Goodness me!!! Hello, everyone!

[maggies_lens]

Right, well! Harnessphoto certainly got the ball rolling with the whole friendswap thing, hey!!!! Ok I guess I should do a little intro. Those of you who have put up with me this long feel free to skip :D

Ok, so I'm Maggie. I'm 35 years old, so an old crone really. I am totally childfree but hey if you want them/have them, awesome, just don't expect me to comment much on those posts :) Please don't be offended, it's just not my thing. Let's seeeeee....Well, I'm animal crazy. I love anything nature, but not in a bead wearing hippy dress swirling sort of way. I'm more your get in the filthy boggy creek with a net and see what I can find kind of girl :) Oh and then I usually try to raise whatever I catch :D I have in the past owned pretty much every sort of domestic animal you can own, and some you can't legally own ;) I think really only pigs, sheep and cattle are left. I am not fond of pigs. I have worked with all 3 animals tho :) Currently I own:

2 dogs, Nigel who is a goldie x lab. He is an older boy now and belonged to Craig first. More on Craig later! and Harriet, a pure golden lab who is a rescue and has some...issues. She is OUR dog. I did until a week and 2 days ago (not that I am counting) own a wonderful ex-racing greyhound named Pokie. He was laid to rest after a short battle with cancer last Monday evening. I miss him horrifically.

3 cats, Lily and Murray are ginger and white siblings who I got from the pound, and Floyd, a Cornish Rex who was Craig's cat first. I am very fond of Floyd despite his seriously weird personality :D

7 fish. 3 guppies, 2 platys, 2 platinum gouriamies. In a little fish tank. This is very new. Although I have owned fish for many, many, many years in the past, I haven't had any for about 2 years. Last tank was a 6ft MONSTER!!!! So I needed a break ;)

2 horses! Danny, an aged (we think somewhere between 28-30 yrs old) buckskin gelding. I got him for my 16th birthday and have never looked back. He is retired now and living the life of riley. And Destiny, my Arabian mare who I rescued as a 8 month old foal on her way to the knackery. She is now 17 years old and my soul-horse. Her story can be found under the tag "Destiny's Story". It's pretty interesting from what the others have told me :)

I am married to my best friend in the entire world, Craig. We met when we both worked at 000, which is the Australian (I'm Polish-Australian btw) 911. We've been friends for a long, long time. Then our respective relationships broke up within 3 weeks of each other, he needed a place to stay and well...we were married earlier this year and traveled Europe for our honeymoon :)

I currently work as an admin assistant for a transport company here in Melbourne. It's an alright job but it's not what I want to do. I used to be a very good dispatcher but after two years of really horrific employers I can't face the idea of being on a radio again, I have totally lost my nerve. I have no idea what I want to do with my life professionally. Maybe OH&S? I don't know. I have a degree in Psychology which I don't intend to ever use again. I also hold a degree in Human Resources, which I won't return to again until hell freezes over. :) The only job I have ever truly loved was working at a boarding kennels. It was DAMN hard work but I loved it so much. It didn't pay the bills however, and in the end that comes before following a passion, no matter what all the bullshit FOLLOW THE STARS types say.

I loooooooooooove photography and will at times spam the living daylights out of my Flist (under a cut, I swear!). I shoot anything, but animals and nature are my fav subjects because let's face it, nothing is cooler! I own a 7D.

I adore reading and have an obsession with my Kindle ;) My fav authors are Jodi Picoult, Robin Hobb and a few fantasy types. I am NOT into fan-fic sorry, but if it makes you happy, write like there is no tomorrow and god-speed to your pen. I am currently heavily obsessed with the Dresden books. I also have a great love for comics. I don't like the violent crap, I like the GOOD stuff. Ones that are beautifully drawn, have a great story line and actual OMG character development. Comics are an unsung and untapped art form that can be used to create great beauty through their simplicity. I also LOVE MLP!!!!! Rainbow Dash for the win!!!!!!!!!!

And I geocache :) I also tend to resort to swearing when I get seriously peeved about something. I'm an ex volunteer fire fighter. I have a completely screwed up left leg which annoys the crap out of me. Ummm....

Anything else? I don't know, feel free to ask away!

Comments

[clevortrevor]

Great intro - thank you! I feel so up to speed :) Very cool that you have a Cornish; I have two Devons. Rexes are crazy (in a good way).

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

god aren't they just!!!!

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

I miss having a cat... But I do not need anymore animals!

Great post! I feel like I am caught up with the gist of things. Doing an intro post is a good idea!

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

This is without a doubt the least amount of animals I have ever had at any one time. It's probably a good thing, but I miss having the huge fish tank, the birds, a couple guinea pigs, a ferret or two and a bunny about the place...yeah I'm serious.

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is a lot of time for animals! At the moment I have three dogs, fish, and a horse. There was a time I also had another horse, a rabbit, and a gerbil.

How did you find time for all the critters?

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

Well I worked shift work. So I had heaps of time on my days off, of which I had 6 in a row :) I cut down when I left the shift working world. The huge fish tank went back to my brother (it was his anyway, I was only meant to look after it for a few months, turned into 2 years!). The bunny was killed by a friends dog :( The guinea pigs were when I was a kid and they died off of old age before I even moved to my house. The ferret, Remi, was easy :) Everyone else just sort of revolved around everyone else :) I recently changed paddocks and don't get to see my horses anywhere near as much as I used to since I stopped shift work, which I hate, but they are in a much safer, nicer paddocks now :)

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. That does make a bit of difference!

[seewildflowers.livejournal.com]

Even though I knew most of this, it's still fun to read :)

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

My aim in life is to amuse :D

[fishness.livejournal.com]

So I recently read a Robin Hobb book, I think Dragon Keeper? and I thought it was good but not super engrossing. I want to read some more of her books, so what would you recommend?

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

oh that's part of a series! It wouldn't have made much sense to you at all without reading the others first. Hmmmm, well, she has a few series. I always recommend people start with the Farseer series, that's where the foundations for all but one of her other series is laid out. Then after that, LiveShips which is BRILLIANT! The Dragon Keeper series comes after Live Ships and really shouldn't be read without reading Live Ships first. Her other one is the Soldier Son series which is very, very, VERY good indeed and isn't related to the other series at all, totally different world. She also writes under the pen name Megan Lindholm, my fav out of those books is Cloven Hooves which is fantastic.

[fishness.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, that makes a lot of sense! I didn't realize it was a series in a series. I'll definitely start with the Farseer series then! Thanks :)

[wastedrock.livejournal.com]

My fave MLP is Apple Jack. Reminds me of myself haha. And I even slip into that accent sometimes (though not cuz of the show just
Cuz that's how I sound hah)

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

Well now I have to see a Vlog post with you talking like that, sugarcube!

[wastedrock.livejournal.com]

haha I'll have to get drunk sometime and make one! I normally "hide" it a little sober but when I'm tired or slightly buzzed whoo wee all bets are off ;p