CURRENT MISSION

To CREATE. I live to create. I am really focused on being a working artist. At the same time I am totally focused on the intimate journey of family life.

ABOUT ME

I am a 58 yo artist, mother, wife, friend. The artist part is my soul - I am all about creating... i am a streaky artist, passionate about what I am doing, but easily seduced by the next thing I have to learn. Yes I HAVE to learn that next thing. Right now, it is weaving and hand-dyeing fabric that I sew into clothes. The family part is my external life- I am all about family, married for 35 years to the one person I want to see everyday. Every single day. I am all about my family. We followed two of our daughters to TX after 30+ years in Birmingham, AL when they settled here. Austin rocks. Our family is almost totally in education; I teach fiber arts, my husband is the headmaster of an Episcopal grade school, one daughter is a first grade teacher, her husband is a HS principal, another daughter is finishing her PhD in South Asian Studies, her husband is a college chemistry professor. The holdout is my youngest in architecture school. We have two grandsons and another baby on the way. I love to travel but I love to stay home as well. I am funny and very enthusiastic. Never met a stranger? yeah. I can stand up in front of a crowd, pretty much any crowd, and lead an auction or chair a meeting or wing it with some kind of extemporaneous program if I need to. But I can really dread walking into the door of a party where I don't know anyone. I love to cook, especially party or celebration food. I am on Mexican food right now - just made carnitas and salsa fresca and am thinking I need to have salsa fresca on hand at all times. I am learning to take my coffee black and to quit sweetening my tea. Oh that sugar is seductive...

PHILOSOPHY

Be as kind as possible. Share what you are given. Laugh as often as possible. Look for the best in people. Forgive. Hope. Listen. Love. Keep laughing and learning.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I am a greenhorn, so cannot answer this yet.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

none as of yet. Trying to get started.

Interests

I like people, all kinds of people. I like to read, and walk and cook (oh yeah) and I like podcasts. I like to make things and I like words and maps. I like to take pictures and to wander around the world through the computer. I like to play games and to watch games - I am into college football and basketball which never interested me when I was in college. Whenever I am in Pensacola, FL I like to go to the Gutter Bar on Monday nights and listen to outrageously good electric blues music.

• arts
• architecture
• education
• dining
• cooking
• coffee
• mexican food
• walking
• partying
• shopping
• clothing
• traveling
• crochet
• knitting
• painting
• podcasts
• music
• blues
• basketball
• soccer
• cartography
• chemistry
• teaching

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: AVATAR, You've Got Mail, all the Toy Story movies, Pride and Prejudice movies, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series, The Hangover, most anything by the BBC
Books: Bel Canto, Ahab's Wife, Broken for You, authors like Maeve Binchy, Sharon Shinn, old school and new.
I love all kinds of music, from Bluegrass to opera, from Broadway to Baby Got Back. B.B.King, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was able to be present at the home birth of my first grandchild, Jackson. The highlight of my life.

Teach, Learn, Share

My particular interests include the arts - all kinds. I have been doing art of one kind or another since childhood. I currently work at a lovely fiber arts center and yarn shop in the Hill Country of TX called the Old Oaks Ranch... www.theoldoaksranch.com
I teach weaving, knitting, crochet, needle felting. I have also taught painting for some years. I also have taught sewing, embroidery, and for a time directed the art program at the Horizons School in Birmingham, AL, a residential school for learning disabled young adults. I often think that I might teach things better than I do them.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, France, Ireland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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