loricritt

I'm 49. I've been with my partner 18 years. I was born and raised in northern California (San Jose area). Lived in Phoenix for 2-1/2 years then moved to Portland, Oregon in 1988. Been here ever since.

We have 2 cats and 1 dog. Toffee is a 17-year old Scottish Fold. Simone is a 1-1/2 year old tabby. Celine is a 7 year old pomeranian.

In February, Celine suddenly went blind, apparently from SARDS, a disease (?) that affects about 4000 dogs a year in the U.S. There are no symptoms and no preventative measures, and it occurs practically overnight. Celine has adjusted quite well and except for a tendency to bump into things, especially when she's frantically begging for food, she's happier than ever. It probably helps that she was a bit of a couch potato dog anyway.

I've been making my own soap for about 10 years. I'm thinking of branching into some other body products. Mostly the soap has been for personal use, and gifts for family and friends. I usually sell some at a few holiday bazaars but lately there has been some demand for my soap and I may have to get off my lazy ass and make it more than a couple times a year.

I like to cook, garden, read, and play on the computer. Mostly I'm rather lazy. But I am known among my family and friends as a pretty dang good cook. Mostly I'm a comfort cook rather than gourmet. I have favorite dishes I make over and over and over, with variations on the ingredients. I love to read recipes and often will collect several versions of the same recipe and make my own conglomeration of it. When I get a recipe from someone I usually end up making my own modifications after a first pass at the original recipe. Cook's Illustrated is my favorite line of recipe books and their Top 1000 Best Recipes is my all time favorite cook book, the one I go to often. Reading their recipe books is like an online cooking school.

I don't have tons of food dislikes although I have so many likes that I often don't feel the need to push myself to develope a taste for something. I really dislike canned tuna in anything. I like fresh tuna okay but not canned. My mom ruined me for macaroni salad (the mayonnaise-based kind) as a kid so really despise that although I love pasta salads, especially anything with orzo or curly pasta and feta cheese. I LOVE LOVE LOVE cheese. Love cheese.

I love to travel, even if only in my own mind. Outside the U.S., I've gone to Japan, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Puerto Vallarta, Victoria, British Columbia, and Vancouver, British Columbia. At one time I desperately wanted to relocate to Australia and even got an immigration packet from the Australian embassy. I've also been to Manhattan, Pittburgh and Philadelphia, New Orleans (twice, once during Mardi Gras), Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Houston and Galveston (before Hurricane Ike), and Washington, DC. Also all over California, Arizona, parts of Oregon and Washington.

When planning a trip somewhere, I love to get lots of books on the location and culture and really do my research to maximize the trip. I'm the ultimate travel planner and used to be the go-to person for the best air fare, hotel, etc. among my family and friends.

Favorite tv shows include Bones, Torchwood, Dollhouse, The Closer, Leverage, Life, Amazing Race, Survivor, So You Think You Can Dance, among many others (I love my DVR!).

We just finished a huge remodel/addition project on our little 1927 bungalow that we've lived in for 16 years, basically doubling our square footage.

We bumped our kitchen out seven feet and added a "wing' to the south side of our existing house, adding a single car garage, three bedrooms (one being used as a home office), a full master bath and a half bath, and a new interior staircase. Now we can actually bring furniture upstairs! We're slowly occupying the new space and uncramming the old. Mostly we're enjoying seeing open uncluttered spaces right now. Seems hard to believe we managed to live in the old space for so many years without killing each other!

Reading is my #1 addiction and I read a wide variety of genres, including historical romance, science fiction, fantasy fiction, cooking, crafting, gardening, home improvement, computer, history, some erotica, children's, young adults, even some teenager-type books. At any one time I usually have more than 50 books from the library.

I tend to read and re-read books again and again, and often have four or five novels going at the same time.

My most favoritest books are:

The Stand by Stephen King

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Kindred by Octavia Butler

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale

anything by Amanda Quick (anything!)

Don't have tons of dislikes except for religious tracts, especially Religious Right or Moral Majority, Watchtower, anti choice, etc. type stuff. Also don't care for politically conservative stuff. My views are pretty moderate/liberal and I'm not religious at all.

Crafting/swapping-wise, I'm finding that I prefer pretty things rather than corny or cheesy. I like and appreciate the clever and witty but don't much care for cutesy child-ish stuff. But I do have nieces and nephews so if something comes my way that I can't fully appreciate, I have no problem passing it along.

It sure would be helpful if people would put both the swap title and their Swap-Bot name on the swaps. I have a couple recipe swaps that I just cannot figure out who sent them and for what swap. It's also helpful to put the swap title on the back of the envelope.

Just suggesting....