Practicing daily meditating for over 30 years, I have experienced amazing physical and mental health benefits. When I meditate on a daily basis, I feel calm and grounded with more control in my emotional life. Often inspirations and insights come to me during meditation. Meditation helps me focus and maintain balance in my life. I like to vary my practice from sitting in silence to repeating a mantra to using music or sounds. I have led meditation in various settings and I enjoy teaching others about the practice and its benefits because it has been so valuable in my life. I have developed and taught many meditation classes for different groups and in different settings. I lead meditation on a volunteer basis to give back to my community. I have been to many silent retreats and meditation trainings. In 2021, I recorded guided meditations on various topics from loving kindness to forgiveness. CD's and digital downloads are available at my website: www.breathewithbette.com.

I retired from the City of Santa Rosa in 2011. During my 29 year career, I worked in three departments, Public Works, Utilities and Community Development. In those last two years at the City of Santa Rosa, I worked in the Public Works department designing sewer and water replacement projects using AutoCAD Civil 3D. The twelve years of experience checking development related Improvement Plans prepared me for design.

The job I loved the most while working for the City of Santa Rosa was doing GIS Mapping for Community Development Department. One of my proudest achievements was to assist in the development of the interactive GIS website. I created many layers that are still being used today to provide time saving information. That website is used to look up historic properties, control monuments, easements, land use, zoning, and proposed development. Using GIS allows for spatial analysis of historic, current and strategic planning projects.