My days are spent wiping noses, baking treats with lots of helping hands, and cleaning the same messes over and over and over. And I wouldn't trade it for the world! I have two preschool girls and I live in Denver. I enjoy reading, cooking, and just recently, baking. If I had free time and in some cases, money, I'd enjoy going to the movies, dining out, travel. I enjoy learning about other cultures and attending cultural and seasonal events. I love to cook Indian food, if I could just convince my family to eat it! I also love anything Mediterranean as well as good old American comfort food. I am pretty adventurous about trying different things and am always looking for new recipes. Not a lot of them. My mom made some good and some awful hippie concoctions (Veggie cooking has come a long, long, way....) My grandma used to make the best pies and treats, but when it came to meals, it was always mystery meat casserole with no cheese or any other redeeming feauture, veggies from a can just heated up, and I think mashed potatoes with every meal (I'm still not sick of THEM though). Hmmm...I think those are smaller, mostly when people ask me for the recipe to something. I have an Indian recipe that everyone always asks for. It's also nice to be recognized in my family for certain "signature" dishes and feel proud when I am asked to make something specific. I am known for my special chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls (the Cinnabon clone recipe on this site, but with my own changes), green beans sauteed with mushrooms, baked mashed potatoes, prime rib at Christmas....I get nervous cooking for anyone other than friends or family who love me even when the recipe goes terribly wrong (see below). There are times that I just don't notice things in recipes until after I've screwed it up, like "oh, it said bone-LESS thighs - no wonder it took so long to cook and the veggies turned to mush". I think the worst ever was when my sister asked me to make her wedding cake, which was my first ever and an unmitigated fiasco. A caution to others....baking a cake in a huge pan is a LOT different than baking a cake in a regular one. Having to bake a lot of cakes in big pans and then stack them artistically - not so much my cup of tea. I still feel so terrible. My sister, fortunately, was so blinded by love that she didn't seem to notice.