PJ

Oct 9/12 Update ... and that didn't work! It's been another couple of weeks since I've been able to get online. I'm getting rating right now! Thanks for all the "miss you" messages amongst my profile comments - I miss you all too and will be getting messages to you eventually - but ratings first!

Sept 20/12 Update
After a couple of horrendously busy weeks on both the home and work front, I'm behind on my rating and responding to messages, but should be caught up in the next few days. Apologies to all who are anxiously waiting ...

Hi! Pleased to "meet" you! My name is Pam, and this is my profile. I hope it helps you get to know me a little bit, but if you have any questions, please feel free to send me a PM. I should tell you a little bit about myself ...

I am:
a woman
a Christian
a priest (of the Anglican variety)
a daughter, a sister, and a friend
a Canadian
an environmentalist
an animal lover
an artist

I Collect:
Things related to my favourite things, as listed below. For example, I have a teapot collection, a flamingo collection, etc. And now, I guess, I also collect ATC's, handmade postcards, mail art, and other crafty things I've received from swap-bot swappers!

I'm all about the paper crafting these days. ATC's and Inchies. Handmade postcards and other mail art. The occasional bookmark or skinny, and I finally found myself a used rolodex at a garage sale, so I can swap them too.

Paper crafting for me involves glue (and sometimes tape), markers (love my PITT artist pens!), watercolour pencils, stickers, and paint. If I can apply the paint with my hands, so much the better! There is a LOT of recycling that goes on. I use cereal boxes and the like for my base. Old book pages are often the background. Cut off slivers of paper from one piece often find their way into the next one. No wonder my craft area is a mess!

Other crafts that I love but never seem to find the time to do include jewelry making and cross stitch. Or is it that I can't find the the room in my above-noted messy craft area? This means that I have a stash of beads that I never play with, and a lot of colourful floss sitting unused. Really gotta get this place cleaned up! I'm also a sporadic journaller and an amateur photographer who has recently made the switch to digital and now needs to make the time to figure out how to work with this new medium.

Things I Absolutely Love: teapots, flamingos, cardinals, Noah's Ark, pj's, John Cusack, 80's music, canoes, the number 8, Rome, the Eiffel Tower, St. Francis of Assissi, mountains, cameras/photography (not suggesting you send me a real one, just an image of one!), cute snails, fluffy lambs/sheep ... will add more things as I think of them.

Favourite Colours:
I'm pretty easy going about colour. My least favourite is probably yellow, but I don't hate it, and I can be a little fussy about green - love some shades and not so much others. I'm most consistently attracted to jewel tones (purple, red, blue). I'm a little turqoise obsessed too. One of my favourite pieces of clothing is an orange leather jacket my friend bought me years ago. But much of the rest of my clothing wardrobe is black. So make of all that what you will, and feel free to send me whatever colours YOU enjoy working with!

Favourite Writers:
John D. MacDonald, Dick Francis, Thomas Hardy, P.D. James, Margaret Atwood, C.S. Lewis, Douglas Adams, and more. Other than the dense theological tomes I read when preparing sermons, I mostly read mystery novels!

Hi, my name is Pam, and I'm a carb addict. And a 20+ year vegetarian who doesn't really like vegetables O_o

I love to bake, and to eat baked goods. Sadly, I do far more of the latter than the former. Since my favourite foods are bread, cheese, and tomatoes, pizza is a big hit with me. But please don't send me any pizza! Feel free to send me chocolate or candy, though :-) I like most kinds of chocolate (except white chocolate), especially with caramel, crispy things, peanuts, etc. When I took a trip to France I discovered "Lion" chocolate bars and loved them so much I brought a small stash home with. They are long gone though, so I would love some more. I like most kinds of chewy candy too - licorice, jelly beans, ju jubes, etc. Chocolate covered ju jubes combine the best of both worlds! But as a vegetarian, I have to ask you to check labels to ensure that anything you're sending doesn't include gelatin - I can't eat that :-(

I drink both tea and coffee, and it is so nice to find a new or different tea bag tucked into a swap package! But I am pretty boring when it comes to tea! I like orange pekoe and black tea. English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, things like that. Pretty standard drink-with-milk-and-sugar teas, either with or without caffeine. I also like chai, rooibos, and teas flavoured with vanilla, chocolate, and warm and cozy flavours like that. Sorry, I don't like Earl Grey or green tea, and I would prefer to receive only individually wrapped tea bags. We just don't know each other that well, you know?

I wish I could promise that you will never find animal hair in a package I send, but that's probably an unrealistic promise. I am badly outnumbered by my animals over here! I do try to check for hairs before I send things out though, and I can promise that you won't find excessive amounts ...

