It's all about me!

[A Glowing Ember] had the following exercise which looked like fun. It didn't have a link to pass it onto anybody. If it looks interesting to you, please feel free whether you share your answers or not. You just copy paste it somewhere else, delete my answers that follow after the colon and do some thinking.

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I am: an unconventional woman who looks conventional on the outside.
I think: about the meaning of all life even though I know I am unlikely to figure it out.
I know: a lot about farm life and the Bible. Do they go together? Yes, they do surprisingly.
I want: passion in my life of all sorts.
I have: security as much as anybody gets it in this world which means it can be taken away at any moment.
I dislike: hypocrisy and lies.
I miss: someone.
I fear: negative things happening to my family.
I feel: joy in simple things like the feel of dirt under my fingers, the delicacy of moss, a bird flitting out of a bush.
I hear: a cat breathing, the computer whirring, a bird outside and silence inside.
I smell: the odors of a house, some remaining from last night's spaghetti (reminding me to open windows even though it's not very warm out there).
I crave: a life lived fully and close to nature.
I usually: follow a routine.
I search: for beauty wherever I go.
I wonder: about people and their motivations.
I regret: some things even though I know regrets are useless.
I love: freely.
I care: for animals of all sorts.
I am always: thinking I should do more and sometimes even doing it.
I worry: when something happens that seems to trigger risk to livestock, pets or loved ones.
I remember: Tucson.
I have: a good life but it’s not all I want.
I dance: sometimes around the house.
I sing: when a song comes to my mind.
I don't: overly value possessions (well except for a few like....).
I argue: about things that matter to me but try to do it passionately and without nastiness.
I write: constantly.
I lose: with grace— or try to anyway.
I wish: for my dream day.
I listen: to others' opinions.
I don't understand: hatred.
I can usually be found: in the house or around the farm.
I am scared: when something loud and scary happens outside at night and someone must check on it.
I need: to have more discipline.
I forget: past events like what happened in my childhood.
I am happy: in spurts with cycles of up and down.

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While I am delving into me, here is one which I got from [Annotated Margins] who gave it to Rainy Day Thoughts-- the Kreative Award. This test was a tougher one... It requests seven interesting things about me (the key word there being interesting). First of all, if I think something is interesting about me, I probably have already written about it-- or it's too private and not about to appear here, but I'll give it a shot.

1. I have been involved in several religions from Catholicism to Evangelical, have explored the metaphysical but do not participate in any organized religion but am still quite interested in spiritual experiences like reincarnation.

2. My mother was a professional musician, played bass, sang, and traveled with all-girl orchestras in the 30s before she married my father who was a carnival bum which meant he also traveled but on a route through the Pacific Northwest. Every summer he'd take off from whatever job he had. When he met my mother, he was a stagehand, stood her up on a date to go with that carnival, but when he came back at the end of that season, he didn't go again.

3. I have to make myself think about my childhood or pretty much anything that happened much in my past. The kids are always reminding me of something that happened when they were growing up and I wonder was I there

4. I have a thing about cowboys. Lucky I married one, wasn't it. His boots attracted me to him when we began to date. Cowboy boots still attract me to pretty much anybody (I have two pair of my own).

5. I also have a thing about mustaches on men (women not so much). I love them, but it wasn't always so. I talked my father into shaving his off when I was in high school and my mother never forgave me.

6. Is it interesting that although I don't like clutter, keep my home pretty organized, I don't see dust or smears on floors, furniture or windows (unless it's cat throw up, a dead bat, rodent or bird-- live ones attract my interest even quicker)?

7. I like to paint and sculpt nudes-- the male form in particular and that is definitely not okay in art galleries or with most people. Does interesting mean not okay or exactly what does it mean?

I am not going to pass this onto anybody because I just did that with another 'award' but if it looks interesting to you, give it a try... whatever interesting means... I find all the blogs in my blog roll to be creative in different ways or they'd not be there.

