Welcome to My World~ Tanya Hanson AND a giveaway!

Filly Fun 2016 Design to use
I’m thrilled to be the one to start our Filly Fun Facts special event! Don’t forget to leave a comment…it’s a giveaway-day, too, my duet “Sisters.” (All winners for this week will be posted on SATURDAY.)
 
1.  I had a very happy childhood with two brothers in suburban Los Angeles and now live on California’s central coast  about a mile from the beach, in a nice little cul-de-sac surrounded by strawberry fields.

 

2. I’m married to a firefighter, have a son and daughter, two darling grandsons AND am getting a baby granddaughter in August! This is the cake my daughter and son in law cut in front of all of us…nobody knew the gender…and it was PINK inside.

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3.  I taught English forever at the local Catholic school and now enjoy traveling with Hubs and volunteering at the local horse rescue.
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4. We’ve recently visited the Canadian Rockies (rode up a glacier on a giant snow coach) and America’s South (oh, NOLA, Beaufort SC, Jekyll Island and Savannah GA rocked it!), but the Hawaiian islands are our go-to place. We are blessed to have family in Oahu. The pic below, though, is a black sand beach on the Big Island where we found ourselves last October.
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5. Hubs and I went to high school together but were not sweethearts. In fact, he was Football Team Captain/Boyfriend of the Homecoming Queen/Head Cheerleader. I was a Dork.
 
6.  When we re-met at a Christmas party right after college, I picked “Deliverance” for our first date. He married me anyway. Sheesh.
7. I am a Disney freak. My favorite is Frozen. Hubs and I went to Disneyland for our honeymoon and now get season passes for the fam and go all the time. Check out my Mirror on the Wall board at Pinterest..a tribute to Snow White, which is my daughter’s favorite. (We are anticipating a Snow White nursery…)

8.   I have a pathological terror of stepping on a down escalator without somebody in front of me. (Charlene will attest to this!) I am also obsessed with blackbirds and took this picture on a cold winter’s day at our neighborhood park.2012-12-28 15.27.21

9.  I have a fantasy football team named Wild Thang. My favorite college team is the USC Trojans. 
 
10.  Louisa May Alcott is my favorite author of all time.  Visiting her home, Orchard House, in Concord MA was awesome!
 
11. I live near the beach and go there a lot.  Can you find my curly-haired grandbaby?
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What’s the most interesting fact about YOU? Please leave a comment for a chance to win an e-copy of SISTERS, my tales of two sisters…mostly because I never had any LOL.Tanya Sisters Double 2 Web (2)
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55 thoughts on “Welcome to My World~ Tanya Hanson AND a giveaway!”

  1. Tanya, it was so much fun learning all these little tidbits about you. It seems we’re alike in many ways and share an affiliation for the beach, Louisa May Alcott and sisterly love. Love the cover of your book!

    • Hi Margaret, happy Monday! Aw, and thanks kindly. Yes, I remember my childhood reading all of her books…Eight Cousins, Jack and Jill…Rose in Bloom. All of ’em. I was thrilled that Louisa May Alcott was part of the curriculum when I taught American Literature. She had been a nurse in the civil war. Hospital Sketches is also a wonderful read. Thanks so much for being here!

  2. It’s hard to.pick just one fact….I have four kids in their twenties who I absolutely adore, I have lived my whole life in the Montreal area (fabulous city to visit, BTW), and I love to quilt, read and garden. I am a die-hard Montreal Canadiens hockey fan (my grandfather played for the team back in the thirties) and thanks to two of my daughters who were competitive show jumpers, I am an announcer at horse shows on the provincial and national circuits in Quebec and Ontario.

    • Hi Kathryn, thanks for touting Montreal! I so want to go there. Our daughter and sil went a few years ago, and she still basks in its old-world charm. I know Western Canada is much different, but I absolutely fell in love with your country when we visited Alberta. PEI is also on my bucket list, Thanks so much for posting today,

  3. Tanya, very interesting. I was wondering about your obsession with blackbirds. Could that have something to do with Alfred Hitchcock? Ha! Congrats on the new baby granddaughter! After seeing your exciting life, mine seems very dull and boring. I may have to write my own story and maybe be a belly dancer for an Arabian sheikh and held captive for many years or be a bomb or terrorist expert working for the CIA. LOL!

    I had great fun reading your post and learning a tad more about my Filly sister!

    • Hi Linda, I don’t quite know where the blackbird thing came from. One day a jillion of them were sitting in a winter-bare tree outside my window, and I went out to snap a picture and caught one in flight. I couldn’t have planned a better picture–more of my weirdness is enlarging that picture and hanging it in my newly-remodeled bathroom. Gulp. I do recall The Birds but I don’t know if that’s the reason for my obsession LOL.

      Oh, yes, my friend…a CIA agent is where it’s at! Go for it. Love to you….

