Hi! My name is Gemini.

I call myself Gemini cuz most of the time I feel like two or more different people and/or personalities contained in one being. I am sixteen. I am homeschooled right now but have been to various other schools: public, Montessori, Charter, etc...and I am a grade ahead so I graduate this year. I L-O-V-E books and may have read more books in the twelve or so years since I learned to read (I taught myself to read around age four or five) than your average adult will in a lifetime. I am fascinated by the occult and dark stuff. I love all kinds of music and can usually find something I like in every genre (even rap and metal and hard rock...shhhh, don't tell. The people who know me would never believe you). I love the Barnes & Noble in the mall (I even have a membership card; ten percent off!). It's like a huge library where you get to keep the books (and it has a café).

I want to do the homesteading thing someday. I am sixteen and trying to decided what to do with my next 60+ years. And I love animals and growing things and the Earth so it all works out. I want to live in Colorado. I chose this state out of the fifty because: a) it's in the Rocky Mountains (well, the western side, anyway) and I want to stay in my home terrain, b) it has four seasons (I don't know what I'd do without my snow) c) it has decent homeschooling laws (I want children someday and I want homeschooling to be a viable option), and d) no red dirt (well, tere is red dirt but not everywhere...I despise red dirt), e) the only other state that fit the above requirements was Idaho, but I chose Colorado as my first choice because I like the sound of the name and there's a lovely song (actually more than one) by John Denver about it (shallow, I know. Idaho still gets "runner-up," though).

I have yet to visit Colorado to confirm it as where I want to live, but I am going to try and do a road trip this summer through Western Colorado (where the Rockies are). I keep dreaming that I visit but it never quite turns out. Last night I dreamed I was going to visit and somehow ended up in the top of Idaho visiting my friend's girlfriend. So weird.

I am still torn between careers: author, veterinarian, and actress.

My homesteading resumé includes: the majority of my first six years of life on a ranch, watching my dad slice up a butchered goat (he also dehorned kids as well as adults), flocks of chickens three and a half separate times, helping dress butchered chickens, bottle-feeding kids (baby goats, not people!), several gardens as a child which I planted, watered and promptly neglected, horseback riding on several occasions, watching my mom de-skin tomatoes, feeding goats and horses and dogs, watching my mom can string beans and pureéd apricot (which we never ate), cooking, cleaning, etc since I was a toddler (my mother never could function very well, so I got to be mom...big burden for a baby), etc...

As a child I loved Louisa May Alcott's books (especially "Little Men" and "Eight Cousins" and "Under the Lilacs"), The Little House on the Prairie series (favorites: "Farmer Boy" and "Little House in the Big Woods"), Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys...all those good ones. My favorite playacting was what I called "Farm." I would go with my imaginary brothers to go bring imaginary cows in from the imaginary pasture. I loved fire-building and I liked to wash my doll clothes in the sink and iron them with a flatiron. I longed to live at Plumfield. I also liked playing "George of the Jungle" with my friend. I would be Ursula and my best friend that was a boy was George. And sometimes we roped our younger siblings into sidekick roles.

I once mad a "nest" in the reeds of a tiny dried up pond and a "nest" in some big bushes. Both nests I pretended to be an eagle. I liked to catch frogs and froglets and keep them. I have had numerous cats and loved them all.

My Grandma was my champion and protector until she died. Then I had to fend for myself. My life has been full of both dark times and times of joy, but I am grateful for what both have taught me.