Answers, The Second (random stuff)

Sarah asked, "I've always wondered why no one (at least that I know of)--and especially a movie villain--has planted dark maples and other purple leaved trees all around their house. Why not surround a home with purple foliage?"

Actually, the first house we bought, I fell in love with the dark purple flowing plum that it had in the front yard. The pink flowers in the spring were just a bonus. The yard was tiny, so that was the only tree we had. Now you know someone who had purple leaves around their house. I think maples are beautiful too, but they don't grow well where I live.

Krista asked, "What took you to Mexico, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Canada?"

Having an airline pilot for a dad made traveling a lot less expensive (until I grew up). We went on a family vacation to Europe when I was 14, mostly to visit my cousin and his family who lived in Switzerland. My cousin and his wife talked my parents into leaving me with them for the rest of the summer, and they took me with them on their family vacation to Portugal. We drove through France, Spain (with their stork nests on churches and fields of sunflowers), and the barricades set up by revolutionaries in Portugal to stay at a beach house that belonged to some friends of theirs. That was the first summer I ever remember getting sunburned.

I went to Mexico on school related trips twice in high school and once while attending BYU. Spanish Education was one of my majors (though I dropped it later), and I lived in the Spanish House one spring term, and then a group of us went down to Obregon in Sonora and stayed there for a short while.

Carolina Valdez Miller asked,

"What is your number one goal in life?"                     To follow my Savior
"Where do you see yourself in five years?"               Writing and being a mom
"What is one thing you like to have while writing?"   Salt and Pepper Pistachios

Karen G asked, "Where do you live?"

I live in a small valley between Mesquite and Las Vegas, Nevada, in the desert. If you walked straight out my backdoor, you'd cross the railroad tracks into the desert, and you wouldn't run into any houses, not for days.

And Jackee asked, "What do you like/dislike about where you live?"

I love the people, and I love that I can garden year round here. I like that we get lizards crawling on our window screens, but I'm not so crazy about Arizona bark scorpions sneaking into our house. I love the weather in fall, winter and spring, but I want to move anywhere else in the summer. The temperatures get over 120 degrees F.