Much OVERDUE Thanks!

I am HORRIBLE at doing this whole award thingie. I LOVE getting them. But then I start THE PROCESS:

1. Look at the pretty, pretty award! Wasn't it so nice of so-and-so to give it to me?! They're the sweetest thing ever.
2. I will save it onto my computer so I have it.
3. But I'll just wait to post it until I have a couple and then I'll do it all at once.
4. Crudniks. Now I have like 5 awards and I still haven't thanked the people that gave them to me.
5. But I really don't have time to do ALL that linkage right now. I don't want to do a half-way job.
6. Look, there's someone else thanking people for their awards. Why can't I just DO that?!
7. Well, now it's been SO long it would almost be insulting to put it up.
8. FINE! I'll do it! Sheesh, self, quit being all judgmental and stuff.

So that's where I am now :) sorry it took me so long to work through the stages, but here it is, honest!

I THINK I got all of them *crosses fingers and holds breath*

I got this one from the lovely Southern Princess herself, Courtney. She is a fantabulous blogger and a lovely commenter herself who has done me the courtesy of linking to some of my contests and such. You will always enjoy a visit to her kingdom :)

She didn't say there were any rules for this, so I will just pass it along to some people that always leave loverly comments for me :)

1. Mia Hayson @ My Literary Jam and Toast - She's the sweetest and we are the queens of TMI when it comes to leaving comments on each other's blogs. Besides, I want to keep on the good side of the zombies *nods fervently*

2. Hannah @ Musings of a Palindrome - One of my very first bloggy friends. She always has something funny or random to say. :D

3. Sarah @ Falen Formulates Fiction - Another one of my first bloggy friends. I love how she just pops her head in to say hello. Makes me feel like we're next door neighbors or something :)

4. Jemi Fraser @ Just Jemi - Her comments always make me smile. Always :)

5. Raquel @ Raquel Byrnes - She has been supportive of my blog for a long time, even when I don't always make it back over to hers as often as I'd like.

I love ALL of my commenters and, seriously, you guys support me so much and I am eternally grateful for it!

This one came from the fantastic Melanie Sherman. Oh, look, she thinks my blog is lovely :D

I don't make it over there as often as I would like, but she's always got a whole lot of great writerly stuff going on, so go check it out :)

I'm supposed to pass this on to 8 more people, so here goes!

1. Courtney @ Southern Princess - fun, sweet, generous and an amazing writer. nuff said.

2. Simon @ Constant Revisions - because it's such a girly award. No, but really, because the Monday Mahem series with Mercedes is totally making the beginning of my week. And his snark on Twitter keeps me chuckling.

3. Lindsey @ Dangerous With a Pen - she's been on a summer hiatus to spend time with her family, but I loves her and can't wait for her to come back :)

4. Tahereh @ Grab a Pen - She's talented, hilarious and oh, so, sweet. Every post she does makes me smile. Most of them make me laugh and some of them hit me right in the heart.

5. Naomi @ Writing: A Soul's Way of Breathing - All right, I know she's my sister, but I would seriously follow her blog even if she wasn't. Totes.

6. BlackRoseofLight94 (aka that girl I know, but whose name I can't reveal) @ The Thoughts and Adventures of a Mindless Innocent - An amazing girl whose blog is always entertaining and you should totes go check it out. Besides, we picked the same background, it must be a sign!

7. Joan @ Things I Yell at You - I challenge you to read any one of her posts and not snort milk through your nose (of course, you should be drinking milk whilst reading. Because if you can just snort milk through your nose then ewwwwww...) She was another one of my first bloggy friends and oh my werd, but she is hilarious.

8. Patricia @ Patricia Stoltey - She's always thought-provoking and enjoyable to read. I love the variety of people I get to meet whilst blogging!

And finally,

3 marvelous bloggers awarded me this. Aww... you're all so sweet!

Al at Publish or Perish. He's got the most gorgeous pictures to share on his blog, plus a lot of other really interesting stuff!

Melanie Sherman awards this one to me as well. Thanks!

And the fantabulous Cynthia Reese whose blog is helpful, entertaining and great fun to visit!