I have 2 dogs. Taz is an 9-10 year old brown pitbull who started out as my foster dog but was quickly adopted when I realized what a treasure he is. When I got him, he was recovering from having been found tied to a tree in a park, starving to death and with a tongue so badly infected they had to remove 40% of it. Taz is a big fan of vets and vet techs, and would happily have lived out his life in the clinic being handfed from their lunchboxes. However, he has adjusted to a life of luxury with me, even though it means he has to eat his food from a bowl like a normal dog! In contrast to Taz's mellowness, my new dog Kita, a 1 year old Boxer/Fila mix, is a real handful! Abandoned by the side of the road at 6 mos old, it is possible that she was abused in the past and a certainty that she was not properly trained or socialized. She and I are trying to figure out how to make this work - she needs a lot of exercise and even more patience! We even started her on some anti-anxiety meds in an effort to calm her down. Everyone says she's stunning - muscular and statuesque, with brindle colouring all over except for a small patch of white on her chest. But please don't look right at her - it freaks her out!

As if that wasn't enough, there are 4 cats in this crazy household of mine. Ella is a 9-10 year old short-haired female cat. She has really lovely grey and white markings and incredibly soft fur. She's a bit aloof, and doesn't love the other cats. But when she's in the mood, she likes to be kissed on the forehead, and then licks my nose in return. Tryst is Ella's arch-enemy. The vet really isn't sure how old he is, but is starting to think he's close to Ella's age. He's a large, short-haired black cat with a loving personality that turned him from foster cat into forever friend. Sadly, poor Tryst is missing all but 2 teeth as his jawbone had deteriorated too much to support the rest. On the plus side, his cute little tongue tends to stick out of his mouth because of it. Adorable! Tryst is a not-quite-a-million dollar kitty - he had a very expensive operation to remove over 30 gallstones in summer 2012.

I also have 2 younger cats, both found as kittens in the same park system (found them just over 1 year apart). GG, also known by his street name, Lil G is a grey tabby who was found at about 8 weeks old. He'd been out there for a couple of days already, according to neighbours, and although he was terrified of people, hunger overcame fear and I was able to grab him. He's a short-haired grey tabby, and his name stands for "grey goose" because while I was trying to catch him I kept calling him a silly little goose for running away. GG has more energy than he can burn - but he sure does try! He runs around the house until he collapses, panting. Luckily his buddy Reflex came along to play chase with him. Reflex is a beautiful brown tabby with long hair. I call him God's birthday present to me, because I found him on the side of the road the day after my birthday, fall 2011. He was about 6 months old, and the poor little guy was so hungry he was eating dirt. I picked him up and although I tried to find his owner, no one claimed him. I resisted naming him for 2 whole weeks, hoping I could find someone to take him, and then a Duran Duran song came on ... "the Reflex is a lonely child, he's waiting by the park ..." And so he got his name and became part of the family too.

Like all pet parents, I have loved and lost too many furry friends. In Memorium: Mickey, Prince, Phantom, Nero, Chaos, Roots, Sammi, Jackson, Sigmund, and Yaz.

to be continued ...

Regarding extras, I'm not here for the "stuff." I'm here to stimulate my own creativity, and to share in others' creative efforts too. Now that I've been doing this for a while, I've built up quite a large stash of my own. I hesitate to say "don't send me any extras" because maybe you have the perfect thing for me lying around and you'd like to share. If so, please don't hesitate to send it to me - I'm sure I'll love it! But please don't send extras for the sake of sending extras - the things that will mean the most to me are a decorated envelope, a little note telling me about yourself, or something you aren't using that you know I'll love. No purchase necessary.

I may send out extras too, but not always. For example, if I have some paper or stickers I think you'd like, I might send some, or if I notice that I have a paper punch that's on your wishlist, I might send some punchies from it. I might tuck a teabag in with the swap, and I almost always make the time to write a little note. When I have time, I decorate the envelopes that I send my swaps in.

Regarding hearts, I like to give them out, but I don't give one for every single swap. I give hearts for swaps that show extra creativity and effort, or a special regard for my likes and interests.

This is the place where I can write little love notes to myself ... ok, seriously, this is where I keep a few little reminders to myself about how "markdown" works. You can skip past this bit ...

To insert a picture do this:
! [alternate text for your picture] (http link) (but remove the spaces between the 3 elements)

To make a clicky link do the same thing without the !

Thanks to @spinjenny for posting this info on a thread in the PF's.

And a link to a nice simple tutorial about formatting other things using Markdown