Moi

Seven “interesting” things about me?
I guess it depends on the interests of who’s reading, but here goes…

1) I once worked at Kennedy Space Center as editor of a NASA publication. The photo was taken during the filming of the movie “Armageddon.” That’s me to the immediate right of Bruce Willis (his left). Sorry the image is wonky; I had to scan it in with my 4-year-old daughter "helping" me. Too bad I’m not a Willis fan, but meeting Willis sure impressed my then 11-year-old son. I was more impressed with the Israeli astronaut (who flew on Columbia’s last mission), who signed the publication for me in Hebrew, and I gave it to my son. I now live on a horse farm in the Middle of Nowhere and work from home as a technical editor for a couple of knitting magazines.

2) I knit - a lot. I also spin yarn on a spinning wheel and on drop spindles. (There’s a good reason they call it a “drop” spindle.) I’ve spun wool, cotton, silk, flax, and qiviut (anybody wanna take a guess what that is? No peekin’ on google.)

3) I’ve lived as a student and worker in Australia, France, and Israel, but I would also like to visit or live in Greece at some point before the Lord calls me to a heavenly home. I see on Cristina’s blog (http://baptist-girl.blogspot.com/) that she was born in France, and one of the towns in which she lived was Metz. Cristina, I studied in Nancy in the early ‘80s. Nancy (pronounced Nawn-SEE) is the stop before Metz as one heads from Paris to the Alsace/Lorraine region, which was once part of Germany. In fact, the cuisine there bears a German influence, but I digress…

4) I know French and Hebrew fairly well, and have studied classical Arabic, but Greek is – sigh – all Greek to me.

5) I grew up in a Christian home, where both parents were believers, but they separated and later divorced. I learned a lot about what I didn’t want in a marriage from that, but I also really missed my dad. The only way to see him when I was 13 was to attend church with him. I learned a lot about what I didn’t like in Christianity that way. There were a lot of crazy tongues and healings going on there – much of what I see Paul discussing in 1 Corinthians. It may well have been part of my decision to convert to Judaism. (Hey! That’ll be number 6.)

6) I converted to Judaism when I was in my 20s. I studied Hebrew at the Jewish Embassy in NYC, where I met and married an Israeli. We had a son and moved to Israel. We moved back to the US and divorced after a few years. My son is now 19 and serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.

7) All the education and good work experience I have had didn’t spare me from being really stupid. In a floundering second marriage with my son living overseas, I turned to alcohol. In a memory of which I am most ashamed, I laid myself down drunk one day beside a garbage can – in front of my mother, her husband, my husband, and my then-8-year-old son visiting for the summer. I thank God now for His hand during that experience, because the only way I would have ever looked up to see Him was from the bottom of a pit. My pride would never have allowed me to see my own lack and desperate need of a Savior had I not fallen from my pedestal to hit rock bottom. It was then that I started seeking a church and later went up at a Pentecostal church evening service during an altar call. It was like a magnet pulling me to that altar, and since that time, I’ve never a felt a weight lift from me as much as I did that night. It was so heavy, I’ll bet even Mark couldn’t lift it! (It was pretty heavy, Mark.)