7 Random Things About Me

1. I love Nag Champa incense. I burn incense when I'm spending time in my craft room and am going to be here awhile (not just checking email...). I like candles, but I'm more likely to burn a stick of Nag Champa than light a candle. Himself calls it my Opium Den when I'm burning incense.

2. I make really excellent cookies. The original recipe calls them "Flying Saucer" cookies, so-named because of the size of cookies the children would created with the recipe. I've modified it somewhat -- and I call them my "Healthy Breakfast Cookies" because they have it all: oats, cornflakes, coconut, raisins & nuts (and of course chocolate chips -- but they aren't part of the breakfast concept) I even took pictures of the cookies that I made for the TGC Fun Day we had yesterday at work (a la CoffeeGal), but my pictures do these fabulous cookies absolutely no justice.

I want to play with the recipe and see what 'healifying' the recipe would do -- you know, applesauce for oil; baby prunes for oil... I'll be sure and post my results when the time comes.

3. I love the smell of doing laundry -- the smellier the detergent and fabric sheets, the better. I recently read about the invisible film build-up if you don't wash the dryer lint trap with soap and water regularly -- and on this site it tells the story and it is a 'truth or legend' website, and says it is true. (just some helpful information in exchange for your wasted time reading blogs...)

I feel clothes are certainly cleaner if they smell good. (Yes, I know that isn't true, but that's okay)

4. I thought I was really going to get into beading... but I'm not. I like knowing a little bit for accenting my paper clay stuff, and for the one off project perhaps, or accenting fabric creations... but I'm thrilled to say I'm not going to have to have another "area" in my craft room just for that stuff. It all fits okay into a plastic painter's tray on a shelf. Whoo Hoo!!!

5. I want to travel the USA in a camper truck.... for at least 6 months, preferably a year... and visit every state and see -- at least -- the top 13 things (making that number up arbitrarily right now) that the state is known for. I bought a 1988 Reader's Digest Book titled "America's Historic Places" - 'an Illustrated Guide to Our Country's Past' and want to use that as a starting place. A Random Flip into the book puts me on page 275 - Texas, part of the "South Central States" and #6 in Texas is The Alamo. Second Random Flip leads me to page 114/5 in Georgia - "The Southeastern States" and number 4 is Stone Mountain Park, 5. is The Wren's Nest (home of the author of the Uncle Remus stories and so named for the bird found nesting in his mailbox), and number 5 is the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.

I would scrapbook along the way -- and do a blog, too. I'd visit everyone I know who lives all over the country.

And I don't want to wait until I'm retired. And it would be great if Himself wanted to come with me, but I also would enjoy the trip by myself.

6. I believe everyone should sing. I believe everyone can sing. I also believe not everyone should have to listen... that audience members are just as important as those up on stage, for without them those on stage would be alone. More and more science studies are proving that there is a harmonious balance that happens when we sing -- it is already proven that singing is better for your vocal folds than speaking -- much easier!! And if singing correctly you should be able to sing far longer than you can speak.

7. I always want to go back to college. I really think I ought to have been a teacher -- I love the idea of learning new things (that I want to learn... not necessarily about the things I am not interested in, such as chitin, or statistics (well ---- maybe stats for dummies), or Glycosaminoglycans, or even complex archeology (though I do remember at one point in my growing up times thinking being an archeologist would be fun -- me, who believes roughing it is staying at the Motel 8 instead of the Holiday Inn Express....!)