Welcome to Valerie's personal Home Page

Hi! Here's a little information about me.

I last updated this web page in March, 2006. I'm about to turn 40.

My life-partner is a man named Jan Wolter. We have two amazing kids, Arlo and Kendra.

I do computer programming and website design in the mornings when the kids are at school. When the kids are home, Jan and I spend our time running after them.

My hobbies include vegetarian cooking (gluten-free!), puttering around my garden, reading SF, and starting friendly online communities.

I started the Ann Arbor parenting e-mail list. It's huge, and yet somehow the group stays wonderfully friendly and supportive, even as it grows and grows. I always thought the group would be really big if it got to be 30 people. When I wrote this, it had 627 people, and growing. I think maybe this is way too big, but still I'm curious to see what happens and where the list ends up.

I started the Ann Arbor gardening and seed-swap e-mail list.

I started the Ann Arbor celiac support group - for people who need to eat gluten-free food.

I re-started the local chapter of the Association for Women in Computing when the group was about to be de-charted for inactivity. I'm not very involved with it today, but for a while I was the chapter's president. Today the group is run by an amazing bunch of dedicated women. It is one of the largest chapters, thriving. I think this group grew to be so big and strong because it meets a real need.

I love to cook. I've been a vegetarian since 1987, including through two healthy pregnancies. We have some food allergies in my family, so I've gotten to be very good at gluten-free dairy-free cooking. I love to adapt recipes to be lower in fat and healthier. Reading about nutrition is one of my hobbies. My favorite publication for that is Nutrition Action Healthletter.

I'm an ardent feminist. If you're wondering what that means, it means that I think women are every bit as valuable human beings as men. Not worth less, not worth more, but equal. Mostly I think society is doing really well at figuring that out. It makes my day to see women matter-of-factly doing jobs that were once considered "men's work".

I spend way too much time doing e-mail. I'm in groups that range from "people who had a baby due in December of 1998" to "gluten-free vegetarians" to "Ann Arborites who use Linux". I'm always thinking that I should cut back, but it's hard to pick a group to drop.

In early 2006 I took an organic gardening course. Some of my favorite things to grow in my garden are: cypress vine (a fast growing, long skinny vine with feathery leaves and bright red flowers), basil, tomatoes, zucchini (way too much of it!), columbine, and yarrow. This year (2006) I'm bravely planning to try growing corn, spinach, watermelon, and chard, all of which I've never grown before. I'm a big fan of composting.

I don't get to do as much reading as I used to. Some of my favorite authors are Anne McCaffrey, Pamela Dean, Steven Brust, Douglas Adams, oh and lots more! Musically I like mostly-female vocalists who tell interesting stories in their songs. Some favorites are: Dar Williams, Christine Lavin, Billy Joel, and I recently discovered Catie Curtis.

Since college I've taken several classes. I took a series of classes in weaving -- that is, making real fabric on a big loom with foot pedals and all sorts of gear. This was a fun series of classes, blending art and math. I hand-wove the placemats that my family uses everyday. I place a lot of value on items that are homemade rather than storebought, especially if the person who made the item put a lot of time into making it. I've also taken classes in aikido and organic gardening.

I collect cookbooks. My favorites are the hand-drawn ones from the 1970s, such as the original Moosewood cookbook. I've made my favorite recipes into a "cookbook" of my own favorites, in honor of my sister and her husband. I plan to post it on the web soon.

I grew up in New York City, where I went to a really wonderful science high school. I loved it there. It fostered in me a lifelong love of science and well-researched information.

Politically, I am very liberal. A long time ago made a list of all of the political things I cared about. I matched that to the views of the various parties. I expected that my best match would be some obscure party that I'd never heard of. But instead I found that right down the line I match the views of the liberal Democratic party. I'm proud to be a liberal. The current government scares me; I hope to see Democrats back in the White House in 2008. I'm currently scared about abortion rights, care of the poor, human rights, and other issues that the current administration doesn't care about but I do.

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