A Fancy Girl Introduction

What is a girl with a love of way too many things to do with herself? Write a blog about it of course!

I suppose the question at hand is how I came to consider myself fancy and, I suppose, why I have decided to write a guide to the universe. Both questions are answered simply, but I’ll start with the latter. I’m very affected by what I read and experience in movies. (At the risk of admitting THIS embarrassing fact about myself, I researched the Titanic in an OBSESSIVE manner after the movie came out years ago.) I get whims based on what I read and see, and it just so happens that I’m reading the Julie & Julia Project, by Julie Powell right now. For those unfamiliar with it, the author embarks on a one year project to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of Fine Cooking. It’s supposed to be about finding yourself.

Well, I don’t really feel the need to “find myself.” I’m pretty comfortable with me, actually. So I guess you could say the purpose of this is nothing more than self-indulgence: a diary that just happens to be public, I suppose. However, I will strive to present my take on things or, as I guess you could say, the “fancy” way to do everything.

Which brings me to the first question: why do I consider myself fancy? For starters, I have always been different from my peers. Many would say I’m years ahead of my time or, depending on how you look at things, years behind the times. Rather then go out on Saturday nights and drink myself into oblivion or flirt with every man in the room (or any – I am a hopeless case in that department, but we’ll save those stories, should I ever want to share them), I would rather stay home and domesticate myself. I taught myself to sew, got my grandmother to teach me how to knit, started practicing the art of photography and, in my spare time, perfected my cooking skills. (And did I mention that I also read and write an obsessive amount.) An aunt (for there are many in my life as you will see if you keep reading) once told me that I was the “perfect housewife in training.”

Well, that just wasn’t really what I was going for.

Don’t get me wrong. The image of a 1950’s housewife is actually very appealing to me. Sure, I’m an independent person. I can take care of myself when it all comes down to it, and I have and enjoy a job (most of the time!). But the option to stay home and work on my fancy talents and one day take care of a whole brood of children calls to me. I am almost embarrassed to admit that these are the things I want out of life, especially when I speak to other people in my age range (the twenties, or 26-35 on most checklists), and they cringe and look at me like I'm some kind of deranged mental patient for even considering "settling down" before 30.

But I'm digressing here.

The term fancy all began, very simply, as a nickname. A friend coined it, after being subjected to conversation after conversation of my outlining my very specific ideas for things – projects, work, etc. and trying to make everything just a little better with a few small touches! She started to call me Fancy and the name stuck with a few others.

So, here it is (for no one’s approval): The Fancy Girl’s Guide to the Universe, to be updated whenever I have something useless to say!