thevioletgypsy

I'm of the salt-and-pepper haired generation with a myriad of interests ranging from reading fiction and non-fiction, cookbooks to neuroscience, crafts to metaphysics.

I'm an avid journaler, wannabe artist, penpaler, enjoy computer games, playing with my smartphone, interacting with my three grown children, enjoying living with my partner, making journals and doing simple book-binding, participating when I can in online discussion groups of interest, and researching and learning new things as I learn of them.

I love participating in swaps, refuse to flake on any, and make sure I send to my partners something I would want to receive myself quality wise.

I love to listen to music of just about any type and don't have a favorite kind of music or songs because of this. This being said however, I do like Alan Parsons, Bruce Springsteen, folk, classical and country alot, and have my Pandora station tuned into these most of the time.

Again, I love to read just about any kind of book and therefore don't have a favorite author. I tend to enjoy non-fiction books more than fiction but again, have an eclectic interest in the types of books I read. In fact, it's not unusual for me to go to the bookstore or library and pick our a book to read there that's about something totally new to me. This new reading opens new doors of interest for me which I enjoy. The latest book I was reading had to do with the fish, coral beds and their relationship to contributing to medical research as well as a refresher book on the law of attraction.

I enjoy dramas, action movies, and intelligent comedies vs. slapstick comedies. I don't go to the moveis often however, preferring to wait until I can rent the DVD or see them on cable. I also enjoy watching old war movies (land and sea) and some of the old western movies. The latest movies I've seen are Souce Code and The Lincoln Lawyer, both excellent movies! And on tv last night I watched 50 Last Dates, which was also good, and of a totally different genre. As I've said, I have eclectic tastes.

Favorite television programs are House, Bones, Glee, Fringe, Mike and Mollie, How I Met Your Mother and some of the Food Network and other food channel shows, though the only one I can remember right now that I've watched is the Barefoot Contessa and the show with the chef from Hell's Kitchen. (I'm terrible with names!).

My favorite crafts include book-binding, simple art journaling, and narrative journaling which isn't really a craft but which I tend to make crafty, the way I do it. I love to journal and have been doing it for years. I wish I still had all of my journals from years past. I keep them now today but over the years in the past had to let go of them due to cross country moves, lack of space, and a myriad of other reason.

I used to do alot of scrapbooking years ago and still use alot of scrapbooking supplies in my journaling. Lately too, I've been making junque journals out of composition books, scrapbook paper, distress inks and ephemera. I'm hoping to teach a class this fall in journaling and also one in how to make junque journals.

I've also tried my hand at "art journaling" but somehow the atist within always gets stuck. I have the materials (paints, etc) and supplies to play but time gets away and lack of workspace also stymies me in addition of course, to the "wannabe artist within" saying "ha ha ha, VG, no creativity for you today!" But I do make nice journals in other ways.

My other interests include:

Receiving and exchanging notecards, blank greeting cards, stationerys, and postcards (vintage and new) of all kinds.

Crystals, minerals and gemstones

Archaeology and sociology

Religious art and sculptue of all kinds

"Addicted" to reading many diffrent kinds of magazines at the bookstore and library

Like my morning "before-work" coffee and love english breakfast tea.

Like the colors purple, red, grey and blue

Enjoy nature and going for walks in the park and near water

Love Sweet Tomatoes/Soup Plantation

Dislike shopping

Don't understand still after many years, how to play chess.

I'm a member of our local postcard collectors club and a member of our local gem and mineral society. I'm also a "postcrosser", trading postcards with people around the world.

An interesting note about me and my interest in penpaling is that I still correspond with my very first penpal whom I started writing 51 years ago!