Now for this one I'm supposed to tell you 7 things about myself and then pass it on to newer blogs I've discovered. One said I was supposed to pass it to 15 people, one said 8, so I'll just throw it at people until I run out of time :)

First, the things about myself (these are completely random, just so you know):

1. I have never had a cavity. Not once. Never had to get Novocaine or have anything drilled or filled or anything. I love my teeth and I guess I totally lucked out, because I'm the only one in the family that can claim this!
2. I graduated from college almost exactly 10 years after I graduated from high school (I graduated from high school early - at 16, and waited a while before I figured out what I wanted to do with myself, plus we moved from VA to NY and I did a bunch of other useful stuff in that break)
3. My favorite singer of all time is Steven Curtis Chapman. From about the time that I was 12, until now, I have loved his music and his lyrics. I finally got to see him for the first time in concert a few years ago and since that time I've been to 3 more of his concerts (it's nice having a job and money :)
4. One of my favorite words is SESQUIPEDALIAN which means someone that loves big words. I love the fact that it is such a long word :D
5. I love movie posters! I've been collecting them from work for the past 4 years and I probably have enough to wallpaper a basement. They are all rolled nicely in my closet until I have a place where I actually have wall space.
6. If I was going to be something other than a mom or a professor, I think it would be fun to be a video editor - one of those people that puts together the montages for shows like So You Think You Can Dance or something like that. I do it with lame equipment that came on my computer and have SO much fun with it. Either that or I want to be a Muppeteer. Seriously. How cool would THAT be?
7. I have a potassium absorption deficiency and it makes my legs get all weird and crampy and twitchy like my leg is doing right now. scuse me whilst I go take my potassium supplements.

And now I'm supposed to pass it on. Phew. I need to do these one at a time from now on. This is exhausting!

1. Catherine @ The Writer's Notebook - I met her through TWITTER and we were bemoaning syllabi writing together, which was SO cool, because I couldn't express the pain to anyone around me since they weren't writing one. Plus she's got a great blog and she's pretty funny and she loved Joss Whedon so GO. Follow.

2. Amber @ aLmYbNeNr - she has the most adorable picture blog thing over at tumblr and you have to see the post she did about her trip with Sage, the owl she won in my contest! So great!

3. J. M. Neeb @ Ducks Out of a Row - seriously, if you haven't become an avid follower of "ducks" then get yourself over there now. I am never disappointed with one of his posts and always entertained.

4. Mercedes @ A Broken Laptop - I discovered her through Twitter and through Simon, mainly because of the Monday Mayhem feature (which is hilarious and you should totally go read it) But then I stayed around, because I liked the place :D

5. Mireyah @ Mireyah Wolfe - another Twitter friend that I roamed over to her blog from there. (that sentence made no sense whatsoever). Anyhoo. She's sweet and fun and you should go check her out!

AND we're out of time. Gots to go get ready for work!

I Love you all, my blogger lovelies and I shall see you all later!

Awards and Tagging!

I recently was the recipient of the Prolific Blogger Award. Creepy Query Girl was kind enough to pass this on to me :0) Yeah!

I have been so out of touch with all ya'll's blogs that I feel like a terrible person. Here's to catching up soon and I'm just going to touch on a couple of my favorite blogger people :)

Hannah at Musings of a Palindrome. She's doing this retrospective for her birthday month that is just SO much fun.

Mia at My Literary Jam and Toast. Seriously, I feel like I have known her FOREVER instead of a couple weeks.

Sarah at Falen Formulates Fiction writes about so many thought-provoking topics. I always enjoy my jaunts over there.

Lindsey at Dangerous With a Pen always makes me smile (and I think she lives kinda close to me, too....)

Patricia Stoltey's blog I discovered during the A-Z challenge and she always has something interesting to say.

Oh there are just so many of you that I love to visit! But I'm running out of time so I have to hurry on to the next little section.

Oh, and somebody else recently tagged me with an award, but for the life of me I can't remember who, so if it was you, just leave me a comment and I will come collect and pass it on *hangs head in shame*

Ruby at Blabbin' Grammy (another amazing blog you should follow) tagged me with the following challenge - to answer 5 questions 5 times. So here goes!

