Numero Uno: My mother was a gifted and versatile artist who was far too critical of her own work. I didn't have many coloring books. As soon as I was able to clutch a crayon, she insisted that I stay within the lines and leave little blanks as highlights. Mom only allowed me coloring books with artistic or educational merit. She didn't give much thought to detailing in the line drawings as age appropriate. As a result I was traumatized by the picture of a Mandarin gentleman with fingernails every bit as evil as those portrayed on Snow White's wicked witch. I was afraid of opening let alone coloring in those books, lest they fall open to the scary pages. Like most kids around the world, I was not given a new coloring book until the old one was finished. What moms never seem to learn is that the incentive backfires, and impatient kids like me inevitably tried to shorten the interval by coloring fast which equals sloppy which , for me, brought out the anger in my mother. Coloring was not fun for me.
Amazingly my love of color has never wavered. Even though I didn't like the coloring book activity, I still got a thrill whenever I got a new box of crayons. What I did like to do was arrange and rearrange the crayons into colorways, and I spent a lot of happy time just making color combinations on paper. Whenever I shop for stash: fabric, fiber, beads, I experience that same Crayola rush.
2. I was a smuggler for a thankfully short time. I smuggled art books out of East Germany and was nearly caught by VOPOS in East Berlin.
3. I met my DH in the Tuborg Brewery in Copenhagen. We were married 45+ years ago in Switzerland. We're still married, and although it might prove interesting or even insightful, I would never dream of soliciting his opinion re 7 facts about myself to share with others. Certainly he would remind me that our always-at-my-feet pets love me more than him and that I pay more attention , in no particular order, to my animals, my computer and that "BS stuff" I'm always working on. Somehow knitting and sewing is not a waste of my time, however. He tends to turn gruffy when I spend on stash, and begs, can you believe it, implores me to spend money on clothes, all I want, $'s no object. Where's the joy in that? I don't need any more clothes. I do need to feed my addiction for creative pursuits.
4. Perhaps you've wondered about bluegrasssainte , my Yahoo ID which shows up occasionally on my group posts (I have a similar username on eBay. For over 30 years I've been a fancier and member of the St. Bernard Club of America. Stray hairs usually find their way into my projects. And since I'm now one Saint away from a condo, I've been saving bags of fur so I'll never run out. I'd like to learn to spin Chiengora (even if you already know what it is, read the google headers. They're hilarious, but I'm warped.
Allow my digression of gratuitous pet photos. Only my spouse would adopt a 6 week old kitten from the vet's office the day before we leave for the SBCA National Show with an entry of over 300 Saints. And he names her for her medication: Moxie, for amoxicillin! Instead of crushing or devouring this tiny creature, Lexi, our 186 and not fat Saint, nurtures the kitten who thrives and morphs into Evil Kitty who doesn't know she's a cat.
5. I've been blessed having been born an optimist with a sense of humor that has served me well throughout my life. I was born in the Year of the Dragon. I'm a Virgo. I'm a Mellow Spring. My personal colors are aqua, coral and grey, which makes wardrobe shopping far easier now that I know that. I'm honest, fair, understanding and non confrontational which may account for how DH, generally pessimistic and negative, and I have been together so long that we know what each other is thinking and usually finish each other's sentences. I love him dearly, and he's my best friend. I loved my mother, too, in case you were worried.
6. Mom taught me to read and write before I got to school. I did well in everything early on except penmanship (those lines! agggghhhh h h). My grandfather gave me a Smith Corona typewriter circa 1913 which I pecked at constantly and amused myself writing stories and plays because being an only child in a neighborhood with no other kids left little else for me to do. My first story was published when I was 7. It was science fiction, about the mad scientist Dr. Jhocton and his rocket ship. I guess becoming a Trekkie was inevitable. Anyway, writing came easy to me, garnered lots of positive encouragement and was actually fun! I learned to design and color with words.
7. I cannot handle numbers in any form. I struggled through arithmetic and was tutored through algebra and geometry. I can't remember anything with a sequence of numbers like addresses, phone numbers, dates-- imagine me struggling with combination locks! As I get older I'm losing my perspective of time and chronological order. Must be I was traumatized by fractions. No. Earlier. First grade. I remember taking a standardized test and trying to answer the question : "What is (drawing of half a circle) and (drawing of another half circle)?" To me the obvious answer was a whole . I didn't know how to spell whole and I was afraid if I wrote hole I would get it wrong because a hole is empty. I drew a circle . Wrong answer! I went into kid apoplexy, couldn't convince my teacher it was not a zero and couldn't understand why the correct answer was 1.
