Spin cycle--All about ME

Time for another Spin Cycle. This one is all about me. Listed below are some random things about me. If you want to know anything else, ask away and I'll write up some posts about it later.

• I'm really shy.  I hate being in large groups where I don't know anyone.  I tend to let myself fade into the background.  Once I'm comfortable, I talk and interact and have fun.  It's just getting comfortable that is tough.

• I love reading.  I read lots of books. There are authors I like and I wait for their new books to come out.  I have a harder time finding new authors to read; I'm picky.  I also have a bias against the best sellers, I often avoid the highly hyped books just on principle.  I think that's why I have never joined a book club.  I couldn't read a book just because everyone says it's good.  Feels to much like a college class.
• I have had a cat since I was a little girl.  I love cats.  I like their independence, affection, and personality.  I don't care for the strategic puking, hair and litter box, but the lap sitting and the cat at the foot of the bed makes up for it.
• I have liked taking pictures since my first camera at age 11.  I feel I have an eye for it.  I get some great shots.  I am hoping for a better digital SLR eventually.  For now I will make do with my point and shoot.  To go along with this I like to scrap book.  I have made several of different trips and events in our lives.  I need to get back to it.  Soon, I hope.
• I have found I really enjoy blogging.  I started to make friends and find other moms who were dealing with the same things I was.  I get a thrill when I get a comment about something I wrote.  It's fun to know something I wrote made some one smile or laugh or just connected with them.
• I have found a lot of satisfaction in cooking and finding recipes.  I'm getting more creative and learning the tricks and techniques to make cooking fun.  I have to say I envy Nick--you can give him a flavor or taste you are looking for and the ingredients and he can run with it and make something fabulous.  I'm getting there.
• Now baking is something different from cooking.  I like to bake.  I like to bake even more now that I have my Kitchen Aide mixer.  I like to make quick breads for weekends, muffins, and bread.  Tastes pretty good too.
• Another hobby I'm good at is fitting puzzles.  I have been fitting puzzles since I was about 7 or 8.  I would fit them with my mom and then I got some 1000 piece puzzles of my own and I would fit them over and over.  I still like to fit puzzles again and again.
• Gardening has been growing on me (no pun intended).  We have two small (4x8) plots for vegetables and several other flower gardens.  When I was a kid I hated the gardens that my parents had because I hated bugs and being out weeding.  I like it better now because we garden on a much smaller scale.
• I have done posts about my dislike of bugs, spiders and such.  I just don't like things with more than four legs. Yuck!
• I am a mom, wife, daughter, friend and geologist.  Funny when thinking about that sentence the first two I define myself by are mom and wife--the two best roles I have ever taken on--and both of them voluntary.
• I love chocolate turtles--dark chocolate turtles.
• I have to sleep completely covered in blankets--the thicker the better.  I love my down comforter.  I always have to ask for more blankets at hotels because the weight is just not there wiht the thin blanket they put on the bed.
• I twist my hair--bad enough to put knots in it sometimes.  I've done this since I was little.  I can never go undercover because anyone who knows me would recognize me the minute my hand reached for my hair and it would becaues I have no will power.  (Bruiser has this habit too, just in case there was any doubt who his mother was.)
• I get one perm a year for wash and go style.  I get trims every couple of months.  In the morning I wash or wet it down in the shower and then towel dry it and put in leave in conditioner and some styling gel.  If I'm going somewhere-like out in the evening-I might blowdry it some but that's it.
• I like to take road trips and travel.  Hitting that city limit sign makes it all feel better.  I like to camp--we have a pop-up camper-- and we really like to find dirt roads we haven't bumped down before. 

Well, that is some stuff about me.  Since the Spin cycle was supposed to be all about me, I think I did a pretty good job of listing out some stuff about me, without the whole look at me, look at me thing this could have totally turned into.  I'll leave you with one of the more recent pictures of me.

I guess I did get the look at me part in after all.