1) Where were you five years ago?

a- just finishing up my junior year of college.

b- working at Eckerd Drug Store (blah)

c- writing the first draft of my novel Unexpected Miracles

d- writing e-mails back and forth to Naomi (Pickle Juice forever!)

e- getting to know my future brother-in-law

2) Where would you like to be five years from now?

a- finishing up my doctorate in English.

b- publishing a novel

c- engaged or married

d- in the process of adoption (if the 2nd half of c has happened)

e- where God wants me to be

3) What is (was) on your list to do today? (well I'm writing this Thursday so it will post Friday, so I'm going to talk about Friday's list :)

a- write this blog post

b- travel to the city with Naomi to get to meet Nikki face to face! (SQUEE!)

c- make a peanut butter sandwich

d- not get lost on the train to the city

e- make it home safely

4) What five snacks do you enjoy?

a- chocolate and peanut butter melted together with a tiny spoon of ice cream on top

b- oranges or tangerines or clementines (clementines are my FAVORITE!)

c- triscuits crips with mozarella string cheese

d- frozen green grapes

e- sweet and salty peanut butter granola bars

5) What would you do if you were a billionaire?

a- invest the money wisely

b- pay off my, my sister's and my dad's school bills all the way through

c- buy my parents a house at the Outer Banks

d- give a sizable anonymous gift to our church

e- buy the Selesian School so Naomi can turn it into a performing arts center where we can put on our plays and celebrate other local talent.

So there you have it!

I tag... Naomi, Jenn (haha! you have to write another blog post!), Erin, Creepy Query Girl, Raquel, Joan Crawford, Mary McDonald, LemanieSunshine and anyone else who wants to take this one, because I would seriously like to read more about all of you.

Eep! I'm going to be late for work! tata!

Polaris, Peoples and Prizes!

POLARIS

My sister and I are on the verge of becoming full-fledged geeks.

At least it feels that way. We have just purchased our tickets for the Polaris Convention in Toronto!

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

AND we started planning and shopping for our costumes for the cosplay. I love the fact that I know how to sew. I will not reveal Naomi's costume (in case she wants to post about it) but I am thinking I would like to do Delenn from Babylon 5. Something Lost would be cool, too, but I don't feel like rocking the Dharma jumpsuit.

We are both super excited about it. And Nikki Stafford is going to be there, too (which is how we actually found out about it) and it is going to be the bestest sister time!

PEOPLE AND PRIZES!

You all are awesomesauce, just wanted to let you know that :)

I received a couple of awards a while ago and I haven't been hoarding them, just trying to find a place to stick them.

I got this one from Anne @ Piedmont Writer ... aww... thanks :) This one's been sitting around since Easter and I feel terrible for hanging onto it for so long *blushes*

I don't think I'm supposed to do anything but pass it on, so here goes:

Some Superior Scribblers you should check out are

Blabbin Grammy - her posts are a trip down her memory lane - entertaining and full of heart and humor. I discovered her through the A-Z challenge and I'm so glad I did :)

Lindsey at Dangerous With a Pen - She's off the webs for the moment, but I feel like she's a soul sister and her posts are always worth reading

Creepy Query Girl - whose name and post of a fake query letter won me over immediately *blog love*

Then I got this one from Hannah @ Musings of a Palindrome and I would just like to say how extremely embarrassed I am at how long it took me to realize WHY she calls herself Palindrome. *blushes again* AND Hannah is going to be having a Birthday celebration contest, but you have to become a stalker, I mean follower, before May 1st.

And for this one I don't think I have to do anything but pass it on as well.

So some particularly awesomesauce-y people you should check out are

Readerly Person @ Elephants on Trapezes (seriously, don't you LOVE that name!) because her WIP is called the Voldemort Project and she just did a post on why we should have Owl Appreciation Day :)

Mia @ My Literary Jam and Toast - who left a hysterical post on my contest and apologizes for time away with adorable pictures of kittehs.

Simon C. Larter @ Constant Revisions consistently and hilariously entertains me.

I love you all *giant group hug* but I cannot link anymore because it is late and I must rise semi-early. So don't feel left out if I missed you. I still love you :) (in a completely non-creepy-blog-stalkerish way)

And just two more points of interest.

1. My sister, Naomi, is hosting her first contest and she is giving away homemade (yes, HOMEMADE) pillows and stickers and other awesomesauce stuff and you should go check out her blog Writing: A Soul's Way of Breathing because you will enjoy yourself. And that's a money back guarantee I'm offering right there!

