I'm a fairly rowdy working girl with kids, a farm and a fun life. Better a margarita than a cup of coffee for a first date unless we're kicking it out for a walk - that would be fun. Just saw Seger, would love a summer of concerts and stars and water.

I'm a jumbled mix of professional woman in a suit, farmer in jeans or a pair of shorts with boots working the fields and the gardens and with the animals, teenagers' Mom planning events and doing endless shopping and cleaning, and newly single chick venturing out trying restaurants and bars and walks and events. I say jumbled because I have not learned to transition smoothly between it all yet.

The two words that come to mind are fun and adventure. I've raised kids, developed my business, and built my home. Foundation, rock of life dreams. Now I'd like to loosen up and enjoy it all- add some travel, some dancing. Spice it up!

Some new plans for this summer: The Dirty Girl obstacle race in Portland, Zip-lining for the first time, learning to connect my keyboard to the Mac and to use Garage Band, learn how to hula hoop.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant gorgeous talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" From Akeelah & the Bee. Whoever wrote that helps me watch my kids grow up and smile. Would love to know the author and will educate myself sometime soon unless you know?

I have great gardens- for food and for creating Eden. I travel spontaneously and enjoy day trips and long getaways. I've also got friends who laugh with me, hike and ride horses with me, and who love to drink and dance.

I keep coming back to playing music-- although it's not brilliant, it's always a part of my life. I would like to find some people to share making music and start having that be a focus of the next few years. Would really love to find a teacher or two - basic theory, rhythm, harmony. Also very interested in connecting my Yamaha Motif to a computer and learning how to use Garage Band or Sibelius to record and compose for different mixes of instruments.

I'm good at paying attention and learning new things that I'm interested in. I have worked on many building projects so I am a good design brain-stormer and problem solver and I like construction and landscape work - especially if it's creative, casual and there is the reward of admiring our handywork at the end...

I've usually got a smile for people and I'm easy to talk to. I'm auburn-blonde, in fairly good shape and I can dress the part- into the city for a play or opera, camping, hippy child at the Oregon Country Fair, back-pack traveler. I'm also interested in many things so I don't easily get bored.

Books: I love the series that have come out for kids and I've read most of them. I like old classics, mysteries, thrillers, some history, some non-fiction. I read to side-track my mind at night so I read a lot.

Movies: action, comedy, drama. I watch quite a few movies rather than tv. It's a great way to make an evening special with the kids - cook a funky dinner like apple pie and whatever you scrounge from the refrigerator and watch a movie. We tend to be a little more rated R than some families but we also own Halo, and I know the movie sex scenes aren't too much for the devious parental control dodgers. Not to mention boyfriends :)

Music: my favorite is rock but I like almost everything. I play piano, guitar and I want to get more serious about understanding how music works in the coming years. Love concerts and dancing.

Food: I'm a serious gardener and I love to use what I grow. I'm definitely an omnivore, trying to be more of a vegetarian. But I love good barbecue, chicken vegetable soup with homemade bread. Seafood, sushi. Pretty adventurous although I don't like dishes when all I taste is the seasoning and not the individual ingredients. We regularly make a mess of the kitchen with wontons, eggrolls, brownies, cookies. We cook together which is a very fun way to chat, share newest favorite music and get some of the more work intensive recipes - especially the Asian chopping ones - put together in a fun way.

Family--my kids, my brother & sisters, my parents, my extended family. The mix is always expanding and I have many semi-kids that I view as part mine since they've spent so much of their lives growing up here. It takes a village and ours is cool!

Friends

Our farm--right now we've got four baby turkeys. Next week we add 10 bob-white quail chicks. On Mother's Day we plant the gardens and the summer starts with barefoot day. We had a bee swarm for the second time in an old, hollow tree. For me it is my touch-stone to spirituality.

Hobbies
Music
Adventure

What this second half of life holds for me. I'm pretty excited.

How to use my Bowflex, elliptical and farm to get a complete workout. I've always been interested in anatomy (get your mind out of the gutter!) and fitness and I've never pursued a training routine or had any kind of understanding of how to put a set of workouts together. I don't like going to the Y. It's one of my projects for this summer and probably for life to educate myself of not only working out from a strength training standpoint but also from a balance and staying mobile until I'm 87 plan. The Dirty Girl in Portland will be my first obstacle race and if it's fun, I'm hoping to do more.

And if this personality analysis can really be accurate? More sloppy, less well mannered and less pure? Can I see those questions please?

Hosting a party of teenagers at our place- making cookies, watching movies, fire in the fire pit.

Out dancing and drinking with the girls!

Sometimes, now that I'm single, just spending a quiet night enjoying peace and quiet. A side benefit of divorce that I enjoy very much.

I'm shy but put on a good act. Sometimes I need solitude to rejuvenate and find peace. Before I meet someone new, I have serious stage fright - sick to my stomach, heart racing, scattered. To quote Garth Brooks (yes, I do like country. And some Rap for that matter) "This learning to live again...is killing me"

You have places and people and dreams you're excited about and you don't mind keeping things simple for a while. I am working my way through the end of 22 years and I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. But this summer is going to be a sampler - I have not been on my own since I was 27! And I treasure feeling relaxed, joyful and excited about what and who is around me.