I'm a married, stay/work-at-home mom of two. My son is 2.5 and my daughter was born earlier this summer.

Creating has always been a part of my life, in some form or another. As a child, I loved to get my hands dirty. Paint, pastels, crayola, clay, whatever. I learned to sew when I was seven, but I did NOT like it. (My grandmother was a seamstress and my mother grew up making her own clothes. It was a lot of pressure.) I turned to writing and even managed a few unimpressive publishing credits before I rediscovered theatre.

Since I am NOT an actor, I quickly moved from on stage to behind the scenes, where I stumbled into costume design and construction. I was home. I was in college at the time and changed my major to technical theatre with a focus in costume design. I took grunt jobs with different theatre companies, design jobs where I could find them and, eventually, was working professionally.

When my son was born, I started accepting smaller contracts and began creating in other forms. I returned to sewing everyday clothes. Discovered useful things like breast pads that let me create something both fun and functional out of fabric.

Eventually, I was persuaded to join a quilt block swap with a handful of friends. None of us had any real quilting experience, though all of us had some level of sewing ability. Quilting has always fascinated me, but I'd always been a little intimidated by it. But creating those blocks... I was hooked. I've since finished a number of small quilted projects (pot holders, etc) and an almost embarrassing number of blocks. My first full quilt is nearing completion and I'm really excited to see it finally all coming together.

In addition to sewing/quilty goodness, I've recently rediscovered a love of baking and am (slowly) gaining confidence in gardening.

Otherwise, my interests tend to be many and varied. I love my cats. I miss the dog we had to rehome before we moved halfway across the country earlier this summer. I miss the theatre. I want to get back into stage combat before I lose the muscle memory. (I'm a member of the SAFD, having passed in small sword, rapier & dagger, knife and unarmed combat. Which people often find funny since I'm such a pacifist.) I do a lot of research and have taken some major steps towards simplifying things for my family. We eat simply, close to the source. I make my own cleaners and soap and deodorant and the like. I like to think that it'll make things healthier and easier for my kids in the long run.

And I tend to ramble. ;)

For anyone reading my profile for swap research, not all of my photos are on flickr. You can also check out my blog at www.searchingforthegood.blogspot.com or peek at my blog's photobucket at s561.photobucket.com/home/searchingforthegood. Thanks!