I love being with family and friends, especially somewhere outside. My dogs, playing music, and cycling occupy a lot of my time. It's a wonderful life.

I like to keep busy and sometimes have to force myself to slow down, but mostly not. A good number of my friends think I'm a little bit nuts for having so much on my plate at once, but for the most part that's HOW I balance my life. Sure, I feel guilty when I spend a lot of time on my butt, but sometimes that's the greatest motivator.

About a year-and-a-half ago I started playing music again. I've been very, very lucky to have played with several Tallahassee ensembles whose members have been forgiving of my rusty chops (not so rusty anymore). It can be rough sometimes; I'm with a group now that plays the most difficult pieces I've seen, and after a 9 year hiatus, I often have to work at it. I don't think I'll ever give it up again, though.

I recently got another dog. He's about 3 and he pushes my poor 12 year old pup around. But they mostly get along and it's great watching him really learn how to be a dog (he was a breeder before and came from a rescue).

I LOVE baseball. Yep, don't know all the ins-and-outs, but love to watch and especially go to games. I'm a pretty die-hard Red Sox fan, but not as dogmatic as you'd think, probably because I'm from a family of Yankees and have at least one good friend who also roots for them. Also follow FSU baseball very closely, but didn't go to school there.

It seems that I've gotten really involved in the community here, for volunteering, playing music, and having fun. Not sure how that happened, but learned pretty quickly that Tallahassee has a lot of awesome people, if you know where to look. ; )

Protecting the beauty and resources of our state.

Filling it up with fun things.

Enjoying it.

connect four, cupcakes, pizza, cycling, my job, not setting off metal detectors, multitasking while brushing my teeth (which, for some reason annoys my parents to no end when I visit them)

my laugh; alright, you may notice something else FIRST, but I laugh easily and if you hear it you will never forget it; you'd probably also notice my eyes and my smile, which is kinda unavoidable. : )

Books: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Best American Short Stories, Sherlock Holmes, Persepolis, anything by Vonnegut and Bradbury, just finished Logicomix and loved it (I seem to find a great graphic novel every once in awhile)

Movies: Usually something funny, although funny or not I will often go for foreign or indie (the good ones; there's a lot of crap, too); like Woody Allen (haven't seen it all), most things with Paz Vega, remember liking Amelie, Batman Begins, Juno, and Joe Dirt (wide range, eh?)

TV: the preferred medium (less of a time commitment); Northern Exposure (favorite show EVER), Firefly (working my way through it), Dead Like Me, Warehouse 13, and the slightly more pedestrian, NCIS, CSI (Miami; used to watch the original obsessively, but lost track during the writer's strike; David Caruso is SO badass), Top Chef, Bones, House (apparently some part of me is attracted to older curmudgeonly men), etc., etc.

Music: Mates of State (favorite band EVER), almost anything Brazilian, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Al Green (got to play "Love and Happiness" on stage in G'ville), Fleet Foxes, The Flaming Lips, Santogold, Weezer, Bon Iver, the Pixies, and lots, lots more; I've seen more live shows than I can possibly remember and loved most of them (and destroyed my hearing in the process)

Food: Asian veggie dumplings, bubble tea, pizza, beer

Family
Friends
My dogs
My bike (nothing can be wrong when I'm out riding)
The outdoors
Flip flops; the $3 kind from Target will do just fine; wear them well below 50 degrees

water, nature: for work and for fun, but too much for work; although it's very gratifying, I'd rather be out enjoying it instead of pushing papers.

Also spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to do next; nearly always something on each day of the calendar.

Realizing that I don't really have a typical Friday night. The most common occurrence is out dancing, but even that is pretty sporadic. I do like to be out somewhere, but not even at my fav bar on that night, cause it's usually slammed and not so fun; 7pm on a Sat there is the best.

I'm adopted, although the adoption itself is really the only thing that's private about it. I end up telling total strangers when I meet them because my last name points to a certain ethnicity and they say, "ohhh, so you're . . . " and I say, "no, actually I'm not, I'm . . . ." That being said, my [adoptive] parents are the best a girl could have.

you: have a bawdy sense of humor, like the "outdoors," read, like dogs, speak Portuguese, know a place in Tallahassee where I can get a decent bubble tea (Far East does NOT count)