About me

The month is nearly over, and I haven’t yet done an “about me” post. Better late than never, right?

I was born in Iowa, grew up in Minnesota, spent my adolescence in Florida (hated it...both adolescence & Florida), and moved to NYC (by myself) when I was 19 (what was I thinking?!).

My mom died when I was a freshman in high school. She had acute myelogenous leukemia. She was 39.

My maternal grandmother is from Liverpool, England. Her name is Elizabeth, and when I was younger, I thought it meant that we were related to the Queen.

I went through a Beatles phase in high school. I later found out that my mom met Paul McCartney before he was famous (he was a friend of her uncle).

Pete and I were married at the Algonquin Hotel (of Roundtable fame). It's been more than six years, and people are still talking about our wedding cake. I finally threw the top away last year...that was a sad day (chocolate and hazelnut goodness all gone to waste).

I do not like cut flowers...they remind me of death. Because of this, I procrastinated and did not hire a florist until two weeks (to the day) before my wedding.

I love hydrangeas.

On my first day of kindergarten, I took the wrong bus home and wound up at another elementary school on the other side of town. Now that I have children of my own, I can only imagine the terror my mother must have felt when I didn't come home.

I wanted to drop out of school in second grade because I didn’t think I was learning anything.

Growing up, I never attended any given school for more than 2 consecutive years until I got to high school. My parents promised me that I would complete all 4 years at one high school...I transferred high schools in November of my SENIOR year (thanks for keeping that promise, Dad!).

My best friend in high school saved my life.

My favorite high school activity was math competition.

My favorite college classes were History of American Urban Planning and History of Architecture.

My favorite punctuation mark is the ellipsis.

My favorite building is the Flatiron.