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As long as I was delving into self-analysis, I thought a new digital self-portrait fit in well. I do one of these now and again since I got the idea from Natalie's blog--
[Blaugustine's Other Blog]. They provide a quick exercise in shading, shapes and trying to catch moods. This one should show humorous contemplation... I hope

A Color Test

What color is your rainbow?

Awhile back, I came across this test. As usually happens with me, I did it a couple of times to see if anything changed. This was one where I couldn't get the same results twice no matter how I tried to answer questions.

Your rainbow is intensely shaded white, violet, and red.

What is says about you: You are a passionate person. You appreciate quiet moments. People depend on you to make them feel secure. You are patient and will keep trying to understand something until you've mastered it.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Your rainbow is intensely shaded violet, green, and white.

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate quiet moments. People depend on you to make them feel secure. Those around you admire your fresh outlook and vitality.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

What Tarot Card are You?

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

It had been a year or more since I had first taken the above fun test. When I came across it again, I thought I'd see if the result had changed. They had not.

When I do my own Tarot readings, I generally use one of two decks-- Gilded Tarot or the more traditional Rider-Waite which was my first deck. It helps, when you are learning, to have a deck that corresponds to most guidebooks. With time, you might use your own intuition regarding the card messages more than the books. (I have written about Tarot before most recently in [Tarot] so won't repeat it all here.)

Tarot is most useful for me when I have too much 'mind noise' going on. I go months sometimes without doing a reading. In January, when I began my 'finding a new dream' thinking, I thought a reading might be a good start. I brought out The Gilded Tarot deck.

Asking for a card to represent me in this exploring time, I asked for the white light around me, requesting that only the good would come through (yes, I believe in spiritually bad energies whatever one might call them), shuffled, cut, and dealt-- Six of Swords. Interesting card given my purposes.

The guidebook said, "By traveling over the water (her emotions) and carrying her same thought pattern (the swords), she is making a choice but is it a sound one? The toad seems to indicate more of a reliance on the reptilian part of the brain, from whence the "flight" impulse arises. You are running from something. Unless you examine the way you think, your running will accomplish nothing except an immediate escape from what is troubling you. Until you learn to face it, it will come up again in some other guise."

So I asked myself the usual-- huh? Was I running from something? Was a dream search my attempt to avoid facing something? The card encouraged me to think about what that might be.

About a month later, I got out the Gilded Tarot deck to check how things were going. Again, as one always should do when doing spirit work, I asked for protecting white light and wisdom, shuffled, cut, and this time dealt out three cards. One to represent me and two to modify:

The Sun represented me. That card alone is positive and would seem to say I am in good working order, in harmony with where I need to be. Now that does not mean my physical position but my inner self-- although it could be taken either way. The guidebook said:

'The message of the sun is of peaceful contentment with the world and its workings. You understand what you can and don't fret about what you don't. You understand yourself and your role in the universe as much as you can, and you are okay with that too. Life doesn't get much better than this."

Frankly I didn't feel I was in inner harmony. Why would I be looking for a new dream if I had it all together? But maybe the card meant I was heading that way. The first modifying card suggested I might be holding my resources too tightly and being fearful of losing them might be part of my problem. The second was a card of karmic completion, the end of a cycle.

Tarot can help to see directions and maybe where we are going versus where we think we are. The modifiers, in that reading, could mean I have a choice between holding tight to what I have or stepping out for something new.

So I went along thinking about this. Maybe another month went by when I decided to do another reading of three cards. This time the card I dealt for me was The Moon which is kind of interesting since last time it had been The Sun.

"The message of the moon is as shadowy as a moonlit night. Pay attention to your dreams and your intuition. Face your fears, even if you do so a little at a time. Attend to your soul. Be aware of not seeing clearly, of being afraid of shadows, or of being led astray by shadowy images that aren't what they seem."

