Lisa Canada
Updated 8/2/01© Canada 2001
It's
not easy for me just to start writing about myself, especially because
there isn't too much that is noteworthy about me. I'm a sort of regular
person. I grew up in a big, middle class, Catholic family. I was a misfit
at North Side High School in Fort Wayne because I was interested in theater,
languages, diagramming sentences and domestic endeavors. I sewed costumes
for the school plays that didn't cast me, worked diligently on a cookbook
for my Latin classmates, babysat every weekend, wore a t-shirt that read
"Veni, Vidi, Vici" and performed scenes from my own one-act plays for classmates
in English. I would have made fun of me too.
Somewhere in college I straightened out, I guess when I started dating Mark; and I had a pretty successful career in public relations, appearing on enough TV and radio to feel that I belonged. Now that I'm a homemaker, though, those old misfit interests are resurfacing with better results. I design and sew projects for my family and friends, to everyone's amazement; am a resource for advice on rearing children and am a refuge for friends needing emergency childcare, have earned a reputation as an excellent cook and pastry maker, and occasionally give Latin etymology to people needing a definition and word history. I gave away my "Veni Vidi Vici" shirt during my hip phase; perhaps that was a rash decision.
A few new interests include studying the lives and literature (fiction and non-fiction) of the women who settled the American West. I enjoy decorating and creating objects to beautify my home and gardening, though Laurinburg's climate and soil have challenged my ability. On good days, I am a Mother Nature-Earth Goddess, barefoot, clutching herbs in one hand, a loaf of challah in the other, and children (my own and my friends) peeping out from the folds of my skirts. On bad days, I am a robe-wearing, coffee-drinking housewife "clutching a copy of Life just to keep in touch."