2. You still have time to enter my contest! Click on the cute owl pic at the top of the blog to jump right there. You don't even have to do anything by follow and comment (unless you want extra chances and then you can, but you don't HAVE to.)

And that is it for today. Happy "P" day!

Ebulient Eclectic Eccentricities

Yahoo! I learned a new vocabulary word!

Ebulient - adj. Zestfully enthusiastic.

Wheeeeeee!!!

All right, now down to business.

I received this mah-velous award from Lindsey, over at Dangerous With a Pen. She is one of my favorite blogging buddies and it is a very fitting award, because I feel like she is one of my new soulmates. And if you don't follow her blog, you totally should!

There is a super fun catch to receiving this award.

The rules:
1. Choose five followers/commenters that 'get' you
2. Write something fake (preferably not too mean) about them
3. Link to them, and link back to this post to comment your receipt of the award.

This is what Lindsey said about me:

Rebecca 's novel hit big and whilst visiting her old stomping grounds, the bookstore, she asked the barista for some tea. She was mistakenly given coffee, which she promptly spit on the place she found most appropriate, a copy of Pride and Prejudice.

HAHAHAHAHA! How ridiculously funny. Oh goodness, someone paid attention to my truths and lies.

so now I get to pass it on. Some of these people probably already received this award, and they don't have to pass it on again if they don't want, but I was having fun coming up with fake things about them :)

Of course, I have to start with my sister :) Because we totally get each other. Well, most of the time. But seriously, if it's been longer than a day and we haven't seen each other, we will gabble for hours "catching up".

So, AchingHope (dude, can we use your first name? I don't wanna if you don't want me to, but it would be easier - you can use mine) was creating a new language, as is her normal activity for a Wednesday, and was searching for the perfect word for "cow". However, when she said it out loud, she accidentally opened a trans-dimensional portal under her bed.

Sarah/Falen is actually a weredog, but rather than turning into a wolf at the full moon, she turns into Yvie on Fridays. That's why we never see her in the blogosphere on the weekends - she's recovering from her day as a dog.

Teebore, a mild-mannered bookseller by day, a super-villain by night. He takes revenge upon obnoxious customers by going in and messing up their houses while they sleep. He also stalks literary agents while writing his tell-all memoir, which he is couching as fiction because nobody would believe the truth.

Joan Crawford is slowly gathering and training her owl minions so that she can take over the world via creepy-cuteness. I'm on to you, woman!

Jenn was singing at a gas station, when she was overheard by an agent who offered her a massive record deal on the spot. She turned him down, because he couldn't tell her what her concert schedule would be, and she HAD to know what she was going to be doing on Saturday :P

Oh my, that was fun!

And now I must depart for work!

(And yes, I am getting a contest together. More owls are in the works :)

Conglomeration

You may have noticed (and if you didn't I won't hold it against you as I only mentioned it once) that I missed Writer's Sunday yesterday.

I actually kept my computer off all day long yesterday and it was so marvelous I have decided to take Sundays as my don't go on the blogs, don't sign on to Facebook, only check my e-mail once day. I feel so refreshed and ready to jump right in to the midst of things again.

So in lieu of that decision I am going to do Writerly Monday instead. So here it is. But today I have a couple of different things that I want to do, hence the title of the post.

First, I have to tell you that you should go over to Summer's blog for her Does This Make Me an Author? Contest Because she finished her draft and, honey, finishing your first draft is definitely something to celebrate!

Besides, I get extra points for posting it and I want that mug. Seriously.

Second, I am going to reveal to you which is the truth amongst the outrageous lies that I told last time. If you didn't have a chance to guess, you can go here and do it now. I'll give the answers at the end of this post so you won't accidentally see the answer before you go guess. So I guess this isn't actually second, but fifth? Or something...

Third, I am SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Falen held a 100 followers writing contest and she was going to have 3 places, but then she added a fourth place and it was a tie and I was ONE OF THE WINNERS!!!!!!!! I can't believe it. She posted the story here and while you're there you can also read Palindrome's short story, which was also full of awesomesauce. And Falen's going to be posting the other winners throughout the week so you should definitely check it out.

