I admire the courage and self-reliance it takes to start your own business and make it succeed.

As you would expect, the loss of freedom and the lack of privacy are extremely difficult... I want you to know that I am well. I am safe, fit and healthy.

I'm very inspired by nature - you could say Mother Nature. I look at things around me and get all kinds of inspiration daily.

The homes I like the best are totally occupied, busy, and useful, whether it's a tiny little house or a great big one. Rarely do you find a great big house that's used in a good way. So I prefer smaller spaces that are full of books, full of things that people are doing.

I have a lot of energy. I have a great desire to absorb information. I’m not a sponge exactly, but I find that something I look at — just walking around Williamsburg, for example — is a great opportunity for ideas. I’ve been here before, I’ve seen things before, but now my eye gets keener and keener. So I can pick up little things: just the pattern of a brick walk, or the way they’ve attached a light to a house.

When I was growing up my mom was home. She wanted to go to work, but she waited. She was educated as a teacher. The minute my youngest sister went to school full-time, from first grade, mom went back to work. But she balanced her life. She chose teaching, which enabled her to leave at the same time we left, and come home pretty much the same time we came home. She knew how to balance.

Giving information that will help everybody live better. That's a teacher's dream - to accumulate information and disperse it in a form that allows people to choose the way they're going to use it. That's what I think I do best.