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What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

About my username: I was burning to become a MeFite after being a fly on the cyber wall for close to a year, I had to come up with a user name quickly in order to be part of the new member quota for that day, Beth was taken, Orange Swan was the first thing I thought of that sounded suitably catchy and unique. Little did I know there'd be an Orange Goblin registering at almost exactly the same time. Oh well. Orange Swan has become my internet name now, and swans have become my personal symbol/mascot. Perhaps sometime I'll belatedly manufacture a meaning for the name. Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, I am neither gay nor a man. And this is not me, but an imposter.

About me and the internet: I was a late adopter for the Internet. I think I first cruised it sometime in 1998 or 1999. I don't remember any site having a particular impression on me. But I do often think of a childhood wish of mine for a magic book in which I could look up anything I ever wanted to know. My wish has come true, though not in any way I ever could have foreseen. Which is the way of wishes.

About my FPPs: I love making things, I am perpetually enthralled by the way limits actually fuel creativity, and I hate waste, so I'm quite fascinated by methods of crafting that employ stuff people already tend to have lying around and that would normally go in the garbage. In a fairly lacklustre posting history, my best posts are on this kind of creative recycling. And then, too, I have a not-so-hidden agenda.

Here are some comments I've written that explain more fully what my aims are: how I hope to help redefine terms like "rags" and "garbage" and to deflate societal entitlement issues; how I see small changes in attitude and practice making a big difference in the aggregate; why I post here rather than getting my own blog; and items with which and purposes for which I will not be encouraging crafting. Here’s an example of how I apply creative recycling principles in my own life.

Because yes, it's not a case "she who can't do, posts". I love to make stuff, and often do use whatever I have lying around. Here are some pictures of things I have made, and some of my Swan's End renovation pictures: bathroom, the living room, the basement apartment, the attic, and the guest room, and the entryway and hallways. Still to come: the middle bedroom, the mistress bedroom, the kitchen, the back part, and the exterior of the house.

I also have a second blog, The Knitting Needle and the Damage Done, that's about knitting, and third blog, Modwardian, that's about the things I make.