user8141

I am a wife, a programmer, cat-owner, and a photographer.

Foods I like: I'm trying to eat lower-fat but I love chocolate - such a hard balance to work out! I have an amazing sweet tooth and desserts are my favorites, not just chocolate. If I'm going to be cooking it, something easy is nice; chicken dishes are nice; spicy/hot is sometimes nice but only sometimes (other days I can't tolerate it - it's very much a 'what kind of day am I having' thing, not a flat like/dislike).

I like some green teas and some herbals, and black tea if it's decaffeinated. I have yet to find a white or red tea that I like, though. Hot cocoa is nice (see the note above about me and chocolate!) but I am not a coffee drinker.

COLORS: I like most colors but my very favorites are vivid reds, purples, blues, and greens. (Exception - for makeup, I like low-key, flesh or light brown colors.)

SCENTS: some florals, and oh, spicy. Especially the old-style spicy carnation sort of scent. And some foody - sugars and vanillas don't work, but BPAL's Bliss (chocolate) does, for example. And some fruity bath scents I like very much.

Please, no vetiver. I beg you, no vetiver. I generally don't like patchouli, but unlike the vetiver it doesn't hate my skin, so it could work. :)

Other things I like: wilderness, camping, mountains, forests, water waterfalls rivers lakes streams the ocean and oh did I mention water, long lazy baths and supplies for same, candles, incense, pretty and/or unusual note cards/paper, agates and thundereggs and other pretty rocks, BPAL oils, snow/winter.

I have a lot of allergies but most won't impact swaps (unless there's one for a bag of dust, in which case I promise not to sign up, as I have plenty of that already). However, please do not send me foody items with nuts in, if you know. They will NOT kill me or make me seriously ill but some of them can make me uncomfortable for a while.

I'm also lactose intolerant, but if you're sending me a recipe, don't worry - I can substitute or, if it's not a good recipe for substitution, get the lactose-free milk at the store.

Folk, folk-rock, pop rock, some other rock. Among my favorite artists/groups are: Billy Joel, Céline Dion, Christopher Cross, Dan Fogelberg, Great Big Sea, Jewel, Judy Collins, Loreena McKennitt, October Project, Suzanne Vega....

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Balto, Cabaret, The Sound of Music, the Harry Potter films, The Gods Must Be Crazy. I don't watch a whole lot of movies, to be honest.

I don't watch TV much if at all any more. Shows I used to like (and still do, as far as I know, when exposed to them): Star Trek (the original series and Next Generation more than the rest), the Muppet Show, ... I know there are / were others but just now I can't think of them. I didn't enjoy watching Veronica Mars but I actually love to hear my friends geek about it, I like the stories and such, I just get restless watching the TV.

Doing: varies; currently, photography and writing. (I also really enjoy writing letters and cards - that's not really a "craft" but can use some of the same items, sometimes. :)

Receiving: almost anything. I love looking at drawing/painting, and fiber arts - I am weak at the former and have no skill at all at the latter, so it seems like magic to me - and I enjoy magic!

I love science fiction and fantasy. Books I have read and deeply love include Jane Lindskold's Changer and Legends Walking (and many of her other books to a lesser degree) and Amy Thomson's The Color of Distance.

There are many other books I've enjoyed, if not as much - authors I like include Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce, Anne Bishop, Spider Robison, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Katherine Kurtz. (I enjoy Neil Gaiman's Sandman, but find myself ambivalent about many of the rest of his works.)