My grandfather painted this picture of Stavanger, Norway, where he was from. The painting is hanging on my living room wall.

1. I am the oldest of six children (4 girls, 2 boys). I'm almost 18 years older than my youngest sister.
2. I was born at Edwards AFB, California.
3. I am an Air Force Brat.
4. Places where I have lived include California (Edwards AFB), Illinois, California (Atwater and Merced), California (Sacramento), Spain (Alcala de Henerez), Texas (Austin), New Mexico (Albuquerque), Utah (Logan), Idaho (Salmon), Wyoming (Rawlins), and Utah (Vernal). The list does not include temporary housing.
5. I attended four different elementary schools.
6. I attended seventh and eighth grade at three different schools.
7. Somehow I managed to attend high school all at the same school!
8. I am a graduate of David Crockett High School; Austin, Texas.
9. I graduated in the top ten percent of my class, under the "Academic Excellence Program."
10. That automatically qualified me for a full tuition scholarship at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where my father was transferred the next year.
11. The year after that I took my life into my own hands and "ran away to college" at Utah State University in Logan.
12. That was where I met my husband, Mark, and we were married March 16, 1990.
13. We have three children, now aged 14, 12, and 8 - two girls and one boy.
14. My friend, Mary, gave me a baby Nubian goat as a wedding present.
15. Before that, I was a city girl, and Mark was a cowboy, and I was afraid that he would "currupt" me.
16. Mark got a graduate degree and became a professional, and now works in an office.
17. Running the farm has been pretty much my hobby.
18. After having dairy goats for a couple of years, Mark was tired of being tied down to a milking schedule, so he gave me a spinning wheel for Christmas. The plan was that I could trade in the dairy goats for angora goats. :-)
19. I added sheep instead.
20. Several years later I added angora goats too, but still kept the dairy goats. :-)
21. It took me about a year to teach myself to spin (because it took that long to get brave enough to sit down and try it).
22. I spun wool from my own sheep, in the grease, almost exclusively, for about four years.
23. After we moved to Vernal and had been there for a while, I met some other spinners, and became a founding member of the Uintah Basin Fibre Outlaws spinning guild.
24. At this point I branched out into other fibers (including washed fiber that didn't turn my hands black).
25. It was also at this time when I learned to use spindles of various kinds - top-whorl, bottom-whorl, Navajo, supported, etc. They are convenient and portable, and I spin on spindles almost as much as on my wheels. That's right, wheels became plural. They multiply.
26. I thought I recognized the author of the pamphlet which came with my very first drop spindle. That was Connie Delaney, of Salmon, Idaho, where I lived when I got my spinning wheel (although we moved to Wyoming before I learned to use it). I used to babysit her goat. Interesting that I learned to spindle from her through literature two moves later.
27. I am first-generation American. (on my father's side)
28. I have an ancestor who came on the Mayflower. (on my mother's side)
29. Many of my ancestors were Mormon pioneers, who came mostly from Europe.
30. I am one eighth Swedish.
31. I am one eighth Danish.
32. I am one eighth Swiss.
33. I am one eighth English (approximately - that is the line that traces back to the Mayflower, of course).
34. My father was born in Norway.
35. I inherited my interest in knitting from my Norwegian grandmother. She lived in California after emigrating to the U.S.
36. I learned to knit at the age of 11, when I was living in Spain. The first person who taught me barely knew the basics.
37. From there, I taught myself, using library books, and just reading the instructions for patterns I wanted to try, as I went.
38. My grandmother gave me two knitting lessons. Once when she visited us in Texas (she converted me from English to Continental style).
39. I inherited my grandmother's knitting needle collection.
40. I knitted my first sweater when I was about 16.
41. When I was 18 I knitted two more sweaters for myself.
42. I still have one of them.
43. Not sure what happened to the first one - my mother probably has it in a box somewhere.
44. The other one was made in really icky cheap yarn that cut into my fingers when I was knitting, and stuck to everything. I finally got rid of it a couple of years ago.
45. The sweater curse is true. I knitted a sweater for a boyfriend that year too, and he dumped me.
46. His mother paid me to knit two sweaters for his little sister.
47. I had to knit one for my dad also - he liked the boyfriend sweater better than the boyfriend did - should have given it to him instead.
