I loved dinosaurs. I had the t-shirts, the books, the plastic toys. And the birthday parties--three years running until my mom begged me to change it to something else. My favorite was the fearsome T-Rex. Why I, the shy quiet child, most loved the fiercest predator of the prehistoric ages I will leave for others to speculate on.
When I was a preteen I discovered fantasy novels. Magic and dragons and wizards (well before Harry Potter, thankyouverymuch). But it was the dragons who captured my heart, first in Ann McCaffery's The Dragonriders of Pern. These were creatures who were intelligent, wordly, graceful, wise--everything I aspired to be. It was in junior high that I began drawing the dragons that would eventually anchor my Etsy shop.
As a teen, I joined a local girl scout troop. Part of what we did was run weekend camps for younger scouts. During these campouts, we all went by "camp names". Part of the fun for the girls was trying to guess what our "real names" were. My camp name, as suggested by a good friend of mine, was Dragon. (Yes, this means I will still respond to Dragon in public).
Fast forward a few more years and I was engaged. A friend had a "blog" (something very mysterious and foreign at the time) to track her wedding planning, so I started one too. Since the blog was chronicling my planning to be wed, to become a "Mrs", I selected the name "MrsDragon". A Dragon who was now also a Mrs. In the intervening years, I have come to use the moniker exclusively as my online identity.
