The Lady of Hedgehog was born as Andrea Marie Collins on December 26, 1976 in Columbia, South Carolina. For anyone who cares, this means that her sun sign is Capricorn and her moon sign is Pisces.

By the time Andrea was three, she was reading and had a new baby sister. Andrea adored her sister, Alaina, who soon learned to use this to her advantage while forcing her elder sibling to run about madly chasing the toys she had thrown out of her play pin. It was this year that Andrea began her schooling career by attending a small preschool where she learned not to color by drawing circles and that other people do not like to be corrected even if they are very wrong and you are not... Andrea is reasonably certain that this is the same year that her father returned to active duty in the US Navy.

When Andrea was seven, her father received orders to Holy Loch, Scotland and the family soon picked up and moved there. Predictably, Andrea found this rather confusing and disturbing. So much so, that at one point she managed to make herself very sick just because she missed her home and was upset that her mother had taken a part time job to relieve her boredom. However, Scotland was a nice place with lots of rain and wind and strange weather patterns. The Scottish school that Andrea attended, Kirn Primary, did not hand out grades and the average school week consisted of assignments given out on Monday to be completed by Friday. Andrea usually finished them several days early and spent quite a bit of time reading mystery novels. By this time, it was fairly obvious to Andrea that she was not nearly as social as the children around her. She much preferred huddling in a corner with a book to running about on the pavement screaming like an idiot. It was in Scotland that one afternoon Andrea followed a deer into a clearing and was started ever so slowly on her way to paganism.

Towards the end of what should have been her fifth grade year had she stayed in America, Andrea was relocated again. She returned to her home in West Columbia, South Carolina, but only to find that everything was different enough that she may as well of moved to another foreign country. She briefly attended Oak Grove Elementary, the school she had left when she moved to Scotland, for two months before ending the fifth grade and moving into Lexington Intermediate School and a year later to Lexington Middle School.

It was while at Lexington that Andrea fully realized her potential as a Trekkie and a social aberration. She wore as much black as possible before this became a fad, which immediately influenced her to stop. (The fact that she has taken up the practice again not withstanding.) She continued to do more reading than talking although she did fall into a Herd of friends. The only Herd member she still speaks to regularly is Sommer, but she still thinks of the others with fondness.

During Andrea's eighth grade year, the US declared war in the Middle East. That summer, she was moved there.

Andrea spent two years in Bahrain, a small island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia which exists primarily to host embassies and to cater to Saudi men who wish to drive over on the weekends (Thursday and Friday, it's a Muslem nation) to drink and chase women...

Andrea was not overly content in Bahrain. The weather was humid and hot with only a month of rain to relieve it. During the month that it raining the roads often flooded to the point that going around some of the roundabouts would have been much easier to do by boat. (Not that this affected the way the average local drove in the slightest...)

While in Bahrain, Andrea attended Bahrain School, which was technically supposed to be a DoDD school but ignored that fact at every possible opportunity. The only statement Andrea was willing to make on the subject of this school was, "Let's put it this way. They couldn't have chosen a better name than BS." She admitted that she could tell us more about this place but avowed that she would hate to sound that venomous. While at BS, Andrea lettered in basketball, badminton, and cross country and spent two years on the staff of the school's literary magazine. She also read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy novels because she had absolutely nothing else to occupy her mind.

In defense of the nation of Bahrain, Andrea adds that although she found her time there unpleasant, it did have a few redeeming qualities. For example, gold is much lower priced than in the US and generally high quality. Also, the jewelry salesmen in Bahrain are more than happy to custom make whatever you could desire based on a photo, a drawing, or even just a verbal description. And thanks to the black market movies are often out on video before they are even out of the first run theaters in the US. To rent a video was usually around three dollars a piece but you got to keep it for as long as you liked (most places did't even insist that you bring everything back at all). Audio tapes usually went for the same dinar ($3 something) with a free tape for every ten you purchased. It is a wonderful place to get Indian food and exotic ornaments. Just don' try living off of American or European food as it will cost you a small fortune! Andrea's parents very much enjoyed the tour in Bahrain where they were able to rent a three story house with swimming pool, a large yard, a maid and a gardener. If the political unrest over there calms down, they would like very much to return.

