About Shelly

That’s how most stories start in Texas, and I’m a professional storyteller so I should know. Yes, I tell stories for a living. When I was little, I got a whipping for telling stories (Mama called it “lying.”). These days, I get paid for it! That’s because I learned the importance of semantics: call it “fiction,” and you get paid. Go figure.

I love shivery ghost stories and silly folk tales and have been sharing them with audiences for the last twenty some odd years. I call it “yarn spinning,” because actually, I “spin yarns” both literally and figuratively.

I backed into storytelling because of my strange hobby of spinning yarn on a spinning wheel. The spinning is my “hook.” I can’t think of any job I’d rather have. You can visit my work website for more information at Spin Me A Yarn. If you have RealPlayer, you can see me tell a story about getting ready for a date back in the 1960s. It’s The Poodle Story.

If you are wondering who I am…heck, I’ll tell you. I’m not proud. Here’s my “My Space” style picture with my husband.

I’m just a gal living in Denton, Texas with a husband, a teenager, and five felines–it’s a zoo. I collect hats, which hang on my walls collecting dust. I have a hoard of “hands,” books, antique fans, spinning wheels, musical instruments, toys, antique tools, masks. I’m a recovering packrat.

That’s a lie. I would like to be recovering.

In fact I began a journey on a separate blog (you can click here to read About Out Of Chaos), to help me recover, but that wasn’t really simplifying was it? I moved all of the posts to This Eclectic Life under the category Out Of Chaos. I’ll be adding more from time to time. I hope you join me.

I fell in love with my husband because of his huge…

vocabulary. [What were you thinking?]

I enjoy studying words and their meanings, and in fact I’m bilingual. I fluently speak both English and Texan. Though I’d like to learn to speak Spanish, it eludes me. I know how to say,

• “How much does it cost?”
• “I want that.”
• “Where is the bathroom?”
• and a slew of cuss words

I’m old enough to be a member of AARP, but young enough to be able to laugh about it. At least, I can laugh about it most days. My husband is younger than I am, but he gets to be a member of AARP, too. He says that he “grandmothered in.” I tell you what, I don’t like it when he sasses me like that!

I wrote up a cute little Wish List, and you can view it if you want. It’s all the places I would go and things I would do if that Texas Lottery would ever cooperate. I’m counting on it as my “Redneck Retirement Plan.” Looks like I’ll be working for awhile!

Do you wonder what you will find on this blog?
So do I. It is simply a collage of topics that intrigue me. Scroll through the articles and you will see that nearly everything does. I’m curious about anything and everything, and think the rest of the world should be inquisitive also. I hope you forgive the fact that I’m a little bit sassy, but I’m from Texas.

I’m using blogging to cure my addiction to computerized Mahjongg. It’s working. Now I’m addicted to blogging.