About Finn....

Yesterday Ann, of Ann's Quilts and flowers,http://ann-sewsalot.blogspot.com/commented that she loves to read my blog, and wonders what I am like in person...*S* So, I'm taking a break from the mystery blocks to tell her.I don't like having my picture taken, but this is my favorite picture of me. It was taken in New Mexico a few years back. The hair is grayer now, I'm a bit "fluffier", but the smile is the same. I smile alot. I don't necessarily think of myself as a happy person, but I'm more of the "glass half full, than half empty. I tend to look for the best of the situation, and am willing to be happy with what there is. I often refer to my mindset as being "boxcar children". It was a favorite book as a child. It's very much about making do, being happy with what you have, taking care of yourself and your place in the world. Actually, at this age, I'd be happy to walk away from that mindset, but it seems to be a part of me. I seem to have a happy, goofy, mostly carefree way of looking at life. I don't take it very seriously.

I'd rather play with the scraps of fabric on the floor or in the wastebasket than what is in your pile of yardages. Making something from almost nothing is what appeals to me. I don't have anything to prove, it's what gives me the greatest pleasure. Except one never quite gets to the stash usage that way...and I've gotta get to THAT!!

I have blue eyes, and was a blond child. I'm the oldest of 3 girls, with my first sister a whoppin' 7 years younger than me. The baby of the family is 11 years my junior. Wasn't much opportunity for "growing up like sisters do". I got alot of the "mommy" role thrust upon me. It didn't make me happy. School was just school, nothing special. I wasn't the most popular, not even close, I'm really fairly shy. I wasn't the least popular either. I belonged to some organizations, but nothing that I truly loved. I didn't date much in high school, only once or twice...it was the 1950's. I hung out with girlfriends. Only one boy in my class of 155 kids had his own car. He was killed in it less than 5 years after graduation. I went on to college, telling my Dad I was majoring in Elem. Education, when in reality, I was majoring in Fine and Applied Arts. In Oct. of my first year, having just turned 18, on Oct. 8th, I met my future husband. So much for college..*G*

He was my age, 18 going on 19, and we married in May of 1959. It began a journey that lasted about 36 years. We "did" the Air Force thing, and then he finished college. I worked. He got a teaching job, I worked. In 1967, after 9 years of marriage, we applied for and adopted our first child, a daughter. We were living in Michigan. In 1969, we added a little boy. By 1972, we moved back to WI, taking a job in Administration. In 1973, we added second daughter, and 1974, a second son. 1976 found us adding our last child, another boy. Like most, I suppose, I wasn't the world best mother, but not the worst either. Life and marriage have their ups and downs. Two more job moves brought us to the part of WI where I was born. Not the same town, about 40 miles away.

The kids grew up, completed their schooling, went out on their own, and began to marry and have families. DH and I decided in 1994, that neither of us was happy enough to stay together. He moved to southern WI, I stayed here. It was not what I expected nor where I thought I'd be at this age....mid 50's. But life continues...*S* We were divorced in 1996.

You either sit and stew about it, or you get on with your life. I chose the latter. All of this, the above story, helped make me who I am. I still smile alot, and laugh easily. I don't take much very seriously, except cruelity to animals and small children. I don't think life is a joke, but it's hard to tell some days. We are such insignificant specks of sand in God's eye, that I find it hard to get hung up in the "haves" and "have-nots".

I'm not really very good at anything Ann, I can do quite alot of different things, some of them quite well. I can't sing worth a darn, I don't really care much for cooking, I have "authority" anxiety and try to everything as correctly as possible so I don't get into any trouble, I detest snakes but am ok with spiders and bats, I love stories and adore being read to, I like sunsets but am not enough of a morning person to have seen many sunrises, I try to keep promises and gradually am learning not to make quite as many as I used to...LOL. I'm having to learn that NO is a complete sentence. I'm honest, I play fair, I don't take more than my share, and almost EVERYONE can go first, ahead of me. I don't mind at all..*VBS*I'm pretty easy to get along with, I know I am kind and feel that I am a generous person. Giving is easier than receiving.

I'm a perimeter person and don't like being in the middle of anything, group, resturant, classroom, etc. I'm an observer rather than a participant in most things. I do talk alot....... who knew????.... I seem to have alot to say. Words are my friends. Viewing favorites have included Northern Exposure, all of Star Trek,TNG only, M.A.S.H., C.S.I.(the original),and more recently Desperate Housewives(???) and Grey's Anatomy.I like PBS. I prefer to be "taught" or shown something, rather than entertained. I'm not fond of "fluff", I need a storyline or moral, or a new view of the world.

I've been a waitress, secretary, pie chef, surgial tech, sold Artex liquid paints, worked in a daycare, cleaned houses for money, been a receptionist, worked as a nurse's aide, and in Emergency room and O.B. I've been an election inspector, and a jill of almost all trades . Most of it before children. I never did finish college, but have about 3 or 3.5 yrs completed. Still in Fine Arts..*VBG*

I've sewed, self taught, since I was 16, making clothes for myself, my sisters and my mom. I've done everything from coats to pre-folded diapers. Quilting came into my life in the 1970's along with that 5th child. I like traditional patterns, and am a piecer rather than an appliquer. I began before rotary cutter, and leaned to hand quilt almost as soon as I learned to piece. I learned in a hoop, and mostly I still quilt in a hoop. I love green, but haven't made a green quilt. In my stash I probably have more green than any other color, but red and blue come in second and third. I'm not fond of pink, but I'm learning to like it.

I have no family in the area where I live, one sister in MN and one in AZ. My kids are mostly 1.5 to 4 hrs away. Luckily I have some very good girl friends here, who have helped me through the past 12+ years. That's how long I've been single again..*VBS* Almost all of them are quilters, two of them I helped get started. I no longer belong to any guilds or quilt groups.There are some with 20 to 40 milies of here, but for now I'm choosing not to join them.

I love blogging, and was thrilled last summer to follow Bonnie, into blogland. I was equally thrilled to be invited to join the Quilt Mavericks. I'm not always so sure I "fit"here, but I'm gonna keep taking Tonya's word for it.