Donella's Personal Page

Hi! I'd like to introduce myself, and let you know who I am. My name is Donella Spencer. . The photo to the left was taken for my 47th b-day, by Larny J. Mack Photography, in Oceanside, CA! I HIGHLY recommend Larny's work!

My husband, Paul, is a recently retired career Marine, most recently stationed at Quantico, VA. We moved back to the States in the summer of 1999, from MCAS Iwakuni Japan, where we spent a three year accompanied tour. He spent almost five years stationed at Camp Pendleton CA, and I spent an extra year there to allow our daughter to graduate from the high school she had been attending. After CamPen, he was transferred to Quantico, from which he deployed to Iraq, shortly before he retired. We have two children; our son John is 25, a former USMC Sgt curently living in SoCal with his wife Jessica, who is 23. Our daughter Ashley is 21 and a college student in CA. We lost our Dodger dog to cancer in 2003. We had adopted him in Japan, and brought him back to the States with us. Our cat, Oliver died in Dec. '99; he had been with us more than ten years, and made the trip to Japan and back. Five days before Dodger died, we adopted another boxer mix puppy, Dharma. She has been a joy, and really helped us survive the death of our Dodger. Once we became empty nesters, she became even more spoiled, as the "only child"!!! so.... it was quite the adjustment for her when we added a new puppy to our family in Jan '08! We got an adorable new brother for her, named Deacon! He doesn't have a geocities page yet, but he does have a Dogster page, which can be reached from the link on Dharma's geocities page, for now. He's a lab mix- supposedly his mom was a boxer, but we don't see any boxer in him really.

I am originally from California, but thanks to Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, I have also lived in Beaufort, SC, Jacksonville, NC, and Cherry Point NC, as well as on MCAS Tustin, CA, Camp Pendelton, CA and MCAS Iwakuni! When Paul was transferred to VA, we sold the house I had inherited in CA, and bought a beautiful home in VA, near Quantico. I am finding what peace I can in this world gone crazy in the beauty of my surroundings here in my Big House in the Little Woods... it is very serene and relaxing. I love the fact that we have critters... squirrels and birds and turtles, right in my backyard, and that I can watch them out the window. In this housing development, there are also deer and even bear, tho I have never seen one in my fenced yard! (Hubbie HAS spotted deer in the unfenced side yard) After my husband retires, we plan to eventually settle in the Northeast somewhere; we both like wide-open spaces in the country. Take a look at my dream home!

The most time-consuming hobby I've had lately has been Net surfin'! I learned a lot, in my many years in the world of HTML (I just realized from my copyright dates, it's been 10 years!!!); and then I slacked off, and the cyber world zipped on by me! The most useful resource I found online was A Beginner's Guide to HTML. My next project will hopefully be to get more genealogy info up for our family trees :-) I have gotten a start on that, but there is a plethora of photos and info still to share! A lot of it, I am sharing with various local sites on Rootsweb. I found it very interesting to discover that Paul and I are related through Roger Conant's grandson! I believe I have found one or two other lines that we share as well, but that one is a definite! Being so close to DC, I should take more advantage of the tremendous research opportunities available there than I have so far. I do intend to join the DAR (my mother was a member), which will help my research access a bit! Their headquarters is right up the road in DC. I have found many other fun learning opportunities on the web, too. I also love to read, when I get a quiet moment. I enjoy science fiction/fantasy, especially Piers Anthony's books, as well as historical fiction, classic novels, Arthurian tales and poetry. I'm a fan of the Hudson River Valley and White Mountain Schools of Art, as well as the impressionists. I've done quite a bit of cross-stitch, and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. There are no examples of my work in my house, though- it seems that I give everything away as gifts! I planned to complete a quilt while we were in Japan. Didn't quite happen, but I have collected the materials, and found a pattern (does that count?). Hopefully I'll find time, eventually. I have several projects in mind, including t-shirt quilts for myself and the two kids. I've never made a quilting project larger than a pillow-top or a square in a friendship quilt, so this will be a learning experience for me. One of my old hobbies, which I have begun to get back into, is photography. My biggest love is outdoor and nature photography, and my favorite photographer is (of course) Ansel Adams! There are so many photo opportunities in Japan, and I hope I've captured some of the scenes for you on these pages. There were still a few things that I always meant to take a shot or two of, and never got to... isn't life always like that? Perhaps someday we will get back for a visit!

The sports I enjoy are very calm, quiet and slow, compared to the sports enjoyed by others in my family. I enjoy a nice hike in the mountains (especially in the fall, my favorite season). I'd like to learn to cross-country ski someday, too (the rest of the family are downhillers). I've really enjoyed canoeing, the few times I've had the chance. We have gone canoeing/fishing at Yasaka Dam near Iwakuni, as well as in upstate NY, and really enjoyed it... although I haven't figured out why I always have to put up with fishing, when I get the chance to canoe!!! Our whole family enjoys archery, and we all have our own bows. I have a recurve; everyone else has compound bows. Everyone except my daughter also enjoys shooting (pistols, rifles, shotguns- indoor and outdoor ranges ). I have loved horses and riding since I was a kid... I even owned a horse, years ago. These days, we try to fit a horseback ride into most of our vacations. To the right is a photo of me on our trail ride in the Yukon Territory of Canada, when we stopped in Skagway AK, during our Alaskan cruise! The most recent ride was along the beach on Oahu, when we visited John and Jess. That was really beautiful, too!

I started a collection of postcards, during my family's travels when I was a young child. I continued to add to my collection while we were in Japan. You might want to check out my Postcard Page. I have many other collections, that threaten to take over the house... Gotta say, though- having gone through all the collected junk in my mother's house after she died, I've developed an urge to NEVER collect anything again!!! So, perhaps, my packrat tendencies will get a mid-life change... who knows? Right now, I'm more in pare-down mode. Celebrating simplicity... LOL... yeah, right...

Links to other sites on the Web

Oprah's Remembering Your Spirit Thought-For-The-Day 6/17/2001
Third Age 7/6/2001 Great site for those of us 40 and up!
Sgt. Mom's New version of the old site; even has a parent's board :-)
PBS & Nova online
Better Homes & Gardens
American Council for Headache Education
Relatives and Companions Guide to Fibromyalgia (FMS)
Aspartame... the Bad News I've really noticed a difference since I cut out the Nutrasweet/aspartame products.
Forever Yours Awesome free electronic greeting cards :-) Java Lake Effects cards, and huge selection of tunes! Thanks Vicki!
Blue Mountain Arts Free ANIMATED electronic greeting cards!!!
Porter Branch Library Stafford's local library
DC area Geneological Research Libraries
Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore

For kicks and giggles- other 'Donella' sites:

The name Donella Apparently not that common! Go figure...
Donella Plane An Ausssie country music singer
Donella the Iguana Unfortunately, a dead iguana :-(
Italian Donella Operatic Italian Donella Del Monaco.
Fan site for Chad Donella An actor- Donella is not his first name, but he gets an honorable mention here.
Donella the horse! an $18,000 horse, no less!
There's even a Donella potato!!! LOL! We Donella's are everywhere!

Well, that's me... feel free to e-mail me, if you'd like. I always welcome new cyber-friends!

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