The two modifying cards were that it is okay to grieve what I have lost but after awhile let that go and remember what I have left, and that I am ready for an adventure, a change. This all made sense to me. Most of the time when I do a Tarot reading for someone else, they understand where maybe I don't. This time where it's mine, I am the one who 'gets' it.

Readings from Tarot cards are not the end but only a way to see steps along the way. Often I find their meanings become clearer with time which is why it's good to write them down.

(All quotes were from the Gilded Tarot Companion by Barbara Moore.) I actually wrote this before I went to Tucson, but it never seemed to fit. Since it's about the process of using Tarot, and using it in the dream search, I figured just as well to post it now or I never will.

right brain or left brain?

From Astrological Musings came this test. I think it probably was pretty accurate for me as I am both practical and a dreamer:

You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

How well do you understand men?

Another of those little tests-- this one made me smile although I would not remotely claim to understand men-- appreciate, now that I will say. (I didn't see an equivalent test for men to take about women; so guys, if you want one, go looking-- otherwise you could take this one and let me know if it is any good.)

You Have Your PhD in Men

You understand men almost better than anyone. You accept that guys are very different, and you read signals well. Work what you know about men, and your relationships will be blissful.

How Well Do You Understand Men?

Political Compass

Stu Savory had a good blog for the 18th-- Whither US Politics? that shows us where the current slate of presidential candidates show up. I guess it's not surprising that they would ALL be authoritarian except Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. It only varied as to how authoritarian.

Although I have taken this test before, I did it again. I forgot exactly where I had been the last time but know it was in the same neighborhood-- libertarian near Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

There is another link on the test site regarding what people like Gandhi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama actually have said in case someone thinks that it's good to be near them in a test. I didn't do very well on this particular test until I got the message that if someone preaches non-violence, look for when they actually advocated something else-- Iconochasms. It is enough to make one head for the hills-- until I remember I already live there.

The political test is an interesting one to take (even if you end up displeased by who you rate alongside) to remind yourself of your own issues if you have forgotten and currently are voting on anything else-- like say Hillary going on a talk show so she can get emotional about the old Monica Lewinsky scandal-- right before more primaries. Think that's a coincidence?

The Political Compass

Your Blog's Readability

The following blog tool, regarding readability, seemed interesting to me when I saw it on one of those days I was surfing other blogs. I checked my rating at the time, thought about posting the information here; then when I got around to it, forgot where I had found it, hadn't bookmarked it, and had to Google it to find it again.

This first readability rating was done December 9th:

Because I thought it probable that it was only checking one date (given how fast it shows results), I asked it to reevaluate for a specific, earlier date using different subject matter and this time it said:

Out of curiosity for how this compared, I took the blog it rated at college level to my Word program where it can do a grammar check as well as rate the writing according to readability using Flesch Reading Ease (where it was 66.3) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (where it came in at 8.1).

Finally I looked online to refresh my memory as to what that Flesch reading ease number meant. The higher the number, the more readable; so 120 would be something a fifth grader could read and understand. Examples given to explain this further were-- Reader's Digest magazine rates about 65; Time magazine -- 52, and Harvard Law Review comes in the low 30s.

When I was writing fiction, I aimed to be about where I am, according to Flesch evaluations, not too simple and not too complex. I found no quick way to see how the online test was setting their criteria.

The question for a writer of anything always is who are they trying to reach? If it's too simple, is it not saying enough? If it's too demanding, do readers tune out who didn't want to have to think that day?

While I always like seeing instant results, I have a feeling the Flesch tests on Word are probably closest to where I see my writing here; but it took seeing the online evaluation to remind me to use the Flesch tools. Since writing well is important to me, I should have thought of doing it sooner.

To check your own blog, just click on the icon.

tests for Americans

These kind of simple tests often appeal to me, but I am not sure what it means to be 52% American. So like then I am 48% what? Still what it said is true in terms of how I feel about living here and my belief that what we have, the beliefs for which we have said we stand, they are worth fighting for!