Fourth, Thursday is the first of April, and while, for most people this means it is a day to plan your most hilarious pranks, like Joan Crawford (whose blog you must follow and read, because every time she posts you will lose like ten pounds from laughing so much) for me it means the beginning of

I kind of talked about this before, but I'm going to expand on it a tad bit. I am a bit spastic as a writer and some day (probably when April is over) I will post about that. Not only am I not consistent in taking time to write, I am also not consistent in the genre/type of thing that I write.

I am hoping that Script Frenzy will help me with the first one and then after I get into writing regularly I will work on the second one.

When I first signed up I was all ready to do a romantic comedy screenplay. But as I thought about it I realized that I didn't have the idea formulated enough in my head for it to work. Although a lot of the fun of this kind of thing, like NaNo, is to discover as you write your head off, I knew by picking this project I would be setting myself up for failure and probably end up hating this fun idea that is floating in my head. So I will leave it to percolate and maybe do it next year or the year after that or in ten years or something.

So then I decided it would be fun to take one of my favorite children's authors and turn one of his books into a movie and I had bits of it in my head and I've considered this one for about a year, so I thought that would be a good idea. Then I realized I just don't have time to do the prep work required to familiarize myself with screenplays before the beginning of April. It just came down to a time issue. So I think I'm going to save this one for next year.

Which brings me to what I have decided to do. I am going to write a play. I have read a lot of plays and even been to see quite a few, so I feel much better prepared to work on this.

The idea is something I have been working on for, probably ten years now. I wrote a short story entitled, An Unlikely Fairy Tale and for now that is the temporary (oh so temporary) title I am using for the play. Until I can come up with something better.

Anyways. It's kind of a twist on the Cinderella story, blah, blah, blah. The short story is SO boring I don't know why I ever stuck with it, but I am glad I did. A while ago I thought it might work better as a play, than as a story. So I started playing with it a little bit. Over the course of doodling around with the story some very bizarre and hilarious things started happening, the most important of which was that the story became secondary to the narrators and suddenly they were taking over the main roles. and I love it.

So I am very excited to begin working on that and completely start it over with this new plot in sight.

Have you ever been working on something and had a secondary or completely new character hijack the entire story? Do you find that fun? Or exasperating?

And fifthly and finally, here are the answers to my six lies and a truth:

1. When I was in England I got a sinus infection and ended up in the emergency room. LIE! I was actually in France at the time, on a concert tour with the chorale from my college. It was amazing, but I wasn't feeling well. Then we visited the castle in Pau and the cleaner they had used on the floors got to me and my stomach practically turned inside out and the pastor that was travelling with us and Miss Carol Ann, our trip mother, took me to the emergency room where they took x-rays and stuff and discovered I had a LARYNX infection! Who gets a larynx infection?! Anyway, they gave me anti-biotics and I felt better after a day, but I couldn't sing. I was on a concert tour and I couldn't sing! How wrong is that?!
2. I have had the opportunity to perform in both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. LIE! I HAVE had the chance to sing in Carnegie Hall 3 times with my college chorale as part of a larger choir. It was so amazing!
3. I started reading when I was 4 years old. LIE! I was precocious and began reading at the tender age of 3. Crazy I know, but that's what my Mom tells me and she's usually reliable.
4. In our drama class' spring performance my senior year I played a monkey. TRUTH! And to make this even better, I wasn't a senior in high school, but a senior in college! We did a set of one act plays by David Ives out of a collection called It's All in the Timing. I got to play a whacked out business woman in one and then in another, I played one of three monkeys trapped in an experiment to see if they could type out Shakespeare's Hamlet. The play is chock full of literary and philosophical puns and it was a blast. For more info and pictures to satisfy Joan and Jenn see below.
5. I am allergic to coconut. LIE! I am not allergic to it, but I cannot STAND it. Disgusting.
6. One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen. LIE! I do not like Jane Austen's books. Shocking I know. I forced my way through one in college, because I didn't want to be one of those people that claims not to like something when they have never tried it. I have also tried to read Pride and Prejudice like five times. I cannot get into it. I like most of the movies that have been made of her books, I just don't like the books. And I don't like Mr. Darcy. (please do not stone me for such great heresy)
7. Sometimes coffee is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. LIE! Coffee=blech! I also do not really like tea, except for the occasional cup of herbal tea. VERY occasional. I just don't like hot drinks. I am almost always warm and so I just get the heebies at drinking something warm. Give me an ice water, or, if I'm desperate for a caffeine kick, a nice frosty Dr. Pepper. mmmmm...

