10,592

10,592 days ago at 5:27 in the evening, Catherine Dominick delivered her first child; a daughter who was so late that Catherine actually had her husband Richard deliberately drive the car over speed bumps in an abandoned parking lot to induce labor. (It did work, though for the record I am not endorsing this method of delivery.) Cathy's baby was quiet and a good sleeper, though she was not nearly as cute as everyone gave her credit for, in fact she looked more like a boy than a girl for the first year and a half of life.

She was a performer even from an early age, her creative debut taking place at the age of 4 when she stared as The Virgin Mary in her Church's Christmas pageant, only to drop the plastic baby Jesus down the alter stairs during her grand entrance. And in case you were wondering, yes, hollow plastic baby Jesuses do bounce. Loudly.

She moved with her parents and baby brother, Timmy, to North Carolina when she was five, only to return to Pennsylvania three years later when her dad was transferred back. She moved through school, always a musician. A band geek if you will, (though that title was not really appropriate in a high school where the band was one of the largest and most successful organizations there was) and even became the Drum Major her senior year. Being Drum Major, she decided that it was time the 'most school spirit' award, that was granted to one student a year for having the best red and white(her school colors) outfit during homecoming week, return to the band. She made the craziest outfit she could, including red and white cape, and red metallic wig, and was sure she would win. It was the perfect garb to win such an award, and the clincher would be the all-over face paint, which she would use to write MOON (her school district's name) on her forehead. However, what she didn't consider until reaching school that morning was that if one writes MOON on oneself while looking in the mirror, one will end up with NOOM on one's forehead, and if the makeup one uses has a strong die in it, it will stain one's forehead making the mistake impossible to fix and or remove. She did not win the spirit award.

She went off to college, majoring in music education, only to discover that she had heart disease  She got a pacemaker during her second year of college, and while this did not completely change her plans for the future, it did make the education portion of her degree impossible, so she changed her major to vocal music performance. Kelly Clarkson she is not, but give her some Puccini, and she just might surprise you.

After college, she moved to Kissimmee Florida and worked at Disney World for over a year, also during that time she signed up for e-harmony and met her now husband, who is an even bigger Disney Fan than she is. They got engaged three months after meeting and were married fice months after that at Disney. They had planned to live in Florida, but due to hubby's work, they had to move up to Chicago.

Creative and crafty as ever, she had had a custom quilt making business while in Florida, but now in Chicago, there was no longer the space, so her quilt business became a custom cake business. Once afternoon while making a cake that was actually a Tarzan-style tree house, she got to thinking about Tarzan and how unappreciated it really is as a story. Most people only know the old movies but few have actually read the book. What she thought they should do is tell the story from a woman's perspective, as that might interest a wider audience of readers. It sounded like a good idea, but she didn't think anyone would actually do it. Then she wondered if she should give it a try. Why not? She had always done well writing in school, and writing her own story could be fun. Anyway it was worth a try.

About half way through the story she lost steam due to people getting down on her idea, so she stopped her Tarzan story to begin a new one, this one a modern version of one of her favorite novels, Persuasion by Jane Austen. Luckily, she had also just found out that she was pregnant, and due to her heart condition, she was not allowed to do much more that sit around, so she had plenty of time on her hands to write. Three months later, she had finished her story. Three months after that, she had signed with a literary agent. One year and two kids later, her book was sold to a publisher. Eight months after that, her book was released, and here we are, less than a month after that, and it is the morning of her 29th birthday.

Cheers, thanks for reading, and have some cake on me. :-)