Honestly, how honest are we with ourselves? Oh well, because I hold Wendy, over at greenishthumb in high regard, here goes my best shot at revealing truths about myself.

1.   I’m a reader, so I don’t mind so much when it comes time to put the garden to bed.
2.   The books on my nightstand right now are: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (this one we are reading aloud), The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (my book club’s selection for this month, just started so too soon to tell, but highly recommended), and The Closers by Michael Connelly ( a Harry, short for Heironomous, Bosh crime novel and illustrative of my weakness for suspense wrapped in violence with a strong, enigmatic main character like Bosh, Jack Reacher, Virgil Flowers, and the female assassin in my daughter’s latest).
3.    Favorite garden-related books are: anything by Mirabel Osler and Crazy About Gardening by Des Kennedy.
4.   Aesthetics are usually more important to me than practical considerations, resulting in oddities like a beautifully arranged tabletop still life covered in dust. Fortunately, Richard picks up the slack there with a weekly dust-up.
5.   I’m streaky when it comes to exercise. I love to swim and dance, but since we moved out here have found no place to do either. We live half way up a hill that makes for good exercise and contact with neighbors, but my enthusiasm for it comes and goes. My plan is to start the year carrying my camera with me on walks to record the coming and going of wildflowers, newts, bugs and such…which could lead to some posts here.
6.   I came late to gardening. Full time freelancing in design and raising two kids on my own kept me busy for a lot of years. Then I started writing a newsletter for Max & Hildy’s Garden Store. The owner kept sending plants home with me so I could write about them. I found delight in the way certain Latin names roll trippingly over one’s tongue…even when butchering the pronunciation.  One thing led to another…you know how it goes.
7.   Opening my garden for the first time in ’08 was an eye-opener. I realized how much I see my own garden as I imagine it to be. There are many interesting plants here, but spread out over a large property it will take a long time for things to reach critical mass. HPSO members are inherently kind, so while humbling, the experience was, overall, a pleasant one.
8.   I fantasize about having a large frame on a wall (where a painting would normally be) where a loop of magical moments in film would show up at the flip of a switch. Most of these moments that come to mind involve dance: the grown up Billy Elliot leaping onto the stage at the end of the movie of the same name; a montage of Fred Astaire; the bit where an ordinary chair becomes Barishnikov’s dance partner in White Nights. The credits to The Three Musketeers, where D’Artagnan duels with his father in stop-action slow motion would be there too.
9.    I have a “book in a box”, thirteen chapters on gardening thoughts and experiences that just rolled out. It has even been professionally edited, but the final push required to send it out into the world for acceptance or rejection seems beyond me. Blogging suits me better.
10.   I just looked up “fetish”: 2. anything to which foolishly excessive respect or devotion is given. I have several of those, which I can rationalize as overcompensation. Last night we had dinner with friends and Ingrid and I got to talking about our shoe fetish. I went into rationalization mode, telling how my mom made all of my clothes, so that the only item I could shop for and purchase from a store was shoes. Not only that, but I have really ugly feet, so dressing them up in classy footwear made me feel better. Well, it turns out that shoe fetishes among women are nearly universal, so definition 1. an object worshipped by primitive peoples who believe it to have magical powers or to be inhabited by a spirit. is probably more on target. My other fetishes are hair and outerwear, and I won’t bore you with my rationalizations for those. What are yours?

So there are my true confessions. Now I am supposed to tag some bloggers I admire so they can play the game and we can all get to know each other better. I kind of dragged my feet getting around to this, so many of my faves have already had their say. On the bright side, that makes it easier to narrow it down to seven, and these are all blogs you will enjoy, if you have managed to stay with me so far.

http://dangergarden.blogspot.com/

http://fairegarden.wordpress.com/

http://greenwalks.wordpress.com/

http://plantedathome.com/blog/

http://mulchmaid.blogspot.com/

http://www.nestmaker.com/

http://inconsequentialblogger.blogspot.com/