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Please give a short bio of yourself for our readers. I am a 38-year-old woman of European decent. I have lived in Missouri, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin and love the varying perspectives this has given me. I love the scenery of the east coast and the friendliness of the midwest. If you know of a place where I can get both, please let me know! I have been married to my partner for 8 years. We have no children, but have two dogs -- Cinnamon and Tinker -- and two cats -- Milo and Cady. I am self-employed as an author/consultant for publishers of math educational materials. In my free time, I enjoy creating art (collage, rubber stamp, watercolor), writing, reading, watching movies (humor and drama mostly) walking in nature, and checking out new restaurants in the area. I am a pretty optimistic and happy-go-lucky person. I enjoy discovering more about myself and my God through nature. The main focus of my life is to be the best me I can be. Why did you choose this username? Ashley Shea is a favorite name of mine. A friend of mine nicknamed me Shea when I was in high school. At that age, when I started dreaming about having children, I decided I'd have two girls. I would name one Ashley Shea and the other December Lee. Since I have no children, and still like the name, I decided to start using it as my user name on web sites. I've been surprised that that name has been available at most every site that requires a user name, even on sites like Yahoo where most good names are already taken. So, I've stuck with it. Why do you keep a diary online? I keep several diaries. One diary is password protected on Tripod. It's for my eyes only. I have found that I can type faster than I can write, so I can get down my thoughts (before they drift away) much easier when I type. My Xanga posts sometimes are excerpts from my Tripod diary, cleaned up a bit for public viewing. Sometimes my posts are my attempts at creative writing, or a passing along of information I found interesting. Whatever I post on Xanga, I'm usually looking for feedback. I want to know what others think or I want support for my latest endeavor or I want to start a dialogue in order to wrap my brain around something I just don't get. How important do you think a layout is for a web-based diary? Would you also comment on yours? For a public web diary, layout is very important. The site has to be easily readable and easy to navigate for those who visit. I have visited several web log sites and I haven't found any that are as easy to follow as the layout on Xanga. That's why I've stuck with Xanga. I just can't follow the logs I've seen on other sites. Share with us the "Circle Journey"? I'm so glad you asked this! The Circle Journey is a joy I recently discovered. It is basically the sharing of a diary with one person or a group of people. Obviously, this is not the type of diary where you share you deepest, darkest thoughts. It's a diary where you share a moment. I first found the Circle Journey at Borders. (You can see what they look like at http://www.circlejourney.com) I bought a Circle Journey book to share with a friend of mine who I met online. The book gives us another way to interact other than e-mail. It adds a bit of dimension to our friendship. We record things that are happening in our lives and we share our artwork. After starting this Circle Journey, I started several more with others and they each have their own purpose. I have a Circle Journey going with my aunt, who is 85 years old. In it I ask questions about her life and about family history and she responds. I have another Circle Journey being passed between several women in my family -- my partner, my mother, my sister, and two of my sister's daughters. In this book we share our art -- sometimes in words and sometimes in pictures. It's awesome to share like this with three different generations. A third Circle Journey is being passed around 13 women with whom I shared a writing retreat last summer. This book is about to complete its first round. When it returns to me I'll be able to see how the others at the retreat have progressed and met their challenges and what new challenges have come up in their lives...and I'll be able to report mine. We hope to have the book go around one more time before we meet again in the summer. These Circle Journeys have been very inspiring. Since starting them, I decided to host an art journal swap. This is basically another Circle Journey, but each member of the swap starts their own book and sends it around the circle of members. Every couple of weeks another book arrives in the mail in which I make an entry and send it on its way. At the end of the swap we will all receive our books back with entries from everyone. The process of making the entries is just as thrilling as the idea of getting back a book filled with the words and art of others. You sound like a politically minded person, share with us, your view in regards to politics. Actually, I hate politics. I hate knowing all the things that are going on in the world, and the ways in which the U.S. contributes to the demise of others. But, since September 11th, I've realized that, no matter how painful it is, I can't keep my head in the sand. I must know what is happening, and I must respond to what is happening. My responses are little things, like sharing my views and passing along information in my Xanga posts. Sometimes my response is to write a poem. Sometimes I send letters to politicians and sign petitions. In doing these little things, I am hoping they ripple out into the world and cause more things to happen than I'll ever know about. I also hope these little things will give me the strength and courage to do bigger things. I've contacted the local Peace organization and plan to help them with their effort. I've also discovered the National War Tax Resisters organization. I've decided that I cannot sit and watch others be killed...in my name...using my money. I must do something! That something may require sacrifices on my part. But, to me, it is worth it. What is Christmas to you? Funny you should ask! I really struggle with Christmas. It has become so secularized that it has lost a lot of meaning. This year I discovered that Native Americans use the white pine as as a symbol for peace. Of all the times in history, now is a good time for peace. So, this year we had a Peace Tree in our home. We decorated it with blue and white lights, ornaments, and garland and placed a white dove at the top. We used pure white feathers to make Prayer Feathers (another Native American tradition) with the intension of peace. This felt meaningful and hopeful for me. We did not exchange gifts. My partner and I decided that gift giving in relation to Christmas is about giving without expecting anything in return. Christmas is now so full of expectation and disappointment that gift giving isn't as enjoyable. My partner and I decided that it would be more enjoyable to give each other gifts throughout the year, when it was least expected, so that we could give without expecting anything in return. Our last question is our silly question, so here's yours: "If you could be any color in a big 96 box of Crayola Crayons, what color would you be and why? To help out with this question, I went to the crayola website (http://www.crayola.com). If you've never been there, you really need to go. It's a real treat! Did you know that you can create your own custom box of 64 crayons? It's too cool! I started picking crayons for my own custom box to help me decide what color I would be. I decided I would be a cross between robin egg blue and hot magenta. I am robin egg blue because I am a gentle and peaceful person who loves nature. I am hot magenta because I am spontaneous and love excitement and adventure, and I've always used bright pinks as my trademark color. So, in combining those colors, I guess I am vivid violet! Thank you so much for this interview! The questions were fun to consider and use to share a bit about myself. Interviewed by Trinity63
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