For those of you who wish to torture yourself after this excessively long and rambling post, you may peruse some pics and descriptions of the play below.

As I said before, it's about 3 monkeys in an experiment to see how long it will take one of them to type out Shakespeare's Hamlet.

My name was Swift, my sister (not AchingHope, but Rae, who attended the same school I did) was Milton and another classmate was Kafka. With our director we worked up these ridiculous characteristics too. Mine was British and rather violent. Milton talked in almost a Mickey Mouse voice that had us constantly trying not to crack up and a no-nonsense outlook. Kafka had this breathy Marilyn Monroe voice and kind of a ditzy attitude.

At one point in the play, Swift gets angry that they're working for peanuts (literally) and I was supposed to knock this bowl of peanuts over. During one of the performances I got so into the part that I smacked the bowl clear off the stage and peanuts scattered everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE! I had a good friend near the front row and I scared her half to death when it happened, because she almost got hit with the bowl! Ha! Good times.

Ooff... I went looking for pictures and they are TERRIBLE quality and I also don't want to share my costars pics without their permission, so that limits it a little bit. But I will put one or two up anyway, because I said I would.

Gah! What happened. I added the pics and the text went CRAZY! Weird.

Here I am as the crazy, laid back business woman.

Here's a view of the whole stage during "Words, Words, Words". Like I said crummy quality. If anyone could identify my costars from this pic they are brilliant.

Here Swift is hard at work, coming up with the brilliant plan to kill our scientist with a poisoned rapier.

And here I am taking a bow. That is REALLY an unattractive shot. We loved the beanies and giant bow ties though :)

Now that is quite enough embarrassment for one post! See you all for Retail Wednesday!

6 Lies and 1 Truth

Yeah! Lindsey over at Dangerous With a Pen gave me the award I too have been secretly wishing for.

So, with this one I am supposed to tell you 6 lies and 1 truth and you have to try to guess which one is true.

mwa hahahaha!

I'm going to make this kind of hard in that most of these have an element of truth to them, but only one will be completely true. Because I am TERRIBLE at coming up with real fake things. (wait, did that make any sense?) But I can take real things and make them fake. (I plan on never doing true/false questions on tests because I hate making up fake things. Except in stories. And why did I want this award? Anyways.)

1. When I was in England I got a sinus infection and ended up in the emergency room.
2. I have had the opportunity to perform in both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center.
3. I started reading when I was 4 years old.
4. In our drama class' spring performance my senior year I played a monkey.
5. I am allergic to coconut.
6. One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen.
7. Sometimes coffee is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.

All right... there you have it! AchingHope, you cannot play!

So leave your guesses in the comments and I will laugh at you all.

And then on Monday or Tuesday or so I will post my answers as to which are true, which are almost true and which are bald faced lies.

And now I will pass this on to......

Frank Quick at Sometimes I Think...

Ashlie at Nonsense

And I really feel like there was someone else I wanted to pass it on to, but my brain is not functioning and I must go back to work. So I will add it if I think of it.

And I have to share this picture with you because it made me uber happy today. We got this in at the store:

Isn't he the cutest thing ever!? And he's adorably soft and I will just have to buy him immediately!

Fun Awards :)

Fabulous Falen passed on the Sugar Doll Award to me.

Awwww... thanks.

And then Al gave me the Beautiful Blogger Award

Sweet muffins!

You're supposed to do 5 unusual facts for the Sugar doll and 7 interesting facts for the Beautiful Blogger, so I'm going to combine them, because I can't differentiate between unusual and interesting and I don't know if I can come up with 12 things.

1. The middle finger on my left hand got broken by being closed in a sliding van door when I was fifteen. Except I didn't know it was broken, so we didn't do anything and now my finger has a permanent bend in the top third of it.

2. I took a drawing class just to fulfill a Fine Arts requirement in college and loved it so much I took 2 semesters of drawing and 2 semesters of painting where I discovered my love for watercolors. I haven't done much recently and I'm not that great, but I think it's beautiful and I should really pull my paints out again. I just love the fact that I discovered it by accident.