  4. Oh how fun!! I love learning about ya’ll.The tidbit about you marrying your hubby makes me laugh. My hubby was the dork – the way he asked me out was seriously nerdy. I married him anyway!And still tease him about that. 😉

    • Okay now, Susan, you’ve hooked me. Now you gotta spill those romantic dork-beans. Hmmmm. Could be a scene in a future book? If you haven’t read Nerd in Shining Armor, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. (Vickie Lewis Thompson). I read it on a plane and couldn’t help outbursts. I so appreciate your post today!

  5. Fun post! I love the cake idea; and congrats on the new granddaughter. My full-time career was in publishing, and also a twenty year part-time job in music. Besides music and reading, I am also interested in history and family genealogy. Oh, and about siblings? I’m an only, sorry to say. (P.S. I can’t be entered in the contest since I don’t have an e-reader.)

    • Hi Robin, oh grandpets are the best! I have two grandbulldogdaughters, Sasha and Cleo, and two grandkitties, Cornbread and Beans. They even get their own little Christmas tree in the TV room. Thanks for stopping by today.

    • Hi Colleen, always so nice to see you here in Wildflower Junction! ANime is a very interesting fact! Yeah, my daughter got the note about the gender from the doctor and on the drive to the bakery, she was very tempted to open it and see the result…but waited for the baker to cook up the magic. It was a wonderful moment. Thanks for posting.

  6. Congratulations on your new grandchild on the way. I love that the cake inside was pink – how fun! I also love, love Disneyland and have a annual pass, too. But USC? I was raised blocks from UCLA and went to UC Berkeley, so I can’t join you there. Go Bruins! Go Bears! Go anyone but USC 🙂

    Best of luck with your new book!

    • Hi Allison, yeah, I know well the rivalry between the Trojans and the Bruins lol. Funny thing, they are at heart good friends because the schools are close together and lots of kids have friends on the other side LOL. Nonetheless…it is hard to root for the Bruins whenever they AREN’T playing the Trojans, beause a victory for them does boost PAC 12 stats. Ah well. Thanks so much for posting today.

  7. I have to be the most boring person in the history of mankind…I can’t think of a single thing about myself half as interesting as any one thing you shared! lol I grew up in a place called Weedpatch, probably about two hours from where you spent your childhood. I’m the youngest of eight children, but actually only grew up with one sibling. (Three were married before I was born, the others married by the time I was 6.) I love birds too, but my “obsession” is with cardinals. Literally terrified of spiders…actually, any kind of creepy-crawly critter, but mostly spiders.

    Congrats on your newly arriving grandbaby!

    • Oh Delia, Weedpatch is an adorable name and perfect for a Western! I’m tucking it away in my ideas! And being one of eight kids is definitely not boring.I love cardinals at Christmas and confess to having some fake but very realistic fake ones with real red feathers for my tree. Thanks so much for taking time to be with me here today, my friend. xoxox

  8. Wish I was in your neck of the woods today. It’s nippy and windy here and I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely in my old home town! My husband and I are big Disney fans. We went to Grad Night together and still have season passes with our grandchildren. Could it have something to do with growing up in So Cal? Thanks for sharing!

    • Hi Tanya, my doppelganger LOL. We are having lots of cold wind today! If it gets nippy like this, at least let it rain. Cloudy but doesn’t look like it. (sad face). Easter Sunday, yesterday, was lovely and bright blue sky! Yes, it’s something in the native genes..we went to Disneyland the first year it opened. Of course I was very, very young LOL. Thank you so much for stopping by today, my friend! Get another western going so you can be a guest here again!

  9. Always love popping in here, Tanya, and discovering new tidbits about you. We went to Disney World in Orlando for our honeymoon. 🙂

    Congratulations on the newest granddarling. What exciting news!

    • Awesome Dora! We took the kids to DW when they were 11 and 13 I think. Gasp, we liked our Magic Kingdom Better, but that’s probably the loyalist in us. I know it’s tons different now; that was a loooong time ago, and boy, did we have fun fun fun! I hear DW has a new Snow White and Dwarf train ride I’ve got to get my daughter to some day. Thanks so much, my dear friend, for popping in today. xox

  10. We must be darn good friends…I don’t think I learned anything new except the fear of the escalator thing. LOL Congratulations on your new baby granddaughter. I bet she already has a ton of clothes, doesn’t she? So good to hear all about you, Tanya. I love learning about my friends.
    Hugs,
    Cheryl

    • LOL. You make me laugh, Cheryl, my wonderful friend and editor. I should have had a 12th face and said I knew you way back when as a writer-pal and then, you invited me to be one of the flagship authors at the BEST publishing house ever, Prairie Rose Publications. Oh, I am famous for my fear of escalators. Well, call me quirky. Thanks for the comment. xo Ps. all, Cheryl is my editor for the Sisters duet!

