AynE

I write what I call fractured fairy tales or fables. I also write poetry and have been published in England although I live on an island in the Gulf of Alaska. The first five minutes of the movie the Guardian shows where I live or the reality show, The Deadliest Catch is based out of Kodiak.

I am first generation British American. I am married with three children, a grown daughter who lives in Chicago, one in High School and one in elementary school. No empty nest for me!

I also have a Belgian Tervuren named Griffin, sort of a large, gorgeous, long haired, pointy eared dog and a Pomeranian, named Mrs. TiggyWiggle, (Tiggy for short) who thinks she is a large, gorgeous, long haired, pointy eared dog. I also have 3 cats, a black & white (Tuxedo) cat named Edmund the Just-leave-Clementine-alone, a tortiseshell named Madelyn Rose and a Siamese/Himalayan cross, Clementine who is the scourge of the neighborhood except when it comes to Edmund. My cats have sibling rivalry, which is sort of strange but when Ed and Clem have crossed the line, Rosie sorts both of them out. Which is even stranger since she came to us as a declawed lady and has absolutely no fire power. But she has the vocabulary of a dock worker and is not afraid to use it. I am just glad I am not fluent in cat because I don't think Rosie is a lady at heart.

Crafts: Paper, I love the feel, smell and sound of paper. I also dabble in watercolors, chalk and pen. As well as altered books, collage, stamping and needlepoint. I love to make altered composition journals and altered art booklets. It justifies all the bits and pieces of paper, lace, broken jewelry and fabric that I have collected over the years.

Colours: Anything French Country or French Provencial. I love creams, blues and yellows for decor, but in my wardrobe tend towards deep garnet reds, browns, blues, greens and creams. I like muted colors of any type. I am not a big fan of neons or brights, although I have a friend who is trying to reform me. I lived through the 60's and 70's, incense burning, bell bottomed, long haired, flower powered hippie, once was enough. Lots of fun, but enough!

Things I like: I have collected China Cat figurines since I was 9 years old. I also collect teapots, creamers, etc in the shape of English country cottages. I love daisies, sunflowers, violets, irises, lilacs, hollyhocks and English Cottage Gardens. I like dragonflies, moths and bumblebees. Crows and foxes are also motifs that I like. My favorite artist is J.M. Strudwick who is a contemporary of J.W. Waterhouse, I also love Beatrix Potter and Mary Engelbreit illustrations. I have a friend who climbed over a railing and got a picture of David's butt when she was in Rome, so I am not opposed to Roman sculpture (yes, she got invited to leave the museum)

Favourite Stuff:

Books: M.M. Kaye, James Michner, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Neville Shute, Jane Austen, Diana Galbadon's Outlander series. I collect children's books and love Hans Christian Anderson's stories and the Andrew Lang Fairy Tale Books. Grimm's Fairy Tales are just that, grim. The Diary of Anne Frank pierces my heart. Favorite poets are Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Kahlil Gilbran. Yes, I know, my tastes are rather eclectic.

I read the dictionary because I love words and their meanings and I read encyclopedias for the miscellaneous and other bits of knowledge and facts that are tucked between the covers. My kindergarten teacher told my parents that I was full of bits of general knowledge. Probably so...

Music: I play guitar and flute, my favorite song is Solveg's Song from the Peter Gynt Suite by Edward Grieg. I listen to Israeli folk music. French Cafe music. Celtic music. World War II era music as well as Sing Along with Mitch Miller. I also like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Judi Collins and Rod Stewart.

Movies: Australia, Chocolat, Neverwas, The Kingdom of Heaven, Under the Tuscan Sun, LOTR, Chronicles of Narnia both of them, Elizabeth, Chariots of Fire, The Last Samurai, old 30's and 40's musicals as well as WWII flying movies. My father was a glider pilot for the RAF so I was raised on stories and movies like the Battle of Britian and 12 o'clock High. My dad thought Spam and ketchup sandwiches were wonderful, blech :-{ !!! My favorite actor of all time is Danny Kaye. My favorite actress is Katherine Hepburn.

TV shows: British TV, All Creatures Great and Small, Rosemary and Thyme, Foyle's War, The House of Elliott, Inspector Lindley, the Sharpe's series (Sean Bean, Napoleonic Wars, good music and great scenery, what could be better) and Robin Hood, yet I never miss StarGate SG1 or Atlantis and I think Eureka is smart and funny, so I am not totally living in the past.

Edibles: My Nan lived in Yorkshire and every holiday season she would send boxes filled with chocolate and candies from England, Callard and Bowser butterscotch and licorice toffees, Cadbury chocolates and Smarties as well as Ginger marmalade and Lyle's Golden Syrup. I also have a weakness for maple sugar candy and MacIntosh apples. I love Chai tea as well as some herbal teas.

I love the smell of lavender, lilacs, violets, cinnamon, ginger, tarragon, basil, rosemary and oranges. My favorite spice is Nutmeg and I have an awesome recipe for nutmeg cake.

I don't like flowery perfumes or candles, it has to be the real thing or I get bad headaches but for some strange reason I have this incredible collection of candles shaped like fruit, I cannot explain how it happened but I have apple, pear, apricot, plum and even avocado shaped candles. One of those things that you don't realize you are doing until you start to list it on Swap-bot...

I am addicted to old costume jewelry, rhinestones and all, especially brooches/pins and dangly earrings.

Things I don't like: I am not a modern kind of lady, nor do I like anything dark, gory, goth or 'witchy'. My mother loved Edgar Allen Poe and so does my oldest daughter, but I am more of a Beatrix Potter/Pollyanna kind of gal. May have something to do with the fact that my parents took me to see Vincent Price in the Pit and the Pendulum when I was six years old, scarred (scared) me for life...I have a hard time watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds without major burying my head in the pillow sessions.

Other stuff: I like Victorian emphera, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts style. I do like Frank Lloyd Wright's Praire Style because it is simply breathtaking in it's elegant simplicity and dream some day of decluttering and living in a Japanese style, clean-lined, austere, ordered house, not!

I love the alphabet in all types, fonts and sizes. As well as words, new words, old, fallen from use words, forgotten words, words 25 letters long in different languages. Did you know that one of the prettiest sounding words in any language is l'arc en ciel? It's rainbow in French, amazing, n'est pas? The prettiest sounding word in the English language is cellar door, it is a lyrical fluid sound, even if the meaning is not quite as pretty. Although a cellar door surrounded by vines and flowers could be very pretty visually.

Buttons, wooden spools of thread, and old game pieces, broken jewelry, stamps, pictures cut out of magazines, bits of ribbons, fabrics and lace. Silk embroidery thread.

Pictures of doors and windows or pictures of scenes with empty chairs in them. I like to imagine me, sitting in them, looking out over the beach, or garden...

I grew up in a small town in Western New York that, in my opinion is the prettiest town in America, beautiful landscapes, incredible architecture, just enough of each season, the one I like best being from late August through late November because of the fullness, richness and sense of completion during that time. Piles of pumpkins and baskets of apples at roadside stands, red maple leaves, Canadian geese overhead, huge orange harvest moons rising over the hills.

I miss western New York so much...ah well... to quote Joni Mitchell... don't it always seem to go that we don't know what we got til it's gone...