You Are 52% American

Most times you are proud to be an American. Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe Still, you know there's no place better suited to be your home. You love your freedom and no one's going to take it away from you!

How American Are You?

Yin-yang Test

You Are More Yin

Feminine Devoted Forgiving Fall Winter Afternoon Moon Time Passive Metal Honey

Are You More Yin or Yang?

Personality Test

Basically I don't remember what blog had this test linked. It was a few months ago and one of those times I drifted around the blogosphere where one blog roll led to another.

The test comes from My Space. It had a quick and extended version (60 or 120 questions), takes about 10 minutes to do the longest. The results are both on the site, as soon as the test if finished, and can be emailed if you want to see a more in depth analysis.

Since it had been a few months since I first took this test, I decided out of curiosity to retake it and see if anything had changed. Although the numbers went this way or that a bit, the meaning stayed the same:

My Personality

Neuroticism	17
Extraversion	27
Openness To Experience	82
Agreeableness	34
Conscientiousness	34

You are introverted, reserved, and quiet with a preference for solitude and solitary activities. Your socializing tends to be restricted to a few close friends. You are generally calm and composed, reacting moderately well to situations that most people would describe as stressful. Novelty, variety, and change spice up your life and make you a curious, imaginative, and creative person. You have some concern with others' needs, and are generally pleasant, sympathetic, and cooperative. You are reasonably reliable, organized, and self-controlled.

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

What Tarot Card are You?

This fun test came from Journey to a new life blog. Interestingly enough, since I sometimes read Tarot, the card the test indicated for me is the one I often draw for myself when doing a reading.

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Are you air, earth, water, or fire?

I don't know how these tests work with so few questions but here comes another quick one that Fran at Sacred Ordinary posted on her site. It's from Belief Net-- Are you air, earth, water, or fire?

It's not very many questions and seemed pretty accurate for me. My number was 51 and even when I changed a few answers to things that I was thinking I might have as equally done, the test only changed one point to 52.

Air is my dominant astrology element also. I have almost no water in my natal chart and am often drawn to people who have a lot of water in their charts-- going to get it one way or another, I guess.

If you take the test, please share whether it seemed accurate. Also when you see your results, you can hit a small link that takes you to more information on what having one of those as your dominant element might mean for difficulties and strengths.

Your accent

I got this test from Nobody Asked and thought it was fun. It seemed accurate to me as I have always thought in my part of the West (sometimes referred to as left) Coast, we don't have much accent which it affirmed. If you go to Eastern Oregon, they have western drawls, which I much love and can pick up if around it for long-- love them twangs. :)

They did leave out a couple of words that we do say differently in my part of the woods. To me, creek is crick not creek and I am prone to say ever so often, not every so often which is (or so I am told when I type the other) more correct. Wash is also said differently other places. Many of us out hyar get an r into it for some reason.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
Boston
North Central
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

How do you live your life?

I like those fluffy, quick personality tests, which can be surprisingly accurate for how few questions they have on them. Although I do have to wonder (as I always do with anything)-- are any of them ever going to say something extremely negative? Do we like them because they are flattering? If one of these quick tests came back-- you are a cowardly rat, would we still go-- yeah, that's me! Maybe we would.

I think, to a point, our dark side is important for us to be aware of, but perhaps most of us are too aware of our own negatives and need to be more aware of our positives; so we can grow them stronger. What we dwell on can be where we end up.

How You Live Your Life

You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You tend to avoid confrontation and stay away from sticky situations. You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Rain

Because they are fun, not serious, I like these little tests. I found this one on Sierra Sage's blog who was linked from Tortoise Trail. (This time I kept track of my own trail.)

Unlike some tests that involve several pages of questions, this one is short and sweet. I thought the results were funny given my chosen name. Is it accurate? Let me know whether it was for you-- my husband just chuckled when he was asked if it was for me...

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?