m". (I am not Ann.)

I grew up as a small town Iowa girl and carry a movie reel of generally cheery memories involving my childhood in the 80s. My hometown had a population of 2600, one traffic light, and a dozen churches. I was introduced to graphic design via a passing conversation with my high school guidance counselor and never looked back. I started dating my high school sweetheart at the tender age of 15 and married him at the ripe old age of 19. The animalinyou.com personality test diagnoses me as a "sheep", and I think God chuckled a bit when he matched me up with a "wolf". (Ok, maybe it was more like a belly-aching, cannot breathe, doubled over, tears streaming down His face, audible snort-inducing fit of laughter.) This matchup has stretched me, grown me, pushed me out of my comfort zone multiple times, and ultimately led me to say "ok" to an overseas stint in Prague, Czech Republic and, a dozen years later, Hong Kong.

Triple-shot lattes are my love language. Dishonesty is my pet peeve. I am a creative, sensitive, trustworthy, insecure, conflict-avoiding, Jesus-following, imperfect, authentic, dedicated wife/mom/daughter/sister/aunt/friend. I have found myself smack-dab in the middle of an adventurous life that is stretching me in ways I didn't want or ask to be stretched. I am choosing to embrace it all: the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. This blog is a way for me to process and document this crazy thing called life. Hopefully it will also eventually serve as a record for the growth that takes place in me, in spite of myself.

The latest season of my life has led me to Hong Kong alongside my husband, two teenagers and my trusty canine. It will be pretty some of the time, it will be hard a lot of the time, it will rarely be perfect, but it will always be real. Read along and enjoy the ride of this small town girl who never in her wildest icebreaker dreams would have imagined she would end up here.