Liebster Award

So, today's post is a little shift from my norm.

My sweet friend Jenn, from The Canadian Housewife has nominated me for the Liebster Award, which is an award for up-and-coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. This was a great surprise, and now I feel like a complete slacker, given the fact that I haven't posted at all in almost three weeks.

So, this is what Jenn had to say about me (and, of course, the blog): "She has been a huge support and motivator to me over the past months. She has encouraged me in my quest for healthy eating and weight gain and she is always pushing me to do better. Not to mention, she also loves to knit. On her blog she keeps it real, talking about her latest knitting projects as well as her journey to have a baby."

I will add a tiny correction that I crochet, not knit, but that's not a big deal at all, since I haven't really crocheted much of anything since Christmas. 

So, in accepting my nomination, part of the deal is answering the eleven questions (below), and nominating three other bloggers for the award. So, without further ado: 

1) Where is the furthest you have traveled from home?

Not very far at all. I'm kind of a homebody. The furthest I've been from here is North Carolina, but we actually lived there for a few crazy months (I may write about that someday) when I was nine. As for my adult life? Sadly, I think the furthest I've been from home is Omaha, Nebraska. That was actually only a few months after I met BoyWonder, and it was a very spur-of-the-moment trip to see a couple of bands we liked at the time. 

2) Do you have any siblings? If so, how many? Older or younger?

Oh, man. My family is complicated, so this might get wordy. I have five brothers of one kind or another. I have two full-brothers. One is 2.5 years younger than I am, and the other (Ducky) is 4.5 years younger. I have a half-brother from my father's second marriage. He's eight years younger than I am--he just turned 18 which makes me feel incredibly old. My step-brothers (father's current marriage) are both older than me, but we're not close at all, and I can't even remember the age difference, really. I think one is four years older, and the other is maybe six years older? And then, if you want to make things really confusing, my half-brother's half-sister (his mother's other child) is nine, and claims me as her sister. She lives in Colorado (as does half-brother, father, stepmother, and my stepbrothers), but when she's in Kansas I make sure we have time to hang out and do big sister/little sister things together. 

3) What do you do to pass the time? Hobbies? Volunteering? 

Well, you already know I crochet. I also read. A lot. Sometimes I dabble in photography, but not very much lately because I just don't have a whole lot of subjects at the moment. I try to garden, but since we're in severe drought, and have been for a few years now, my yard looks really crusty and sad, and I don't have the heart to plant a bunch of things that are just going to shrivel up and die. 

4) What's your favourite season?

Spring and fall. 

Spring, because everything thaws out and you can smell everything coming back to life. I love the first bunch of crocuses that bloom in my yard, and my honey locust tree that makes these long chains of blooms that make my entire yard smell just enchantingly sweet. 

Fall, because I'm always relieved that it's not a hundred and ten degrees outside. The leaves drop, and I can finally pull all my pumpkins out of the shed and get ready for Halloween. 

5) Were you named after anyone?

Kind of. My middle name is Diane, which is my mom's BFF's middle name. My first name came from soap opera credits, because Mom had pre-eclampsia and was on bed rest for the last eight weeks she was pregnant with me. I'm glad she won that fight, because Father wanted to name me Audrey (barf).

6) Favourite chocolate: dark, milk or white?

Milk. I like dark chocolate in things, but I don't ever really want it by itself. 

7) How old were you when you had your first kiss?

I was really young--eleven or twelve, I think? I know it was seventh grade. 

8) If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Ute goggles? No, I'm kidding. 

Honestly, I think I need the ability to be two places at once. 

9) Name a bad habit of yours.

I'm messy. I'm pretty sure it's because of my ADHD, but it was on every progress report in elementary school, and it never really got any better since then. I try really, really hard to do better, and I do think I'm much neater and more organized than I've ever been before, but it's a constant struggle. I'm incredibly lucky BoyWonder is patient and understanding about this (also, he's the one who cleans the house, because I find myself wandering from one room to another, getting distracted, rather than actually cleaning). 

10) Favourite actor?

Right now, Charlie Hunnam. He's my man-candy on Sons of Anarchy. Also, the cast of Trailer Park Boys--Robb Wells, Mike Smith, and John Paul Tremblay. I'm not particular on actors, so much as I am the show/movie.

11) Why do you blog?

I've always loved writing. I'm also a little socially awkward, so it's easier to find my words in writing than it is to actually speak. And, a lot of the time, I use my writing to actually process how I feel. It's weird, because a lot of the time I really don't know how I feel until I write about it. Like my feelings come to me as I write. 

I used to write in a journal, but found myself getting really lazy and just... not writing. At all. So I use the blog as a way to push myself to write for an audience, however small it might be. That also forces me to at least try to write on a regular basis. 

So, as I said before, the other part of the nomination is to, in turn, nominate three other bloggers for the award. I'm going to admit right now that I struggled to come up with three bloggers who will actually read this to accept this award, but I'll go ahead and nominate them anyway. 

• Maddie, at Beyond the Letters. Maddie has been an amazing source of support and encouragement to me, and, more recently, has been my inspiration to get back off my ass and lose this last fifteen pounds. We're at almost exactly the same point in our weight loss journey, so it's been nice to have a tiny, friendly competition with her. Also, her most recent posts about her home management binders have me more than a little bit jealous of her organizational skills. 
• Tory + Jeff, at Inch by Inch, Row by Row. Tory is amazing. Not only is she the person who helped me keep going through the months of diet and exercise without seeing any real progress, this lady is amazing. She's intelligent, strong, well-spoken, and she's an English teacher (which, to me, makes her even more awesome because I don't think I could ever deal with that many teenagers at once). Also, all the quinoa recipes she's been posting have left me drooling more than once this month. 
• Jalara, at Jalara's Chronicles. Her posts are funny, inspiring, and I love reading about her journey toward nursing (she's there!) and her road to building her family through adoption. 

And now, for the eleven questions I'm asking these lovely ladies:

1. What is your favorite area of your home? 
2. Who are your favorite authors? 
3. If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why? 
4. What is one quote or verse that keeps you going, and what is the significance of it in your life?
5. If you had to choose one meal to eat every day for a month, what would it be? 
6. What's your favorite smell?
7. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
8. You have one day completely to yourself, to spend however you'd like, and money isn't an issue. What do you do?
9. What's your favorite time-waster?
10. What's in your purse right now?
11. Why do you write?