Introductions All 'Round

Right - this blog is taking the space of a livejournal blog I've been keeping since 2004. The LiveJournal blog is going "away" - if it were a dog I'd be telling myself it was going to go live on a farm with lots of other animals and room to run around. It became a caricature of itself and when that happens it's time to move on.

I have intentions for this blog, mostly honorable, and in the vein of keeping track of my beehives and travels although of course other posts WILL sneak in.

And although I'm pretty certain there won't be many folks stumbling across this blog that don't know me personally here's a brief introduction just in case.

My name is Vanessa. Before I got married it was Vanessa Raby. You can imagine that I got married pretty darned quickly. I prefer to be called either Nes or Nessa, depending on how feminine I am feeling at the moment because the name Vanessa has always put me in mind of some sleek trust-fund female with a sports car and outrageously expensive high heels, none of which is precisely me apart from the outrageously expensive high heels and I've only got one pair so don't you dare judge me. *ahem*

I live in New Jersey with my husband, Sandy, who is in fact a man despite the name, two dogs named Nanook and Pooka, who have their own blog and so require no long-winded description here, three cats named Bear, Maya and the Handsome Cat, and at present six Old English Babydoll sheep named Larry, Curly, Moe, Rising, Jelly and Bean. Once upon a time I lived in Connecticut. I didn't have sheep there, and the dogs were much, much smaller.

I worked for a few years in NYC for a syndication company but the four hours of commuting a day made me so miserable Sandy asked me to quit. After he twisted my arm for a while I finally caved, like a spelunker in the Carlsbad Caverns. So I came to spend a lot of time at home, at which point we brought home the two puppies. I trained Nanook to be a therapy dog, and now he and I volunteer together in reading programs locally with little kids.

For fun I dabble in birdwatching and henna.

My husband and I are also uniquely blessed in his family - his mother has begun to travel to some pretty amazing places and on occasion we've been invited to join her. So I will be chronicling those journeys here.

And I've also just started keeping bees this spring. I have two hives and I intend to journal about the bees excessively. Be warned. (Note that I did NOT make the pun there. This is because I respect you.)

That pretty much covers it. Birds, bees, travel, life in New Jersey with my menagerie. Enjoy.

Nanook and I - January 2008