Hello Steemit - from @ducksaplenty

Looking up.jpg

(Sure, I might have been confused about where to look when this picture was taken, but let's assume I am looking upward because the future of Steemit is so bright!)

Hello Steemit,

This is my #introduceyourself post even though I have been here since June 2017 and posted my first post then. That's 8 months for the math-averse, and perhaps requires a little explanation. More on that later. For now, who is this person and where did she come from? What are her interests and what might she contribute to this lovely meeting place of creative and interesting people?

My name is Chris though I go by @ducksaplenty here on Steemit.

Chris 9 Christmas.jpg

(Here I am at 8 years old. I started looking up early apparently.)

I come from a time before hair products…..from Oregon in the 1970's.

Chris and Jayna Chris grad.jpg

(OK, one with me looking down. At least you know my neck is not stuck in that postion.)
Here I am with my sister

@jayna at my college graduation. Look how little and cute she is! I think I made that jumper for her. I think she forgave me later, and I think she is wearing a top under that jumper, but you never can tell with some people. By this point it is the '80's, but still no hair products for me. I lived in a Natural History interest house in college, and shaggy was de rigueur.

@jayna and I grew up in Portland, Oregon in a big family. As young adults, she and I moved to Northern California where our extended family is from, and lived there for 18 years. Her 3 kids and my 2 kids were born in San Francisco, Davis and Sacramento. Then both families moved to Minnesota in 2005 and 2006 and settled in. I had lived in Minnesota before and liked it, and her husband is from here. Seemed like the thing to do. Coming from the Pacific Northwest though, I thought snow was something pretty to look at on mountains. I have since been educated on this point. Snow is not kidding around. Snow knows where you live. Do not make eye contact.

(Mt Hood in Oregon. I am probably up there on the mountain somewhere, too small to see. But wherever I am when this photo was taken, you can bet I'm looking up!)

My marriage to my children's father ended fairly amicably. When I started dating again, I met a very interesting man here in Minnesota who made me laugh and liked doing a lot of the things I like to do. @preparedwombat and I have been together for 7 years but only got married this past October, which is why I was so busy after my first Steemit post in June. I was planning a sweet little wedding at @jayna's house. Like me, @preparedwombat isn't from around here. Where I was a transplant from the West Coast, he was a transplant from the East, born in New York and raised in New Jersey. I think our status as auslanders gives us a similar outlook on our chosen frozen home.

(Still looking up! Went to Chicago, saw the sights, looking up all the time.) As for what I want to bring to Steemit, the core of it is storytelling. I love creative non-fiction writers like David Sedaris, David Rakoff, Anne Lamott, Bill Bryson and others. I love their humor and would love to weave a story for a reader that, while based on something that actually happened, is crafted like a work of fiction, is beautifully written and makes people laugh. When I really hit my stride in my posts, I feel like I can see the last of the sunset glow on the last mountain in the enormous mountain chain those authors conquered long ago, but what is life without goals!

Another interest of mine is food and nutrition. My first active month on Steemit was last month, January, during which I did the Whole30 cleanse and wrote blog posts about it. It was an amazing journey full of unexpected benefits. I lost 10 pounds which I did expect, but I also lost a 20 year old sleep disorder and long standing muscle and joint aches I thought were age-related. Turned out it was just the old feedbag. Hallelujia!

(Yup, still looking up.) Bottom line, I may do some posts about food and nutrition as well. Those are topics I can really get excited about, especially now that the cleanse I just did has had such a monumental impact on my life. I may write about my loving, mad hatter, gentle giant, prepper husband—how happy he makes me would not make a great story. How flipping freaky his dream life is, now there's a great story! I might write about my garden, about which I am something of a tiresome zealot (I love love love it so with all its little green sprouty bits!), about our dog Bacci who is my fan girl, or about parenting a teen and a twenty-something. My kids, god bless 'em, are just as uppity and know-it-all and useless-regarding-chores as everybody else's kids are, but I'm crazy about both of them and think they may actually become civilized one day. My wonderful step-son @troubledsoles is already civilized, though he hasn't posted on Steemit lately. I will stop short of singing his praises here as I don't want this to devolve into a tacky Christmas letter. I'll just have to post about him too.

I am happy to be here on Steemit and look forward to seeing where this wonderful platform will go. As far as I can tell, there are few limitations and near boundless possibilities. That is a wonderful thing.

Thanks for reading, Steem on!

Whoops, I just remembered, you are supposed to give a shout out to whoever is responsible for you being here. As you probably guessed it was my husband, @preparedwombat. He is also responsible for introducing my sister @jayna and my step-son @troubledsoles to Steemit as well. The circle of Steemians around this guy is growing ever bigger. Next his brother, my other sisters, my friends, my kids....who can say where it will end!