Name:
Nancy Cherie Laird - no, it's not "cherry", it's "sher-ee", with the emphasis on the second syllable. It's a French word meaning "dear" or "dearest", and my mother got it from a book! She must have had delusions of grandeur for her first child, she picked my first name from Frank Sinatra's "Nancy with the Laughing Face."

How young are you?
61 years young last December 12 - Andy and I share a birthday week.

Physical description:
About 5' 7-1/2" tall, blonde hair (it'd be gray if I let it go natural), green eyes, and more pounds than I care to divulge--but I still have a waistline.

Where's home? How long have you been there? Where else have you lived?
Home is Rio Rancho, New Mexico, up the hill and across the county line from Albuquerque. And yes, folks, there is a state of these United States named NEW Mexico; we joined the Union in 1912, just before Arizona; and yes, we speak English, we use US currency, and we can vote in national elections. You don't need a passport or a visa to come here, and yes, you can drink the water.

I was born in Union City, Tennessee, a little country town in western Tennessee 9 miles south of the Kentucky state line and 20 miles east of the Mighty Mississippi, in a county that my great-grandfather helped settle prior to the War of Northern Aggression. My father was born in that town, and he and my mother and sister still live there. During my first marriage, I lived in Norfolk, VA; Leonardtown, MD (NAS Pax River); and San Jose, CA (NAS Moffett Field).

After the divorce, my son and I moved back to Nashville, Tennessee for four years. Then, when David and I married, we ended up in the DC area while he was stationed at NAS Anacostia, then in Virginia Beach while he bounced around from ship to shore to a squadron until he retired after his 28 years in the Navy. We moved here to New Mexico, as he grew up and graduated from high school here and his parents were still with us when we moved here in 1993. I WILL NEVER LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE!!

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Family information (tell us about your spouse, kids, grandkids, dog, etc):
I am married to the love of my life, and have been for over 24 years. Together we have three children:

Kyle is 35, calls Oxford, MS, home, is married, and drives an OTR semi. He has three children: Jonathon, Jeffrey, and Jason, and two stepchildren, and two step-grandchildren (yep, that makes me a step-great-grandmother – an appellation that I'm not real fond of).

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Deanna is 30, unmarried, and lives in the Phoenix area.

Amanda is 25, married, lives in Roy, UT. Her 6-1/2 year old daughter Emily Rose owns a large part of my heart.

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We have two cats who let us live in their house: Sneakers is almost 10 years old, and lumbers around the house like Fat Albert – he only weighs 21 pounds. Socks is our little princess, nearly 8 years old and tips the scales at 7 pounds. They are both very vocal and demanding and loving.

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Do you have a website? If so, what’s the URL?
Not yet, but we are considering it after the beginning of 2008. Currently, we are both gainfully employed, so we decided that we didn't want to run the risk of being overwhelmed with work that we couldn't produce in a timely manner. We do good work, and we don't want to get the reputation of being slow to produce and deliver. After we retire at the end of this year, we may opt for one.

Vocation (what do you do for a living, and what have you done previously; are you retired):
David retired from the Navy in 1993 after 28 years of serving Uncle Sam. He then worked for a countertop shop – started with building the tops and evolved into the shop manager, sales, measuring, fabricating, and installing. He now works in the Pro Sales Division at Woodworker's Supply, has been there nearly ten years, and will probably continue for 3 days a week after the beginning of 2008.

I am a paralegal for a sole practitioner attorney in Albuquerque, after having been in the clerical field for most of my working life – from real estate to electronics to personnel to advertising and PR. I also worked for Uncle Sam for five years as a civilian disbursing clerk in the disbursing (pay) offices in Norfolk and Pax River. When I found the law in 1993, I was hooked. I intend to retire on December 31, 2007 (whoopee), and do this work on an as-needed basis as the orders come in. I also do some scroll-sawing work and some fabric crafts, but they seem to have taken a backseat to the woodworking, lasering, and turning lately. Hmmmmm

David has been doing some form of woodworking since his teens, and I got into it when I quickly determined that the only way to spend any quality time with my spouse was to be in the garage/shop with him. I started out small – sanding, holding, catching – then moved on to helping him with finishing. We do custom furniture and cabinetry – when we can get the commissions – and we build all our own furniture and cabinetry. We've had a side business for as long as we've been married. Now we work together on designing things and in the shop building things. We also have the laser business which we acquired a couple of years ago which is starting to be our primary business. David also gives "woodworking lessons" to a couple of friends, and he repairs machinery when called upon.

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