Lisa Poulter:  

Hello fellow Classmates! I was not a native Floridian when I attended Niceville and only had a small group of friends during my 3 years there. I was in survival mode most the time I was there and I married right after my Junior year and finished my senior year married. As my older, rode-model sister was in the Air Force, I joined JROTC because it just made sense at the time and meant I might be a step ahead if I decided to join the Air Force as my sister did. I figured it might be a career option for my future as "what will I do?" is a primary issue for high school students. A "better" option for me came up when I met an Air Force guy at the base chapel when I was hanging out with my Air Force sister. I married him right after my Junior year of High School and finished my Senior year at Niceville as a married teen. I was 2 1/2 months pregnant with my daughter when I graduated in May of 1982 and at the end of that same month, I celebrated my 1 year wedding anniversary. I felt very grown-up in some ways and yet I was still so very young! It was a challenging time in my life living with my mother in a trailor during those High School years. My mother had no car and worked on getting her GED by riding a bike to Okaloosa Junior College. I was mortified my mother might be seen riding a bike in the neighborhood or bringing home groceries by anyone who might know me from school! My mother moved to Florida with me to be close to my sister (stationed at Eglin) and get me out of a suburb of Detroit, where we lived. She didn't feel it was a very good place to raise a teen daughter and she was right about that! It's hard enough being a teen with all the body changes and self-consciousness that goes with the territory than to also have all the family and financial issues that made me feel SO different than my classmates! So...my social connections were few and I took only the classes that I needed to graduate and was so very glad to graduate and "get on" with my life and marriage. My marriage lasted a little over 6 years and then I left my daughter's father when we were in Germany, where he was stationed, and I moved to the city my mother was living in at the time, Albuquerque. THAT was 27 years ago and I still live here in Albuquerque. I have been married 23 years to my husband Greg who works as a computer guy on the base near by. I went to college and got my 4-year degree over a period of 14 years while raising my daughter and step-son. THAT was a long haul for sure. I graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2002. I got pneumonia that last year of college as I struggled to the finish line of college! My A.D.D. daughter had just graduated high school in 2001 and I was physically and emotionally exhausted from raising her and juggling a step-family while being a student! The accumulated stress and strain of my entire life started to take their toll and my body/back was the first place it started expressing itself in my body (in ways I could not ignore or "push through"). I was in my late 30's and my head said I was not THAT old but my body felt very old and TIRED! After a cortizone injection and the advice of my doctor's exercise physiologist, I did not look for work right after college graduation and sought healing and some rest instead. THAT lead to a cascade of events that only my journal remembers! LOL A few years later, I volunteered with a local farmer producing organic produce. I eventually started working for him part-time. I worked with customers at two different produce pick-up locations and felt very passionate about what I was doing. I also watched my grandson part-time for the first couple years of his life and started working with a therapist on all the emotional baggage I had been carrying through my life. I have a bulging L-4, L-5 disc that has been debilitating at times and I am currently in the process of rebuilding my strength after re-injuring this disc and suffering nerve-damage to part of my right foot about 5 years ago. A few months ago, I started carefully lifting weights in the gym and am finding that my body is able to tolerate this stress and challenge without collapsing so I am ever so carefully proceeding ahead. My goal is to continue to get stronger and perhaps begin working part-time while also continuing my life-time journey of personal growth, nurturing my relationships, expressing creativity and taking the risk of living life as fully as I am able to in my NOW! I love to cook healthy organic food for my husband and dog. My pit-bull mix was diagnosed with Sclerosis of the liver a few years ago and we were told she'd likely die within the year. I started cooking for her and giving her supplements and that was 3 years ago this August, 2015. I am a stone and crystal artist that makes custom jewelry or hanging art that supports healing and feeling and celebrations of all kinds. I have some ready-made pieces but find my co-created pieces (where I work very closely with a person to choose ingredients and put them together) are some of my most remarkable, energetic pieces! I have made jewelry for 2 weddings and numerous individuals--in and out of my local area. Email, photos, and phone calls are amazingly effective in the process of co-creating a personal piece of stone/crystal work that deeply connects to a person's life process! Although my life has felt full of challenges and many different struggles, I feel I have so much to be grateful for overall! The stresses and challenges of life seem to never end yet there has been growth and connections for me in areas that remind me to be hopef...Expand for more