I'm an energetic people person who loves to eat and make other people happy when they eat my food. Having been a stay-at-home mom for the last 8 years, I've found that cooking is one of my favorite creative outlets. I did sell Pampered Chef products for about 6 years and have recently decided to change directions -- I'm going to work with preschoolers...ahhhh...just when I thought it was safe! I have a WONDERFUL and SUPPORTIVE husband and two GREAT children whom I cook for all the time. Some of my favorite things to cook are chicken dishes like Chicken Marsala and casseroles. I have found that I like to grill on our BBQ and I'm getting better at it every time. I can make a killer petite sirloin! I don't bake nearly as much as I used to, but I can hold my own during any holiday season. One of our favorite family cooking traditions is on Christmas Eve. We invite family and friends over to our house to have SOUP and to put our Christmas puzzle together (everyone has to put at least one piece together in order for Santa to come!) Every year, I try to have a different type of soup....green chicken chili, chicken tortilla, autumn soup, 5-jar chip and dip chili....you get the idea. Basically, it's just a time to be together with those we love and to eat some great comfort food. My cooking triumphs? Well, I don't know....perhaps just being able to come up with different things to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last 8 years...nothing's worse than the monotony of "Ok, it's Wednesday night... MeatLoaf again!".... not that there's anything wrong with meatloaf (the secret is the onion soup mix!). My cooking tragedies all seem to include shrimp. I cannot cook shrimp to save my life! I try to make scampi for my hubby, and the sweet man eats it, but I know that it's just AWFUL! One time, I tried to grill shrimp and I left the shells on....big mistake! Since these shrimps weren't the big monster prawns, their shells basically were glued to the meat. YUCK...what a perfectly good waste of seafood! But because shrimp is fairly expensive in ARIZONA we picked through it and nibbled what we could off the shells. It was kind of funny now that I think about it! :-)