Welcome

This is my second attempt at writing a post to introduce myself. I went to bed pretty frustrated last night with my inability to portray all the aspects of who I am in an accurate and interesting manner. Which is a great example of a pesky personality trait of mine – perfectionism. We have a love hate relationship. I love possessing the perseverance to do things well, but I hate the sometimes crippling effect of not being able to let a project go if it doesn’t meet my, usually unrealistic, standard. So, instead of anally trying to condense all of “me” into a couple paragraphs, I’ll just create a few snapshots of who I am over the next few days and give a more scholastic profile later.

Snapshot 1: My Family

Family is a very important part of my life. Although I’d like to think I escaped many pitfalls of being the youngest child (of two), I’m aware of a few residual effects from being “the baby” and only girl. Most prominent is my ability to badger people, especially my mom, into doing things with me, like making cupcakes.

I adore my brother Tim, 23 – I could say more but that would be a whole different post. We like to see how many Fletch and Fletch Lives quotes we can integrate into normal conversation. My mom and I share the same spirit of exploration and love of food, which usually end up combined into some culinary adventure. I have a step-sister (Tina, 27) and step-brother (Ben, 24) who have made me Auntie Em three times over in the last 14 months.

I’m fortunate to have close extended family as well. The MO Stews as my family calls them (short for their location and last name abbr.) are like a second set of parents and brothers. Because I go to school where they live, I have the joy of spending a lot of time with them. Someone usually ends up in tears (from laughing of course) when we all get together.

My family is anything but typical. We make up words, my brother and I don’t fight, and we laugh A LOT.