I was born in Kingsville, Texas, in March 1955. Dad was a pilot in the United States Air Force and, as befit the times, mom was a housewife. My family included me, three brothers, and one sister. After my dad died in 1961, my mother remarried, creating an additional family of three step-sisters and one step-brother.
Ours was a musical family, and I started piano lessons under my mother when I was 2, violin lessons in first grade in Brigham City, Utah, and voice in sixth grade in Kingsville, Texas. Violin was my favorite, but I quit all three in April 1993 when I moved to San Diego, California, and became a “beach bum.”
Along with my diploma from Henrietta M. King High School in Kingsville, Texas, in May 1973, I earned a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Texas A&M University in December 1978. I never enjoyed a job in the forestry industry, though, instead having a business career working or owning businesses in many industries, including grocery export, antique restoration, roofing, landscaping, heating and cooling, international
and wireless telecommunications, computer sales, writing and editing, typing and desktop publishing, construction, real estate agent, real estate investing and renovating (flipping), project management, business consultant, home inspector, photographer, and published author.
Russel Ray Photos is my company that manages the thousands of pictures in my collection. Photographic Art is my company that takes my pictures and uses various digital photograph editing programs to make those pictures look like anything other than a picture. Double R Creations is my company that uses my pictures to make calendars, magnets, mugs, puzzles, and more. Tpots are specialized plant containers specifically meant to showcase air plants— Tillandsia species—and to help those plants grow in the low-humidity environs of our homes.
I live in Winter Gardens, California, an eastern suburb of San Diego, with Jim Frimmer, a professional pianist and my husband since 1994, and Olivia, our black & white cat adopted from the El Cajon, California, animal shelter.