At the beginning of her junior year of high school, Andrea found herself attending a school in High Wycombe, England, while her parents resided in Sardinia, Italy. The reason behind this was that the small command Andrea's father had been assigned to in Italy could not maintain its own high school and sent all of the dependents who wanted to stay in school to London Central High School, which was not in central London, but in High Wycombe, an hour away from London by train.

The weather in England was an improvement although Andrea often found herself cursing the cold. The school was very small but the student body was entertaining. While at LCHS, Andrea played JV basketball, managed Cross Country, worked on the High Times (the school paper) and qualified twice for letters in drama. In her senior year, she portrayed Weaser in Steal Magnolias and truly astounded the back rows of the theater by being heard.

It was at LCHS that Andrea met Jimmy, the Lord of Hedgehog, who was to become her mate. Andrea loved the city of London and the proximity of such wonderful British treats as custard and sponge cake and other pub grub to which she had become hopelessly addicted in Scotland. She has often heard Americans talk about seeking Hard Rock Cafes across the world just to get something American in a foreign country and remembers people in Scotland who would drive four hours to the nearest McDonald's. Andrea never missed American food but feels this was about pub faire.

When Andrea could manage to forget that she lived in the dorms, where her intelligence and integrity was insulted on a daily basis, she rather liked LCHS. The worst part about the assignment was probably the fact that she was forced to spend every vacation she got in a different country from her best friends and her mate.

In 1995, Andrea graduated high school (despite the night mares she still has to the contrary) and returned to the US. She went to live in Auburn, Alabama where her father was stationed with the Auburn University ROTC unit in supply. While in Auburn Andrea had the first job she ever truly hated at K-Mart but also attended her first formal pagan ritual and obtained a driver's license.

In the spring of 96, Andrea escaped from Alabama, going over the border into Georgia. Continuing her fleeing, she did not stop until she reached Atlanta, where her mate was attending Georgia Tech. Andrea worked in day care until she had a break down and then spent the summer of the Olympics dodging the Olympians and their fences. She worked at Photobooks on the ECI (Who's Who in American High Schools/Dean's List) projects both that summer and the summers of 97 and 98. The time in between was spent trying to get past depression and mental anxiety, reading fantasy novels and historical biographies, trying in vain to write something worth writing, and learning HTML.

Andrea Collins ceased to exist in Februaruy, 1999 when she was legally married to Jimmy on Hedgehog Day and became Andrea Brokaw.

In June of 1999, Jimmy finally graduated. (To get out of Tech as quickly as he did was quite an accomplishment, but it still felt like forever.) He accepted a job with the government in DC and the couple moved north. Not liking things close to DC anymore than they had liked Atlanta, the Brokaws kept searching for a nice place to live until they had crossed the West Virginia border and landed in Martinsburg. Finding the cost of living lowered and the scenery beautiful, they settled into the small valley town and hoped to live happily ever after.

Of course, that didn't last long. In the summer of 2000, Jimmy reported to Navy Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, FL. At the end of a very difficult fifteen weeks, he was commissioned as an Ensign.

The Brokaws resided in Pensacola until the spring of 2001, when they moved to Augusta, Georgia. The orders to Georgia where a major disappointment to Andrea, who fails to see why the Navy hates her enough to have sent her there.

In November of 2001, Andrea took on a new name- "Mommy." Her son, Eric, came into the world on Thanksgiving and has brought much light and happiness into her life.

While in Georgia, Jimmy did several deployments, including a five month stint in Saudi and some sub missions. During this time, he completed his first novel, Waiting for War, the humorous tale of a young soldier in Kuwait.

In 2003, orders the Brokaw family was transfered north to Maryland. And there was much rejoicing.

They spent three and a half years in a town called Westminster, taking frequent trips into Baltimore and becoming very familiar with the mid-Atlantic craft brewing scene.

Come 2007, they made a massive trek across the United States, driving all the way from near Washington, DC to the other Washington - Washington State.

They currently reside in Mount Vernon, Washington, a cute town with a nice brewery and proximity to hiking, skiing, and all sorts of other awesome things. The Pacific Northwest has made it to the very top of the Hedgehogs' official Best Places in the Continental US list. They're waiting to visit Alaska before deciding if it's the most wonderful location in the whole country. =)

To be continued...