My life and career have had one constant in them – change! I have enjoyed all of my chapters and look forward to whatever comes next. I started my career as a scientist, and I have learned that you can leave science as a career, but you can’t change your heart. My heart is and always will be the heart of a scientist. I am endlessly curious. My husband Peter Lilienthal and I have been enjoying our long talks about the similarities between ecosystems and economics for 8 years now, and I never tire of it.

In the most recent years I have focused on creative writing as well as on business and business systems – both running my own and helping others set up systems that work for them. I love helping entrepreneurs achieve their dreams.

My current “day job” is Chief Operating Officer at HOMER Energy, a startup software and consulting company that is changing the world through providing the information and decisions necessary to allow high penetrations of renewable energy. (HOMER Energy does this in a very creative way – by understanding how to combine different energy sources into a single system.)

I have also started, developed, and run 2 ecommerce businesses, run a world-class toy store with a global reach, been a professor of biology and statistics, and authored dozens of articles and book chapters on ecosystems, particularly arctic and alpine ecosystems, with a focus on how ecosystems change in response to environmental and climatic change.

I created this blog because I love to write, and I needed one place where I could put writing that didn’t neatly fit into my other blogs. I am also working on a novel, working title Trading Futures, and this blog is a place to share my experiences and progress on the novel.

I live in Boulder, Colorado, which I happen to think is heaven on earth, with my husband Peter Lilienthal. We each have a son, and have raised our boys (now young men) together. And no, it has not always been easy! But it’s also never been boring.

If you see something here that tickles your fancy, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. I’d also love it if you visited my other blogs and websites:

Mondays with Money – I present my own journey in developing a healthy relationship with money, and share tools that allow you to do the same.

Specialty Store Marketing Magic – I share lessons learned in how to effectively market specialty stores, with an emphasis on toy and gift stores. This is the home of the $53,000 Sales Letter. If you run a specialty store and are looking for some marketing oomph, don’t miss this valuable resource.

HOMER Energy – Home of the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER), the only software in the world that optimizes running renewable and fossil-based energy sources together, which is where the world is going to be for the next 50 years.