3. I make a mean sausage gravy and biscuits. Probably my favorite thing to make and eat. Mmmmm... I can feel my arteries hardening even as I think about it.

4. I worked as a historical interpreter in a living history museum for a season. It was the BEST. JOB. EVER. But it didn't pay and had no benefits, so I had to enter the real world. So much fun to dress up every day, learn tons of cool facts and get to play with drop spindles, broom making and natural dyes. I still look back on it with great fondness and hope to do volunteering at a place like that once I get through school.

5. I grew up as a PK (Pastor's Kid) and I love it. My church family is just about as important to me as my flesh and blood family. But I never really felt pressure to act a specific way or be held to a higher/different standard than any of my friends that weren't PKs.

6. I was homeschooled my entire life. We kind of backed into it because we had no other options, but I am extremely grateful to both of my parents for all of the work they put into me and my siblings. I can't imagine having done it any other way.

7. When I start to like something or someone I tend to get slightly obsessed with it and go a little crazy accumulating connected stuff - And I don't ever regret it. (examples would include Lost [of course], A Series of Unfortunate Events, Firefly, Dr. Horrible, Gail Carson Levine, Ted Dekker, etc. etc. etc)

So there you have it - 7 random facts about me.

And now I will pass the Sugar Doll award on to.....

Dangerous With a Pen because she makes me smile

Jenn because I want her to do another post

And I will pass the Beautiful Blogger Award on to....

Y.F.N. Palindrome aka Hannah because she has the longest screen name ever and I love her blog

M.R.J. LeBlanc because she is another new friend who made me smile

Creative Writer Award

So, Palindrome gave me this award a while ago, but I kept forgetting to post it and the follow up list... but late is better than never, amiright?

Now I'm supposed to list 10 things that make me happy... (drumroll please)

1. Reading and Writing. Okay, so maybe this is a gimme, but I spend pretty much all my time doing one or the other. I'll go through phases. When I was trying to finish the rough draft of Unexpected Miracles I read very little. But right now I haven't really written anything (except these blog posts) in probably a month or two. Which makes me feel like a lazy bum. But in that time I've read about 15 books. Now I'm feeling the muse coming on again, so my reading will probably drop off while I write furiously for a couple of weeks. (At least I hope so) So I guess it kind of balances out. The point is, my life just wouldn't be complete without either of these things. So they are definitely #1 on the list of what makes me happy.

2. My family. My sister, AchingHope, is probably my bestest friend. We talk about just about everything in the world and I don't know what I will do when we eventually end up going our separate ways. I get along fantastically with my parents and we hang out and do stuff together as often as our schedules allow. Just last night my Dad and I watched like 4 episodes of X-Files just for fun. I can talk to them about pretty much anything and they are super supportive of me and my dreams. My other sister, Rae, is married, but we're still close and I'm so excited that she and her husband are coming on vacation with us in May! Both of my brothers are insanely talented in similar and different ways. They're both incredible musicians and I love falling to sleep at night to the sound of Dave's organ or Joe's accordion.

3. Pumpkin Custard. My Mom makes this quite often - it's basically pumpkin pie without the crust. I could eat it for every single meal and never get sick of it. She made it yesterday and I think I ate 3 servings of it throughout the day.

4. My blogging friends. That's right, all of you reading this, and some of you who aren't. I have enjoyed "getting to know you" guys through your wondrous posts on your own blogs and through your often hysterical comments here on mine. It's weird to think I have friends from all over the world through this community and I love it. Thanks to all of you who take time to read here. I'm sure you all are as busy as I am, but you take the time to read my random ramblings and it's so cool.

5. Local High School Musicals. I don't know if this is true everywhere (I'm sure it is) but we have some exceptionally talented high school students and teachers that put on really professional, fantastical shows. On Saturday AchingHope and I went to see "Curtains" at one of the local HS and it was phenomenal. There are several more coming up in our area and I am doing my best to go see as many of them as I possibly can. Another local school is doing "Seussical the Musical" and I forget what the other one is that I'm hoping to go see. But FUN!

