Silvara's Lensography

As of December 27th, 2011, I am a 33 year old, blonde (bet you would never have guessed the blonde from my avatar, ne?) California girl. I've lived in California for most of my life, with an 11 year stint on the east coast.

I'm 4'11", with straight hair past my butt. This means I frequently get mistaken for much younger than my 33 years. How many 33-year-olds can say they get given the 12-and-under menu at restaurants and offered a lollipop?! *laughs* This has amused friends and family to no end over the years, it used to be a game. Find a restaurant we'd never gone to before, and see how old the server thought I was.

I love musicals. Especially Phantom of the Opera and Rent. Phantom has been my love ever since junior high, when I'm bored and no one is around I'll sing it to myself. One of my cats is also addicted. If I can't find her and she doesn't come when called, all I have to do is sing the opening theme and she comes running!

I also love to swim, go horseback riding, ice and roller skate, read, spend Way Too Much Time on the computer, and hang out with friends.

My favorite ice cream in the world is Ben and Jerrys Wavy Gravy. Unfortunately, they discontinued it years ago. It was caramel, cashews, brazil nuts, roasted almonds, and chocolate hazelnut fudge, all swirled together in vanilla ice cream. They keep saying if enough people Request They Bring It Back they will. But it was discontinued in 2003 and I haven't seen them resurrect it yet.

I'm also addicted to nearly everything Peter Pan. I've loved that mythos ever since I was a small child. I must have more than 20 versions of the book, as well as other books written in that world by other authors. I played both Twins in my high school play senior year, and it was such a blast!

I also love and collect My Little Ponies. I have over 300 from the 80's, plus a number of the playsets. I have less than 15 of the newest version, but they look much more like the origional than any of the versions that came between. So I may start picking up a few here and there.

Anime is another thing I am addicted to. My favorite over-all that I've seen so far is Fushigi Yugi. I also like Fruits Basket, Utena, Saber Marionette J, Ranma, Kenshin, Inuyasha, Ouran High School Host Club, and others. I love it so much, I created an amazon store dedicated to Anime, Manga, and 80's toys. Silver Fantasy Anime

This year I've gotten back into crochet. It's fun and easy to do, and I can do it while watching TV which makes it seem like I'm doing more than sitting on the couch and being lazy! *grins* Of course that also means I end up with lots of different projects going on at once. I admit, I'm easily distracted. Right this minute, I'm working on a throw for the back of the couch (about 1/3 of the way done), a few twirl scarves in various colors and stages of completion, a 'patchwork' blanket, and my 'do I remember how to do all this stuff' blanket I started at the beginning of the year. The blanket will fit a full-sized bed when it's done, but I still have another foot or so to do and of course has been put last in my projects as it was my experiment. You can see some of the stuff I've completed and chosen not to keep on Etsy.

My pets are a huge part of my life. I have no children and don't plan on having any, so my cats are spoiled rotten.

I have 2 cats, sisters from the same litter. I got them in late 2002 when they were 6 weeks old and on their way to the pound. On Halloween day. They came from a litter of 7, all female, all calico, and all but the runt were polydactyl. That means they had more than the usual number of toes. That is apparently a normal mutation in siamese.

Miles is the short-haired one, she's dilute calico. And while she is every bit as stubborn as her sister, she also usually does what she is told. Even if she knows she's going to the vet (which she Hates!) she comes when I call her. She is deffinately the one in charge, as if her sister doesn't listen to me when she's in trouble, Miles will run up and smack her across the back of the head with her paw! She loves when I sing Phantom to her, and will climb into my lap and paw at my face if I stop.

Kaylynn is a total brat child. She even answers if I yell "Brat child!" She never comes when called, and when she gets in trouble she assumes one of her 'aren't I so cute?' poses. She was the runt of the litter and is the only one that had the normal number of claws. She also got the siamese love of talking. While Miles hardly ever speaks, Kaylynn only shuts up if she's asleep!

I also have a 55-gallon tank, and a 20-gallon tank. In the 20, I have 1 male white African Cichlid and 3 yo-yo loaches. In the 55 I have 10 gold barbs, 3 corydoras catfish, 6 oto catfish, 5 yo-yo loaches, 1 bristlenose pleco, and 1 male betta. Guess you can tell I like bottom dwellers, ne? *laughs* For those of you who have read the fish listing before, my female bettas passed away earlier this year. Instead of getting another school of them, I decided to move everything from the 20 to my 55 and get a cichlid as I have never had them before. After three MONTHS of trying to catch the loaches, I finally gave up and just read up to see if they could live with the cichlid. Turns out they can, and everyone has gotten along so I suppose it all works out.

Besides my tanks, I am now also caring for a 55-gallon tank for my father. In THAT tank, we have 5 baby koi (under 5in long each, and he will be building a koi pond to house them in next spring.) Out of the 5 koi, 2 are solid black, 1 is this really weird patchwork of 4 different shades of gold including metallic, plus white and black, 1 is metallic gold with a black stripe along her spine, and the 5th is white and brilliant coppery orange in patches with bits of black here and there. The largest is a black koi at 5in, the smallest is the orange at just over 3in. All of them are females and get along well together.

Miles:

Kaylynn:

Besides Cali, I've lived in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Colorado. And no, my family wasn't military, we just moved around a lot when I was growing up and I seem to have continued the 'tradition' now that I'm an adult. I really, really HATE packing...hey! That gives me an idea for a lens!

I've been a member of Squidoo since November of 2007. I usually read the posts in SquidU even when I'm not commenting myself. I have 35 published lenses with at least 2 more lenses in the works, at the time I'm writing this. While this may not be many compared to say, the Giant Squids, I think it's quite a bit for me!

I love meeting new people and talking about almost anything, feel free to leave me a comment. I won't bite. Usually!

As of October 5th 2010 I am now a Squid Angel and will be taking my turn for the next 30 days. I don't know how the others find the lenses they bless, but for me I plug in a random search word or string and then anything that comes up even if it isn't on that topic, gets a skim through. If the title and sample blurb sounds interesting, it gets opened in a new tab and I continue till I've reached the end of the search. If the lens is good even if it isn't something I'm particularly interested in, you get a blessing. If it's not so good, I just go on to the next.

I'm learning SO much I didn't know before about all sorts of different things by doing this. Such as, did you know Play-doh was not originally made for children? It was supposed to be a wallpaper cleaning product! And that if you have a mint condition Barbie from 1959 it could be worth close to ten THOUSAND dollars?