LENHARD ELIZABETH

I'm the author of Chicks with Sticks (It's a Purl Thing) and Chicks with Sticks (Knit two together).

Given the fact that I’ve recently published a couple novels about teenage knitters, I’m sure this journal will have a writerly slant, with plenty of knitty stuff on the side.

But this being a blog, it will also be packed with quirky random stuff. The first person who ever told me about blogs called it just that—a blog, not a WEB-log. So I was all, “Blahg? What kind of word is blahg?!? Hmmm, I guess it’s called that because people blah, blah, blah about themselves all over the web?”

Yes, it’s embarrassing. But keep in mind, this was a looong time ago. 2002, at least.

Anyway, in keeping with my blahg’s randomness, some random facts about me.

(If you’d like to read a more *authorial* biography, check out my pink and pretty website: http://elizabethlenhard.com/. You should also head to my site if you want to take the “Which Chicks Are You?” quiz or join my very fun knit-along.)

Random facts about Elizabeth Lenhard. . . .

• Evolution of my childhood nickname: Lizzy became Lizard became Skizzard became Skizbones. Yeah, I don’t know what the deal was with that last one either.

• When I was a little kid, I was so skinny that my knees were wider than my thighs. This is SO no longer the case.

• I didn’t walk until I was two years old. Nothing was wrong with me. I was just lazy.

• 30 years later, I ran a half-marathon. I had then, and have now, no ambition to run a whole-marathon. Still a little lazy, I suppose.

• My mother used to read “Little Women” once a year. This is one of several fabulous traditions she's passed on to me.

• I’ve been a redhead for so many years, few people remember what my real hair color is.*

• My toenails are always polished, and they’re almost always polished red. However. . . .

• My favorite color is not red. It is green. Pale celery or bright lime; not forest or aqua.

• When reading a restaurant menu, the first thing I look at is dessert. I will often choose a dinner that pairs nicely with my pre-chosen dessert, the way other people choose wine.

• I once, very briefly, was a back-up singer for a band. But I was too shy to keep it up so I quit the band and started taking cello lessons.

• I have been to Dollywood, the Grand Ol’ Opry and a juke joint deep in the Delta. I’ve eaten whole crawfish in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I am very sad that I don’t have a Mississippi accent.

• I do say “y’all” though, because when I was eight and first moved to Atlanta from the Midwest, the drawly, twangy kids in my class said, “You talk funny! Don’t say ‘you guys!’ That’s jes wrong. Say y’alllllll.” When I went back North for college, the nasally Midwesterners in my dorm said, “You talk funny. Y’alllllll. Ha, ha, ha!” But I kept the y’all. Because those third-graders were right and “you guys” is jes wrong.

• Southern accents aside, I heart New York and would live there if I could.

• New York aside, I adore my little bungalow in Atlanta. It has a porch swing and a claw-foot tub and a blue-gray cat peeking out the window. And best of all, it has my husband and baby daughter. Husband's the reason I moved back South from Chicago.

• I lived in Chicago for five years, where I had no car. I loved it. Now I’m a car-owner again and I’m a lead foot.

• My favorite comfort foods are: Noodle kugel, cinnamon toast, PB & J, grilled cheese sandwiches, and, of course, ice cream. Particularly ice cream in a cone.

• Unlike all writers everywhere, I don’t like coffee. I like Diet Coke. Even for breakfast. If there is no Diet Coke to be found, I make iced tea.

• I was born exactly a year after Apollo 11 took off for the moon. Every year on my birthday, my older brother reminds me of this.

* It’s light brown. In the late 1980s, it was blond. And permed. I blame Madonna for this.