My First Post and Long Intro

My name is Jamie Proctor. I am a thirty year old business owner, wife, mother, almost self-published author, and veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Currently, I live in Mountain Grove, Missouri.

I was born in Ancon, Panama because I was a military dependent. I lived there for my first two years, and then we moved to Yakima, Washington. We moved around a lot when I was young, and lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Greeneville, Mississippi; and even South Korea. Yakima was always home base, until I was a Junior in high school, and we moved to Kennewick, Washington.

I graduated from high school in Kennewick and I joined the Air Force the following year. I was stationed in northern California at Travis Air Force Base. I worked grave-shift in a cargo warehouse for my first two years. During that time, I met my husband. We were married two weeks before 9/11. A hectic time in our lives started when those towers fell, as it did for many military families.

My husband went overseas soon after, and in the years that followed he was gone more than he was home. During that time, we had two children. Our son, Tristan, was first and then our daughter, Laney, two years later. I got out of the Air Force when Tristan was a year old because we wanted someone to be a constant presence in his life. It was good that I did, because when he was three he was diagnosed with Autism. Parenting a special needs child has been a very challenging and very rewarding job. Today, he is ten, and his diagnosis is officially Asperger’s Syndrome. He is in a mainstream classroom, about to start middle school in the Fall. Laney is a typically developing eight-year-old, and that comes with all of the drama of young girls. During our time as a military family, we lived in California, Washington, and Virginia, although my husband saw much much more of the world.

In November, after twenty years of service, and eleven years of marriage, my husband retired from the Air Force. We decided to move to his hometown of Mountain Grove, Missouri because his mother had just passed away, and we wanted to be here for the rest of the family. We figured out how important it was to have family ties, although, we have made many friends in the military whom we’ve adopted as family.

It was here that I began writing my first novel at the suggestion of my husband. It took me nine months to get it where it is today, and I’m sure I will always be improving it in my head. In the time I was writing we also opened a coffee shop. Mountain Grove is a small town and did not have one. I found myself wishing I could stop for coffee after dropping my kids off at school, but found myself making my own instead. After some market research, we decided to invest in a small coffee business. I had some knowledge because my mom and uncle ran a small coffee kiosk when I was younger. My mom helped us get up and running and we are successful after less than a year.

I love the slow pace of small town life right now. I am open to whatever publishing my book may hold in store.