"From childhood's hour I have not been as others were - I have not seen as others saw."
First of all, "Clarianna Demonbreun" is/was my "netname", a pseudonym, not my real name! My Great-great-great Grandmother on my mom's mother's father's side of the family was named Christiana Demonbreun (1820-1861.) Her grandfather was Jacques Timothe Boucher Sieur De Montbreun (b. 1747 in Boucherville, Canada. Died 1826 in TN.)
He was a French Canadian hunter and fur trader who began coming to the French Lick in the 1760s and built a cabin in what is now Nashville, TN. He was known as the "first citizen" of Nashville. Demonbreun's grandfather was the first Canadian to be raised to the rank of nobility, but Demonbreun preferred life as a hunter. He settled in the Illinois Territory where he served as lieutenant governor from 1783-1786. Described as "tall, athletic, and dark-skinned, with a large head and an eagle eye," Demonbreun was a striking figure who wore a foxskin cap with a tail down the back. He moved to Nashville in 1788 and lived there until his death in 1826. A historical marker at the northwest corner of Third Avenue, North, and Broadway marks the site of his home." - Who's Who in Nashville History.
Okay, back to me now...I combined one of my real names with Christiana's to get "Clarianna." Actually, I had that idea over fifteen years ago but never really had a reason to use a pseudonym until now. I have no idea how the French pronounce "De Montbreun" but the way I've heard it spoken down South sounds to me like day-MON-bray-un. I just love all those syllables, don't you?
How old am I? I was born in 1967 and I am a "thirty-something"
What's my sign? Here's more than any of us wanted to know, based on some calculation for this kind of stuff:
Birth signs:
Libra - a balance, the seventh sign of the Zodiac. Most compatible with those of the Fire & Air elements.
Venus (planet) - (feminine) love, beauty, culture, harmony, aesthetics, values.
Air (element) - intellectual, curious, perceptive, cold, communicative.
Cardinal (quality) - initiative, visionary, active, motivated, distracted.
Goat - you are most compatible with those of the Cat, Goat & Pig signs
Creative (best) - empathetic, gentle, romantic, compliant, candid, intuitive, modest.
Parasitic (worst) - careless, vengeful, lazy, self-pitying, pessimistic, indecisive, capricious
Yang (yin-yang) - (masculine) action, movement, light, hot, dry.Rising Signs:
Sagittarius - most compatible with those of the Air & Fire elements.
Jupiter (planet) - (masculine) philosophy, ethics, aspirations, religion, luck.
Fire (element) - physical, rash, courageous, creative, spontaneous, driven.
Mutable (quality) - adaptable, flexible, versatile, inconsistent.
Snake - Most compatible with those of the Ox, Snake & Rooster signs.
Intuitive (best) - discreet, philosophical, sympathetic, charitable, fun-loving, elegant.
Conniving (worst) - clingy, pessimistic, judgmental, ostentatious, imperious, fickle.
Yang (yin-yang) - (masculine) action, movement, light, hot, dry.
Am I weird? Of course not! I'm rather normal, average person, actually. But tend to be a bit introverted. Last time I checked, my Jungian Personality type was INFP (Introvert, Intuition, Feeling, Perceiving) but a bit of the last two are pretty close to the middle of the chart towards Thinking and Judging...either way, you're never gonna see me in front of an audience or trying to attract anyone's notice in public. That's what is so hot about the Internet for me...I can be me without getting all shy and close-lipped.
What do I look like? Take a look at that piccie on the upper left. That's me! I have dark brown, shiny hair which is becoming streaked with more silver every year. All the dominant genes won out so I also have dark brown eyes. My skin looks rather light in comparison but I have a nice medium-olive skintone but I try to avoid getting too much sun (sunscreen is my friend!)