6. Crocheting. A recent skill I've been developing. Haven't done much since I finished AchingHope's blanket, but I love the feel of the yarn between my fingers and seeing something cohesive come out of a few twists of the wrist and hook. Amazing.

7. Old Cartoon Movies. You know, like Anastasia and An American Tale and Land Before Time (The original ONLY) and Cinderella. They just don't make movies like this anymore. there is something about movies made before they really had computer help that just have an almost, I don't know, purer quality about them. There's an honesty to some of them that is missing in a lot of current animated features. It's like now a lot of the focus is on - wow, look how amazing this effect is - and less emphasis on the storyline and the building of the characters. It's not universally true on either end, but there's just something that's been lost. Okay, rant over.

8. In a similar vein - Older TV shows. I love things like The Cosby Show, Family Matters, Get Smart, Home Improvement, M.A.S.H. and older cartoons like Darkwing Duck, Gummi Bears, Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers, and a bunch of others that aren't coming to mind right now. There is definitely no current TV like these older sitcoms and cartoons especially.

9. Playing Wii with my friends. There are a couple girls from work. We're all about the same age and every so often we try to get together for a Wii date. We grab some Italian food and then spend the afternoon burning off the calories. It's so much fun to hang out while playing it.

10. Patterned Socks. I really like getting socks that have something fun on them. like lizards or ladybugs or crazy argyle patterns or Christmas trees or dogs or cherries. Yeah for fun socks!

All right, so there is my list.

I am realizing that I need to expand my list of blogs I troll, 'cause I think most of the ones I follow have already gotten this award. but I will pass it on to....

Jenn @ Pirates Dig Chicks Who Blog

Gillian @ You May Say I'm a Dreamer

Ashlie @ Nonsense

Awwww.... Don't I Feel Special!

So Ashlie - over at her blog "Nonsense" nominated me for the "Honest Scrap Award"!

My very first Blog award! Woot!

Okay, so the downside is that I have to make a list of 10 embarrassing facts about myself. I could be lazy and just post a link to my post "Things I Get Made Fun of for Liking" but I won't... because a new list is WAY more fun!

1. I learned the alphabet in American Sign Language like twenty years ago and I have compulsively finger spelled random words ever since. It looks like my fingers spaz, but no... I'm just spelling "recapitulate" or something.

2. I am addicted to Farmville on Facebook. Would you like to see my adorable herd of sheep, flock of chickens, gaggle of geese and burrow(?) of bunnies?

3. When I'm home alone I sing Broadway tunes and choreograph my own routines to them - poorly executed, but fun nonetheless. (Some of my favorites being "Popular" from Wicked, "Happily Ever After" from Once Upon a Mattress and "They Don't Know" from Thoroughly Modern Millie.)

4. When I was little I blackmailed my younger sister (Rae, not AchingHope) into doing things for me by threatening to not let her play with my new silk hair Cabbage Patch Doll.

5. I once fell off a donkey. Backwards. Onto concrete. (I was Mary in a Christmas pageant and my first thought after I briefly blacked out was, "The show must go on!" I kid not.)

6. I walk into a shelf at work every single day. At one point I had so many cuts on my wrists it looked like I had poorly attempted suicide. But no, I'm just clumsy.

7. I have never been to Disney World. Ever. And I think it would be fun, but it's not really that high up on my list of places to go. (Okay, that wasn't that embarrasing, but I'm running a little thin here)

8. I have never broken a bone, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like and kind of wish I would and then I realize that I am certifiably insane and snap myself out of it. (As opposed to snapping myself ... haha...)

9. I can carry on entire conversations using only quotes from such movies as "The Princess Bride", "Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail" and "O Brother Where Art Thou".

10. I don't find this embarrassing, but some people would so I leave you with this (because I can't think of anything else)... I am nearly 30 years old and I live in my parents' basement. (of course, all of the bedrooms are in the basement, because our house is built on a hill, but that's beside the point :P)

So there you have it... Actually looking back over this list, I'm not really embarrassed about any of it, but I guess that means I'm either mentally unbalanced or abnormally healthy.

Anyhoo..

I am passing this award on to the following blogs....

Slumpvis Musings by my lovely sister Aching Hope

Pughs' News by Erin

You May Say I'm a Dreamer by Gillian

Pirates Dig Chicks Who Blog by Jenn