48. I started learning Norwegian and studying Norwegian culture after my Norwegian grandparents had died and I regretted how little I actually knew them. Since I was 11 years old when we moved to Spain, and I never lived in California again, I only saw them about five times after I was 11 years old.
49. I look Norwegian, except that I am short (5'1).
50. My hair is light brown, and very long - past my waist.
51. My eyes are hazel.
52. I am vegetarian, and become more strictly so with each year as I become used to it.
53. This has happened gradually, over the last 4 years or so.
54. I never could stand to eat anything that looked like an animal or a face, including animal crackers, chocolate Easter bunnies, etc.
55. Eventually I realized that it made more sense not to eat meat, although I still don't eat anything that looks like an animal either.
56. I started becoming a vegetarian by avoiding meat as a main dish.
57. Now I don't put meat in anything that I am cooking for myself.
58. I do eat fish. I am half Norwegian, afterall.
59. I love music.
60. I play the flute, recorders, Irish whistle, piano (not as well as I would like) and am learning the violin since Mark gave one to me for Christmas.
61. I like to sing too, even though I don't have a really great voice. It's okay though.
62. I love languages.
63. I can count to ten in Korean.
64. I took one semester of Chinese.
65. I took two quarters of Sign Language.
66. I have a minor in Spanish.
67. I am self-taught in Norwegian (with the help of many books and helpful people on the internet).
68. My Norwegian is probably better than my Spanish ever was.
69. I love animals.
70. The menagerie currently includes 20 or so Navajo-Churro Sheep, 2 La Mancha dairy goats, 2 Angora goats, 1 llama, 1 angora rabbit, 3 chickens, 2 dogs, 1 turtle, and 10 fish. (This was accurate in 2003-2004 and I'm not updating the counts because I can't keep track these days).
71. We are seriously trying to cut down on how many animals we have, mostly because I am hoping to go to graduate school. Let me know if you are interested in some sheep! (This is still true!)
72. I'm a nut.
73. The animals and related hobbies were the main thing that kept me reasonably sane, up until the effect wore off over the last few years.
74. It worked for about 10 years.
75. It is not cheaper than therapy. Both may be tax deductible, but the hay bill really adds up fast, and is not covered by insurance.
76. The first thing that I wanted to be when I grew up was a teacher.
77. I am not all that good with kids, especially large groups of them.
78. I guess I am a teacher though - we homeschool.
79. I also wanted to be a musician.
80. Too many people told me that it was too hard to make it as a musician, and I wasn't good enough, so I gave that up.
81. Musical talent does run in my family though (both sides), and I'm pretty good on recorders.
82. The next thing that I wanted to be was a psychologist.
83. My major was psychology my first year of college.
84. I changed it to communicative disorders the next year because I didn't think that I would be accepted in psychology.
85. I added psychology as a second major during my Junior year.
86. I didn't get accepted to graduate school in speech pathology.
87. I like psychology better anyway.
88. I am a full-time student again, after being out for 12 years, and now I'm a psychology major again.
89. There are several reasons why I went back to school. My kids are old enough now that I don't have to be home with them all the time. I have a need to be challenged, and the farm wasn't enough anymore. I realized that this was something I could do afterall.
90. I'm going to write a book some day. Probably more than one.
91. Maybe I'll start with an autobiography.
92. If I don't get into graduate school next year, I'll go ahead and start on the book this summer or fall.
93. If I don't get into graduate school I will also write a novel in November for NaNoWriMo. (I'm also not editing the part about writing plans, although they are still dreams that I don't act on).
94. I've always been a fan of continuing education, which can include taking classes as well as independent study, reading, and participating in educational activities.
95. I think that life experience should count for something too.
96. I have several alternative names or nicknames.
97. I'm not going to tell you what my grandfather called me when I was little, although I still remember.
98. In the Society for Creative Anachronism I am known as Lady Åsa Gunnarsdatter.
99. Gunnar is my father's real name, and I have a great-great-grandmother named Åsa.
100. Rapunzel is my name in a couple of groups where aliases are used, and I answer to it, as well as Åsa or Wendy.

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