Am I single? Thank God, not! Fate smiled upon me for once in my life and I found my soulmate at the age of 23. He was exactly 23 years older ... twice my age. Perfect! :-) Besides, I doubt if there's any other man who walks this earth that could put up with me. As I tell my hubby often, "No, I'm the lucky one!" (as I snuggle closely.) Guess what? He cooks! His culinary talents are displayed most Thanksgivings, Christmases and every other special dinner occasion and oh, yes...he does all the barbecuing. I do desserts (to passify my sweet tooth) and some of the boring everyday cooking. I thank the heavens that he is not a sports fanatic (since I'm not one either) but he does have a weakness for buying history books (US civil war in particular), CDs, DVDs and old pocketwatches. Oh, and y'all better thank my darling husband for letting me be myself and do all this web-paging and computering. Because it's him who suffers my absence most when I get the urge to play on my 'puter! And he also buys me goodies to keep my 'puter going strong. For Valentine's Day one year (this was quite a few years back now), he gave me a box with this written on the outside: "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Here's 16 meg of RAM, 'cause I Love You!" (And a four lb. heart shape box made of chocolate with mixed-chocolates inside...it's a stipulation that he must give me my fav chocolates for V-day and our Anniversary! <g>)
Do I have children? Yup! My firstborn is a son and my second, a daughter. Both are school age now. They're both brilliantly creative, fun-loving, mischievous, stubborn, non-stop-action kids...I must have driven my parents crazy if they were anything like my two! They really are a blessing and more than my hubby and I ever hoped for. Can you believe I am also the step mom of a 20+ year old!? :-)
Do I have pets? We have four female, indoor-only felines.
Ashley (dominant but petite, a little grey spitfire),
Sasha (the oldest, a grey & white cat who is a real "talker" and thinks my hubby walks on water)
Two sister kitties:
Emma (all-white, gold eyes, super friendly and sweet) and
Sophie (Siamese-ish lap cat with lovely blue-violet eyes)
Where am I from? Middle Tennessee,originally, but my Dad (a mechanical engineer) transferred and changed companies several times during my childhood. So we started out in Tennessee then to Ohio, Illinois, back to TN, then to Ft. Smith Arkansas, then to North Little Rock Arkansas, then to where we are now in the Midwest.
Where do I live? Much further north than I used to. :-) it's a bit cooler (okay COLDER) than the places I've lived before but I really love it... the summers and falls are awesome! We're about a 13-14 hour drive from where I last lived in Arkansas. Our house looks like a books & antiques store. Between my hubby and I, we collect everything it seems (pocketwatches, fountain pens, pewter, cast iron skillets and trivets, old keys, model horses, model cars, you name it) and read a whole spectrum of books. None of it's really worth much except to us. (And that's the important part!) He's into history & religion, I'm into fiction: regular, literature, historical, sci-fi/fantasy, romance and children's books (that helps when you're the mother of two kids) and a few art & theatre books which I collected while I was into theatre and art in college. Nope, I don't act and being a classic introvert, I'd rather die than get in front of a group of people. What I did for my university theatre (for the honor of receiving a merit award) was work a few hundred hours each semester painting scenery, sorting out gels (people kept throwing them into boxes instead of filing them away,) finding and fixing props, standing on my tippy toes at the top of a cherry picker trying to hang lights -- which now reminds me of the time I got hit in the mouth with a two foot monkey wrench by one of my best friends. (Boy did he feel bad but not as bad as I did! No damage done, by the way...it just hurt like hell!) It only took me about two and a half semesters to realize I did not want to be a poorly paid stage techie with no stable home the rest of my life and having to stay up days on end trying to get everything ready for a show (actually, I ran out of tech classes and didn't want to take ACTING!) so I switched to Art-Painting & Drawing then to Graphic Design when I tranferred to another University which had better and more specialized programs.
What do I do? From late 1992 through early '97, I had the luxury of being a work-at-home-mom, trying to make ends meet on hubby's salary and doing a bit of freelance graphics jobs (printed pieces) and a few web pages too. Lucky for me, my creative, artistic and computer skills landed me the perfect job - *The* Internet/Intranet Specialist - for a manufacturing company with a progressive IT deparment. My hubby sold his share of his business at the end of '97 and he is now a part-time house-hubby and "Mr. Mom" after spending the first five months of 1998 going through surgery and chemotherapy. (He's MUCH better now, so don't worry!) In 2001, I landed another "perfect web job" working with a great team and doing the same as I did before (and more) for another manufacturing company. Who knows what will happen in the future. I live pretty much day-to-day and don't plan too far ahead because I just never know what Fate has in store for me.