Yay, HS! It's up and running! <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif"border=0><BR><BR>I love reading everyone's answers. How perfectly fascinating. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif"border=0> It's so neat to find out more about everyone and so cool that others share my love for Anne's world. <BR><BR>So, here are my answers.<BR><BR><b> Your actual age</b> 31<BR><BR><b>How old do you feel? ie. How old's your spirit? </b>About 17<BR><BR><b>Where do you live?</b> Southwestern Ohio<BR><BR><b>Describe the beauty spots around your house- think "Anne-ish" descriptions, now! </b>While I can think of better places in my surrounding area, I’ll stick to my house (if I have to! <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif"border=0>). I have a little area in my backyard that I just finished last summer. We put bricks around the base of a silver maple tree in a lovely, curving shape (from the house, out around the tree a few feet, then back again to the house). I have a few birdfeeders there, pebbles on one half, and flagstones meandering throughout the whole thing for stepping stones. The other half has some plants growing, including my very favorite flowers—violets. (I have pink, purple, and white-and-purple violets.) I have a few other favorite spots around the house: our crabapple tree is in full bloom now and quite beautiful, my lavender, my coral bells, etc.<BR><BR><b>Anne had six children - If you have some, please tell us a little about them. </b>I have two children. My oldest daughter is 7 ½, and my youngest daughter just turned 4. They are both precious, beautiful, smart, funny, exacerbating, etc. Neither of them inherited my red hair, which was a bit of a disappointment, especially since my husband’s father and both of his brothers have red hair. I can’t wait to introduce them to Anne for real when they’re old enough. (They already know about her, though!) I only wish I could've convinced my husband to let me name one of them Anne.<BR><BR><b>Age when you started reading Anne of Green Gables</b> I was 12. My best friend, Kathy (also a redhead) introduced them to me, and we both turned into Anne freaks. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif"border=0> It really shaped our lives in many ways. I can remember the two of us going on walks in the woods, pretending to be Anne and Diana (only problem was, since we were both redheads, it was hard to decide who got to be Anne!); we wrote letters to each other in high-falutin’ language, pretended our crushes were Gilbert, we believed in fairies, etc. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif"border=0> All sorts of silly, wonderful, romantic stuff!<BR><BR><b>How many of L.M. Montgomery books have you read?</b> I’ve read them all, and I have them all (as far as I know). I have 26 of them anyway, if that’s not all. Hey! She was my first obsession before LOTR! <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif"border=0><BR><BR><b>What is it about L.M. Montgomery's writing that appeals to you?</b><BR>I love her vivid descriptions of people and places. I love the optimism and beauty which permeated her writings. Anne’s adventures were funny and dramatic, and we always hoped we could have ones just like hers. We wanted the loves of our lives to be like Gilbert. (And, in many ways, mine has been.) Her stories just seem to glow. It’s hard to describe.<BR><BR><b>Describe an "Anne" moment you've had.</b> My friend and I were absolutely overflowing with joy over the first beautiful day of spring one year. We decided to go for a walk in the woods behind her house, so we traveled up through the stream. We pretended to be Anne and Diana as we wandered in the wildflowers. (We had named all of the places around our houses after the places in the book.) We kept going and walking on and on. After a long while in the woods, we came to a different part of the stream, one that was much deeper and swifter. (After all, it was spring, and we’d had a lot of rain.) Bravely, we decided to cross this stream, as we began to realize we had wandered very far from home and needed to get across to get back home. Kathy went across first with little problem. I followed, but I must have picked a much deeper part of the stream to try to cross because before I knew it I was in nearly over my head. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-rolleyes.gif"border=0> I survived, obviously, and when we finally emerged from the woods, we discovered that we had walked all the way over to the next county into the next city over from ours! <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif"border=0> (Not that far now, probably about 2-3 miles, but it was a long distance to us then.) So, we tramped home, drenched, muddy, but perfectly thrilled with our adventure. To make it even more exciting, it was just at that moment when there was a full eclipse of the sun. Pretty good adventure, I’d say. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif"border=0><BR><BR>As for the water question, I would love to live near a real creek. (We have a little creek just across the street, but b/c we live in the suburbs, they've concreted the whole thing in. Just this past summer they came in with huge machines and destroyed every single vestige of vegetation, which broke my heart. We had a muskrat living there, and I enjoyed taking the girls over to see him.)<BR><BR>But, I would also love to live near the ocean--not the tropical ocean, but something like the North Atlantic, just like Anne.<BR><BR>Blessings, <BR>Lalaith