I almost became a pastry chef when I first moved to NYC. I've always loved baking and when I moved here I took a 100-hour French Pastry course and a 20-hour artisanal bread course from the French Culinary Institute. I came very close to enrolling in their professional program but decided that the chef life was a little too grueling for me. Plus, I wanted to keep baking and pastry as a fun at-home passion and not get sick of all my favorite goodies! 

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I am a Brandi Carlile fan girl and have seen her live in concert over thirty times. 

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My dad was a dolphin trainer in Key Largo in the 60s. He met my mom in London when he escorted two dolphins to the London Dolphinarium, where my mom was working as a show girl at the time. She ran off with him to the Keys and the rest is history. The other unusual job my dad has had: pollen collector. For most of my life, he ran a business where he harvested pollen, cleaned it, and then sold it to pharmaceutical companies to use in medications. It was always so hard to explain at school! 

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This is my beautiful mom, Judi Johnson, on the cover of TV Times in March 1965. She was the winner of Search for a Star, the first ever viewer-voted television talent contest! She also released four songs on two 45 records. But her moment of fame was short-lived – she hated the spotlight. And that is lucky for me because I wouldn't be here if she hadn't met and run off with my dad...

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I got married on May 20, 2017. This was my... uh... third marriage. I thought I would never get married again after my second, but then fate intervened and introduced me to the love of my life. If you want more details on this entire saga, several cocktails are required. ;) 

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This is a scene beside my desk full of things I love. That to do list tells you pretty much everything you need to know about me, lol. 

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I love drag queens! This pic is of my best friend, Nate, dressed as his drag persona, Amanda, in Paris in 2014. I am suuuuper introverted and can count on two hands the number of people I consider close friends. About half of those are drag queens. In fact, one of my drag queen friends was even the officiant at my wedding! 

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I am obsessed with Paris and am basically convinced that I lived there in a past life. It is a dream of mine to have a home there. This is one of my fave pics of Notre Dame that I took while on a 5-week photo project in Paris in 2010. In 2018, I launched destination boudoir and portrait sessions in Paris and plan to do that every year. Wanna come?

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The sweetest kitty in the whole world, my Kiki. I am not exaggerating when I say that this cat saved my life. She is truly a soulmate in animal form, my little familiar. 

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Growing up Southern with a British mother, I somehow managed to never like tea – not iced sweet tea, not English breakfast, none of it. But a few years ago I got really into tea when I was breaking myself of a Diet Pepsi habit. I fell in love with beautiful tea ware and delicious high-quality teas and got a little obsessed with collecting beautiful tea pots and vintage tea cups! It makes me happy and alleviates my stress to set up a lovely Chinese tea service or brew a pot of black tea and use a fancy cup while I work. 

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My silly kitty, Poppi. She is a Scottish Fold but with straight ears, and she is the funniest cat I have ever known. Which totally makes sense, because we named her after a dear comedian friend of ours who passed away. She was destined to be hilarious.

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a few of my favorite things...