  11. Enjoyed learning all these things about you. How fun! I love ,love, Disney also. Thank you for sharing.

    • Hi Mary B, I can’t get enough Disney. Sigh. The curly headed grandbaby adores Micky Mouse Clubhouse and had a MM theme for his very first birthday. At that time, he called him “Mee-Mow.” Funny…he’s a tad into Star Wars now, and that has become Disney now, too. Thanks so much for stopping by today!

  12. Love the photos and what an interesting bunch of facts. Never been to Disneyland, but was at Disneyworld in 1975. It was very small then but oh so much fun. Doris

    • Hi Doris, thanks for stopping in. DisneyWorld has a great Magic Kingdom and so much more. I think I could have lived in Epcot forever! But I am a Cali native and have Disneyland in my blood. Thanks for your kind words about my blog. xo

  13. That’s a lot of factoids about you, Tanya. I share your fear of going down escalators. I don’t like going up them either. I laughed at your facts about you and your husband–like the A Team popular person and the nerd. Y’all broke the rules. Good for you. I never would have imagined you living near L.A. or being so close to a beach. I thought you lived on a ranch in the Midwest.
    I knew about your obsession with black birds since I follow you on Pinterest. You choose all the things I love too…except black birds. I’m an owl addict.
    I don’t have any truly amazing factoids about myself except my nickname is Sal (some people call me Sally) and I play the bagpipes and some other instruments (none of them really well.)
    I so enjoyed reading these little known facts about you, Tanya.

    • Oh, Sarah, the bagpipes! I have to say…my husband is a testicular cancer survivor…I almost put that in my list today, and each year we attend a wonderful Firefighter Cancer Support gala. There is always a bagpipe group and I always end up in tears! Way to go, girl. And thank you for the ranch compliment LOL. I guess my years attending college in Nebraska and student-teaching in Colorado rubbed off a little. Oh, and I camped my childhood away in the Sierras. So happy to see you here today. Love you bunches…

  14. Hi Tanya
    Loved your fun facts. I know all about your escalator stuff, but you manage okay, as long as I’m in front of you, right? And congrats on the Baby Girl coming in August. What fun!!! I have four girls worth of clothes to hand down to you!

    • Hi Charlene, yes, I still can’t go it alone. Sheesh. I think I had to once…our Target is two-story, you send your cart down on the gizmo next to you, so I guess it went slow enough…but I was still in a cold sweat. I don’t know why…unless I’ve blocked it out LOL, I never had a disaster. Sheesh. Yes, I can’t wait to compare granddaughter stories! Hugs to you and Donny and the princesses! xoxoxox

  15. How wonderful that you volunteer with horse rescue. I love horses, had one for ten years once upon a time. I follow many of the rescue and wild horse groups on Facebook and am working on a book about a rescuer. Thank you for helping the ones you do!

    • Hi Lucy, I too follow a lot of wild horse venues….wish I had $$ and space to save them all. But you know, we do what we can, huh. I hope you will consider Prairie Rose when you’re ready to submit. So nice to see you here today! Don’t be a stranger.

  16. Thanks for all the fun facts about you, Tanya. Congratulations on a granddaughter. The most interesting thing about me is 13 grandchildren who have changed my life forever. 🙂

  17. Interesting learning more about you. We parallel in a few areas. My husband and I went to high school together, but the extent of our “relationship” was sitting near each other in junior chemistry class. We wrote a couple of times a year after school, but hadn’t seen each other for 7 years before meeting again. I was coming home for a break after extending my time in the Peace Corps for an extra year. He was stationed at the same Air Force base in California as my cousin’s husband. They had him over for supper, he took us all out to dinner the next night, and visited a few minutes before I continued on to my home in NY. He showed up at my Peace Corps assignment 5 months later and proposed. We had never dated. It has worked beautifully. We celebrate our 44th anniversary this coming June.

    • Hi Patricia,, wow, what a wonderful love story you have! Blessings for many more happy years. How I admire you for your Peace Corps mission! Thanks for stopping by…I always enjoy your comments.

    • hi Quilt lady, aw, you’re so cute. My credit cards are already smoking…she even got an Easter basket LOL. Well, it was full of jammies, which she will need. We are really getting excited and so is her four-year old brother. Thanks for stopping in today, xo Always so good to see you here.

  18. You were really a beautiful bride. Is the black sand because of volcano activity eons ago? I guess I am so used to Rhode Island sand that the black sorta creeps me out. I would love living near the beach but being very light I burn easily even with sunscreen and my husband is too. I found your list interesting. Thank you for coming.

    • Hi Whitney, thanks kindly for the compliment. Sadly the beauty did not last 42 years, ugh. Yes, the black sand is from volcanic action. The Big Island is still the site of much volcanic activity. It is the youngest of the Islands and still growing. In 2003, our first time there, we actually got to hike around the flowing lava fields of Kilauea, but the roads are inaccessible now. It’s quite a place. Thanks so much for commenting today.

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