About Me
I’ve had some kind of block lately and have to force myself to write. This is an exercise.
The website name was also an exercise in self-acceptance many years ago. I grew up disliking my name, but in retrospect that may have been because people only called me by it when they were angry. I wanted to make an effort, because it seems like if I like myself, then I must like Janel.
I was born in western Washington 52 years ago, and thought it was okay because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Then we moved to north California when I was about 13 and I found out there were alternatives. My dad took us to a somewhat remote place, a valley at the end of a road. I want to talk about that more in a while. It’s already on my Blogspot blog Then I got trapped up here again and been trying to escape ever since. There is a way out of this murky muck without leaving Washington– it’s called Eastern Washington, and that plan has moved to the preparation stage.
About me. Hm. Well, I’m decently smart if I pay attention, which isn’t always. I have a variety of interests to keep me amused. If a few people are okay with me, that’s more than enough. Was that enlightening? I’m a mammal, breathe oxygen, etc.
Internet publishing caught my attention from early on, when ISPs naturally came with hosting and everyone had a yourhost.com/~you. My diary and photos of my children went up instantly.
Check out my personal blog that’s been around forever, at https://janelwashere.blogspot.com/
The Barbie patterns came later. I had to invent a pattern for my daughters’ 1999 new body Barbies, so I might as well share it. It’s fun to get attention and receive nice letters from around the world.
Here’s me current as of recently, having not had a bath for some time since this is our cold new home and there’s no water but what we bring.

Howzat for a big old Cheshire cat. Just happy to be home. I’ve wanted a home for a really long time now.
Hi! Are you the Janel who posted a recipe for “Carob Blobs” some time ago?
Yes that was me. However did you come across that?
I forget what I was looking for when I first found the recipe, but I blundered back into your site looking for Barbie patterns!
“Janel” is a pretty distinctive name, so it stuck in my head, along with the comment along the lines of “If you say chocolate cookies, people have expectations.” Is the recipe still online?
Oh that’s funny, I remember that now. The kind of thing I would say haha. Well the only chocolate cookie ish recipe I invented and still have is this one. If you recall if it had mint in it, then this would be it 😊
CAROB MINT HONEY
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 – 3/4 cups honeyÂ
3 – 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp soda
1 cup carob
2 tsp mint