Author’s Note – I pulled a notebook out of my bag at lunch today that I haven’t used in a while and I found a rough draft of this post that Ihad forgotten about. I thought it would be fun to give you an idea of the person behind the words that pop up on your screen every so often. Please feel free to share a random fact about yourself if you’re so inclined – I’d love to know a little more about you too!

1.     My favorite artists are Georgia O’Keeffe and Salvador Dali and my favorite photographer is Ansel Adams.

2.     I am passionately in love with all things Russian and it’s my dream to someday see St. Basil’s Cathedral in person.

3.     I am the only person I know who is a Gilbert and Sullivan fan. HMS Pinafore is my favorite operetta and I know a few people who make The Mikado’s Lord High Executioner look like a saint.

4.     I read War and Peace in ninth grade and it’s still one of my favorite books ever.

5.     My dream job is playing with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra or any group conducted by John Williams.

6.      Robert Frost and Emily Dickenson are my favorite poets.

7.     I’m not sure if reincarnation exists, but I get the feeling that if it does, I lived before in World War II era France or Russia.

8.     I will never, under any circumstances – including imminent starvation eat a peach from a can.

9.     I eat plantains but not bananas.

10.     Until this year, I didn’t eat fish but now I’m a big fan of haddock, tilapia and salmon.

11.     Stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and self-centeredness are my four biggest pet peeves.

12.     I have played piano since I was six, flute since I was twelve and since 1999, I’ve been singing in church choirs and playing handbells. I took a year of classical guitar lessons, but gave up on that when my teacher insisted on teaching me jazz chords instead of Spanish classical music.

13.     I seriously considered a career as a print journalist when I was a teenager.

14.     My husband calls me the human jukebox because I have a song for every occasion.

15.     I’ve been cross stitching for over twenty years and I still can’t make a damn French knot.

16.     I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, lived in Memphis, Tennessee for a year and have been in Sunderland, Massachusetts for twelve years. I’ve been happily married to my college sweetheart, Bill for 13 years and we were married on my Gran’s sixty-second anniversary.

17.     I get Madeline Stowe and Mary Louise Parker confused. Of course, I used to get Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro confused back in the day, too – the movie Heat gave me issues.

18.     One of the first poems I ever wrote was called “The World’s First Outer Space Ballad” and I’m pretty sure that my mother still has it somewhere at her house.

19.     Over the past twelve years, I’ve kept 22 journals.

20.     My collecting addictions include dragons, flute player figurines, fountain pens and notebooks.

21.     My husband and I think every movie ever made would be infinitely better if Samuel L. Jackson was in it.

So how about y’all? What are some random cool facts you’d like to share?