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.