© Mimi's Homepage

Est. 1997

GOD BLESS AMERICA In Remembrance September 11, 2001

=== Please visit my Christmas page ===

Hi! Let me introduce myself. My name is Mimi.

If you've come from my homepage, you know that I'm originally from France, but ended up in the U.S. via Belgium. I graduated from Brandon High School and then attended the University of South Florida where I studied business and MIS, and graduated with an MBA. During my undergraduate years, I was part of the Honors program (now called Honors College) headed by the talented Dr. Silverman, who was a great support through my undergraduate years.

• WORK •

I worked at USF for many years, as part of a data warehouse team in the Information Technologies department. I was at one time or another, computer specialist, computer programmer/analyst, and applications developer - all of it for about 11 years, at which point I figured it was time for a change. In September 2008, I became a risk analyst at an IT financial services company in St. Petersburg, FL, and in 2010, I went to work as a business analyst for a Tampa-based health insurance company.

In addition to my full-time job, I have a few side jobs. Some time ago, I also started selling hand-crocheted items, mostly on eBay. More recently, I started moving items from my site to my eCrater store (this is a work in progress). In both places, I specialize in fine lace doilies (a passion of mine), but I crochet anything from baby clothes to full size afghans and seasonal items. In addition, I started teaching crochet classes at the local Michael's in March of 2007 until they discontinued their classes in April 2008. I'm currently doing private lessons.

Finally, with my sister, I founded Adagio Strings, a wedding violin duo. I've always loved music, so this is something I enjoy doing. The good thing about doing this freelance is I get to pick my own schedule. And I'm never bored!

• FUN •

I am never at a loss for things to do. When I get a minute, I like to play the violin and the piano, and occasionally the baroque recorder. I was a violinist in the USF Symphony Orchestra for 3 1/2 years. Before that, I was concertmaster of the Brandon High School orchestra (many moons ago). I also like to listen to music, particularly music of the Middle Ages and baroque music. For more on that, please visit my music page.

Another favorite pastime (passion?) of mine is crochet. For those of you who don't know what crochet (pronounced cro'shay) is, it's similar to knitting, but it gives different results. Crochet is very versatile - you can just as easily do baby layettes and afghans as you can doilies and fine lace, and it's widely recognized as being faster than knitting. I've done many, many different projects through the years, which you're welcome to check out on my crochet page. You'll find a link to my completed projects, including photos and pattern sources, which I try to keep updated.

Another passion (addiction?) I have is photography. Amateur photography, of course. I have a new Exilim point-and-shoot camera, which isn't the greatest camera ever (quality-wise, I like Kodaks better) but it is very small, has a 15x zoom and a wide angle lens, so for most situations, it's perfect. For sunset and bird pics, there's nothing like a Kodak; the Exilim is pretty useless for taking photos of stormy skies, for instance. Another thing I love is downloading pics from this thing, it's lightning fast! And the video mode is just a toggle button rather than a mode that you have to select (a major improvement IMO). Plus it's cheap, a pretty significant aspect of my purchase - I got a good deal at $149. My older Kodak digital camera was a Z712IS, and it was an excellent camera but was too bulky to easily tote around anytime, anywhere. I need to put more photos on my site, but that will come with time.

Let's see, what else. I love to do web design. I'm especially interested in the aesthetic aspect of it - the way the colors blend together and create an eye-pleasing design. By now I'm sure you've noticed a theme running through these hobbies - I'm an artist at heart.

I love nature and animals, esp. birds and ducks. You can find out more on my wild birds page, and on my ducks page, too. I will try to keep these updated.

If I have any free time - which is a rarity these days, I do enjoy a good book. Most of the books I read are historical novels written in French. Those are the ones I like best, but I also enjoy a good mystery or nature book. I also like the French (well, Belgian) "BD" (Bandes Dessinées) which are comics, except they're nothing like American comics. They're closer to what I would call a photographic novel. The best ones out there, IMO, are Tintin and Astérix et Obélix. For the latter, I strongly recommend Stéphane Rivière's site. It has everything, including a listing of all the albums, summaries for each, characters with pics, puns. Best site out there.

TV, you say? Yes, I do watch quite a bit of TV - mostly dramas, and the occasional game show, documentary or sitcom rerun (usually Friends, Who's the Boss, Frasier and the like). I'm a big fan of Stargate (SG-1, Atlantis, and SG-U), and was a fan of Pushing Daisies until its cancellation. The show was pretty strange, but actually very good in a weird sort of way. I'm also a loyal fan of Amazing Race, and a huge fan of most USA Network series like Burn Notice, White Collar, Covert Affairs, and Psych.

What about me, personally?

Well, I'm a conservative person in most respects. I'm patient, persevering, fiercely loyal, and passionate about certain things. I love truth, no matter how difficult it is to uncover sometimes, or how difficult it is to hear, and I abhor injustice. I'm spiritual though not religious, and could not live my life without God at my side. I can be goofy and love sarcasm. I live a fairly simple life, made up of various jobs and numerous hobbies (see above). I like simple things like watching a good tv show, finding a new crochet pattern to try, giving presents at Christmastime, listening to soothing music (or playing some), or feeding the ducks at the local pond. You're likely to find me at the computer, crocheting a doily, watching TV, or playing the piano.

• THIS SITE •

You'll find a few other things on my site, such as my gardening page (which I'm in the process of updating - please bear with me), my spirituality page (it sounds 'new age' but it's not), my travel & photo page which has pictures from semi-recent trips and views from the area, a 9-11 memorial in memory of the victims of this tragedy, awards this page has received as well as awards given to other sites, a special memorial page for our departed cat, a potpourri page with reviews of new products, software, and more (hence the name), and banners which I hope you'll use. If you get lost, just use the site map.

Happy Browsing...

Last updated on Dec. 8, 2011	•	© Mimi Christien
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