Who am I? (An intro to my intro)

If you haven’t read my “About Me” page, and who could blame you, I rarely read them on other peoples’ blogs, I’ll try to make this intro as brief and painless as possible.

Home

This is me. I was born and raised in Vancouver but now live in (well, near) Calgary. Boy, do I miss Vancouver. Or, at least, parts of it. The stupidly liberal government and mindset I can do without. But Calgary is almost exclusively either sunny or snowy and my heart yearns for the rain. My perfect day would be bundling up in my raincoat and boots, with a nice, hot cup of tea in my hands, and strolling through the woods in Stanley Park. Listening to the raindrops drip on the ferns, the smell of salt air dancing through the cedar trees, catching glimpses of the cloud-ringed mountains on the north shore.

Maybe I’d go cross-country skiing up at Cypress Bowl in the morning, grab a late lunch at the market at Granville Island, and then go for a kayak around False Creek. Or maybe I’d just take the kids down to Garry Point for an afternoon of kite flying and PaJo’s fish and chips.

What I wouldn’t be doing is spending the end of September worrying about how to afford a new set of snow tires that will spend the next 8 months on my car. When my mom sends me pics of her blooming crocuses in February, that will be my reminder that there’s only 3 months left until it might be safe to put my plants in the ground. (Never plant before the Victoria Day long weekend, you know!)

Pets

I am a shameless animal hoarder (not really.) I mean, we have a lot of animals. To the point where I may be gaining a reputation as our town’s Dr. Doolittle. But not in the “75 matted puppies in a shed in the back yard” kind of way. There’s a gallery of our animals here but the list is thus: We have one rescued mutt named Spooky, who is endearingly damaged, but we’re slowly working on her. She has a penchant for collecting loose shoes on our bed when we’re out of the house. She also struggles with smooth floors, of which our house is comprised of about 80%.

We have 3 cats. Clarabelle is a misery who hates everyone and everything. Philip J. Fry is a giant ball of ginger fluff with the voice of a 3-month-old kitten. Kaiya Ufgood is a bit of a derp. She has dwarfism, but we suspect she probably also has some vision and hearing issues. She is also our only pet who has her own instagram, which can be found here.

We have a charcoal-grey half-moon betta, Ash GIlliams, and a tri-colored comet goldfish, Goldeen. We have an almost-completely-black gerbil named Lord Nibbler who has lived up to his name to an unfortunate degree as he has eaten his way fully through 2 cages and counting. Our budgie, Birbalito, is another one of our “rescues.” His owner developed some lung issues and was advised to re-home him because of the feathers. He had one mis-shapen foot when we got him, due to improper care of his toes, but he’s now back on track.

We have 3 hermit crabs named Herman, Tamatoa, and Old Salty, who are an endless source of amusement to us as they find their way to increasingly improbable points in their tank, and then drop down as they seem to enjoy the “clink” of their shells on the glass.

And, lastly, our most recent addition is Noodle, the ball python we got our daughter for her 16th birthday. Wow. They seem like a lot fewer animals when I’m feeding them instead of writing about them.

Hobbies

I love keeping my hands busy. I have bins and bins (well, a walk-in closet’s worth of bins…) of yarn and embroidery floss for knitting, crocheting, and cross-stitch. Admittedly, it is quite a useful hobby to have, particularly in Alberta in the middle of winter, as it’s something you can do without going outside, that makes something you can wear to enable you to go outside without dying. I also LOVE planner decorating. You should go to YouTube and search “Plan with me” videos if you’re interested. I used to make them myself but the camera set up was SUCH a pain…

I normally wouldn’t file “web site design” under work or hobbies, as it’s a career I trained for and have decades of experience in, but the place we live is so sparsely populated that there’s very little way to make a living of it. Most of what I do is small, basic sites for peoples’ home businesses that pay little-to-nothing. But I like keeping my hand in.

I guess I class myself as a gamer. I am a TERR-I-BLE gamer, though, at least as far as video games are concerned. Most of what I play are stuff like the lego games and Professor Layton. Hubby went out at midnight to get me Skryim when it launched. I spent 2 hours getting stuck on doors and falling off stairs and put it away for good. I LOOOOOVE tabletop games, though, and am much less awful at them.

The Last

Is it weird that I want to put the least emphasis on the most important bits of my life? I really dislike those women who define themselves purely by their relationships with those around them. You know, they always start their bios with “I’m a wife and mother…” I AM a wife and mother. I love my husband and kids to bits but have devoted so much to them that I’m trying to find a little bit of myself again. So, to close, I’m a wife to a network administration specialist with a gimpy leg. I’m mom to 2 AWESOME, vexatiously stubborn, children who are 16 and 12 and make me feel like I’m 85.

I’m a wife and mother, but I’m also much more than that.