Kreativ Blogger Award

THANKS SO MUCH to Jeena Papaadi, of Navy Blue Jeans, for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger award!!! Jeena is a real sweetheart, and has been following me for a while now, but I was still very pleasantly surprised by this award.

kreativ-blogger Here’s the lovely suitable-for-framing visual announcing to all the world that I have been so honored.

And now for my obligations as an awardee:

post the jpg of the notice,

thank the nominator and link to her,

write 7 things my blog readers don’t know about me,

choose 7 other blogs to award, and link to them, and

notify those other bloggers.

Seven things about me — I, of course, think I’m endlessly fascinating, but what’s of any interest to anyone else?
house

My husband and I built our home. From scratch. Without any contractors or builders. We used rough cut lumber milled locally, and built a timber frame home. I love it, despite the fact that 30 years later it’s still not really finished, and it never will be. I don’t even see those unfinished things anymore.

family

I am the baby in birth order in my family (youngest of three girls). I married the baby in his family (youngest of three boys). Lots of people told us this was the recipe for disaster, that babies shouldn’t marry babies ‘cuz they’re too self-centered, but they were completely wrong. Marriages don’t get better than ours.

I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive. Not diagnosable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Just one tiny example: I count things (how many steps on my walk, how many cookies in the batch, etc.). The good news is as soon as I’m done counting, I forget the numbers. They don’t matter; it’s the act of counting that’s important. Another example: the amount of time I spent on this post!

I have been the director of a large department of county government. After spending most of my professional life in the not-for-profit sector, I found I wasn’t well suited to government work, and left to return to not-for-profits and start my business. Left the big paycheck and great benefits, but also the daily grind and life disenchantment; well worth it.

Although I’ve learned some patience over the years, I’m still basically an impatient person, at least with myself. I am bad at delay of gratification, whether it’s buying new socks, cooking dinner, or learning a new weaving pattern. I want it NOW. I think I’m much more patient with other people, but I guess you’d have to ask family, friends, and co-workers to get their opinions on that.

I’m a Gemini. My birthday is on the cusp, but I have what I consider to be a Gemini nature, typical of those twins. I can always see both sides of everything. This is both a blessing and a curse. It makes it easy to empathize with others, tough to make a decision and stick to it.

Living in the sticks as I do, I encounter all sorts of animals, some of whom try to move into my home (refer to the bees of a few months ago as an example). It wasn’t until this year that I was able to not just set the mouse trap, but also empty it. Previously I either got someone else to empty it or just threw it away, mouse, trap, and all.

Ok, now for my 7 blogs. I have to say that this was quite difficult for me. Why? I still have a slow, old dialup connection. That, combined with the fact that I’m piecing together a living with several part-time jobs, means I don’t have a lot of time to spend online. And three of the blogs I do read were knocked out, because 1 is Jeena and two others were her awardees. Plus, thanks to the dialup, it takes forever to load some sites that are picture heavy (without being optimized for web), so I can’t go to those places often. I’ll start with four that I have visited regularly for some time.

Daily Baxter. Mentioned frequently here, Baxter is my grandson. His human mother, my daughter, is Baxter’s scribe, and she often makes me chuckle. Thanks for the laughs, sweetie!

Written, Inc. I take on Carmi Levy’s weekly photographic challenges as often as I can, but there’s way more to his website than that. Carmi’s a great writer, as well as photographer. In one short post he can make me chuckle and make my eyes well with tears. He opens his heart while he opens his shutter. And through his comments, I’ve seen lots of other great photos, too.

Scarf A Day. Being a weaver, I love to see what other people are doing, and I like both Janet’s work and her writing.

Wild About Nature. Kenton & Rebecca are fun-loving outdoors types who are good reads. And they take some really swell nature photos, too.

Jean Bezek writes a blog about her son, Dexter. Although not related to me, it’s fun to keep up with with Dexter’s young life. Plus the pictures load quickly!

These next few are recent discoveries of mine. Very recent. As in I did a lot of looking for/at dozens of blogs to have a total list of 7. Having found them, I do plan to visit them regularly from now on.

The Bloggess. Jenny is a woman with attitude. And style. I find her posts funny and unique enough that I’m willing to deal with her slow-loading photos. I also like her posts on Good Mom/Bad Mom.

Peggy Payne writes the Boldness Blog. I’ll be perfectly honest here — I went here because of her name. Us Pegs should stick together. But once I was there, I liked what I read, so stuck around and read more. Positive, interesting stuff in here.

Now I have to go notify those folks. And update the links on my blog. And get some Christmas weaving done!