catlingmex

My name is Robin, and so far I've been alive for over half a century.

Born and raised in Indiana, USA, I lived the first 20+ years of my adult life in Mexico City, Mexico, then in Costa Rica (Central America) for a couple of years, then in South Florida for 5 years or so, now in a small town in in my native state. I'm female, 100% bilingual English-Spanish, joyfully Roman Catholic, happily married to a man born and raised in South America. This is all pretty exotic for an introvert who grew up in a monolingual Midwestern milieu! [chuckle]

I've worked at quite a variety of jobs in my lifetime, including teacher of English as a foreign language at a college in Mexico for many years, airline reservations agent, direct in-home support to adults with developmental disabilities, big-box store cashier, clerk at a thrift store, call center agent, and church secretary. I would love to retire from a day job someday, but unless a major miracle occurs, that will not be possible.

In addition to the usual 9-to-5, I spent 7 years developing recipes and writing (in Spanish and English) about authentic Mexican food for thespruceeats.com. Now the hubs and I maintain our own blog, where we share recipes from North, Central, and South America: comboplate.net

Fluent in English and Spanish. Have studied some Italian, Portuguese, German, and Polish. I love language, languages, and linguistics! However, I am not usually very talkative at all -- go figure. I do tend to be more loquacious in writing, as evidenced by the length of this profile! lol

Likes/loves include

• FOLKLORE, popular culture and festivals, local history and quirky local places, the history and traditions of HOLIDAYS of all sorts (I adore Groundhog Day, for example.)

• Cooking, baking, COOKBOOKS; reading, talking about, trying and developing recipes.

• chocolate (the darker, the better), MINT flavors (all kinds), teabags (black or herbal, green not so much), anise-flavored things (not licorice candy), real CHEESE, all kinds of cookies, avocados, aromatic herbs and spices, interesting hot sauces

• TURTLES (freshwater), fireflies/lightning bugs, llamas, cats, lizards/iguanas, otters, honey bees, dragonflies, ladybugs, butterflies, groundhogs, and robin birds (especially since my name is Robin). My husband is an enthusiast of sloths, pandas, and bears in general.

• SUNFLOWERS, suns, smiley faces, the color yellow and cheerful things in general

• PUZZLES, crosswords, word search, mazes, jigsaw puzzles, kaleidoscopes, board games

• visiting MUSEUMS of all kinds, also botanical gardens, conservatories, etc; also birdwatching and simple gardening, especially succulents and anything in containers.

• ART and artistic and artsy craftsy stuff in general; ancient art, cave art, folk art, "primitive" art, and outsider / visionary art are particular favorites

• artistic ATCs and all sorts of snail mail postal joy

• Americana (USA) and anything Latin American and/or Caribbean

Linoleum print carving, mini-zine making, drawing, painting, cross stitch, creative writing, adult coloring, zendoodling, woodburning, very simple sewing, papercrafts, floral arranging; would love to try a lot more things.

I am totally not cool. On most days I'm pretty much okay with that, though I do apologize for any discomfort my dorkiness may cause. [winsome smile]

Sorry, but I am not really into gothic/dark, tattoos/piercings, girly things like make up and spa treatments, Disney, video games, cynicism, political bashing, anime, manga, New Age, erotica, vampies or zombies, kawaii, or gourmet coffee. I'm not big on shopping (except for groceries, I do enjoy grocery shopping! oh, and thrift stores) and I am working on being less sarcastic.

However, I'm really not at all as crochety and dour as I know that last paragraph makes me sound. :-) While I do strive to be the best me that I can be, I do not believe that perfectionism is healthy.

I will always rate you for a swap I received. It might not happen the very same day that I receive your item (I can sometimes go a few days between visits to the site), but it will be within a week.

I've been a member here at Swap-Bot pretty much since the beginning of the site. The first swap here that I participated in was in March of 2006! My level/intensity of swapping activity has varied widely through the years. I've seen many trends come and go, as you might imagine.

In recent years it has become quite popular here to maintain a "wall of shame" or list of people who have flaked. I choose not to do that. There have been quite a few who have "done me wrong," and, yes, of course it's unpleasant, but I consider this an issue only between my partner and myself. I have given people low ratings when warranted -- and I consider that sufficient "punishment." If your views differ on this, I respect that. Please also respect mine.

As for my own (few and long ago--over 10 years now!) 1s and 3s: I am not proud of them, and I accept them without argument as fair consequences for my actions at the time. However, I generally don't discuss those ratings with anyone besides the people directly involved.

• postcards showing a recipe or a typcial craft/costume/food from your country or region

• anything particular to your city/region

• zines or mini zines (relatively clean, please)

• small denomination banknotes or coins from anywhere in the world

• recipe pamphlets (like the ones given out for free with a food product) or cookbooks with recipes from real people (like those made for fundraising by churches and civic groups)

• bookmarks, epecially handmade, related to your area (touristy or not), and the freebie ones given out by libraries, museums, bookstores, etc. (preferably not too childish)

• lip balm in interesting flavors (not strawberry, bubble gum, or dill pickle flavored)

• plant cuttings or seeds for succulent plants (with growing instructions)

• Catholic miscellany (rosaries, old prayer books, images of saints, etc.)

• cassette tapes (my 2002 Honda has a tape deck), any type of music, books on tape, etc. UPDATE: my beloved Honda has now passed to a better life, but I have acquired a boom box with cassette deck. I have settled on cassettes tapes as my absolute favorite format!

• Any sort of souvenir cotton dish towel/tea towel from anywhere. I have purchased a few of these at thrift stores for around a dollar each (apparently people buy them as souvenirs and then don’t actually use them most of the time), and have come to love them. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never been to the location featured; I get to travel around the world each time I do something in the kitchen! New or used, retro or modern is fine, as long as they are not badly stained or full of holes (small stains/imperfections are no problem). I will be joyfully using any towel I may get.

• "discarded" pieces of cross stitch/embroidery or old crocheted doilies/dresser scarves. It always kills me when I see a stitched picture for sale at a thrift store, because some poor woman worked hard and long on it only for someone else to go and throw it out/donate it. I do understand downsizing and all, but this is the type of valuable piece that can be used to create something else (pillow, pin cushion, greeting card, whatever), so I try to "rescue" these precious items when I can and the price is reasonable.