Leibster Blog Award 2016 from my friend Kirsty!

woohoo! my friend kirsty udall from Rural Retreat Restoration nominated me for a Leibster 2016 Award! you can read the questions and her answers here.

Here are the rules:

The idea of the Liebster Blog Awards is

to discover new blogs and here's what 

you need to do to take part:

• Ensure you thank the person who has nominated you and include links back to their blog, after all it's important you share their lovely blog too!
• Include a photo/badge of the Liebster Blog Awards logo on your blog post to show you've taken part. 
• Answer the 10 questions asked by the blogger who has nominated you
• Nominate 5 bloggers that you want to share with your followers and blog viewers
• Create 10 new questions to ask your nominees - have some fun!
• Ensure you make your nominees aware that they have been nominated so they know to answer their questions!

thanks Kirsty! here are Kirsty's 10 questions:


1. If someone threw you a surprise party would you love it or hate it?

i would hate it! i don't like surprise anything!

2. If you had a warning label, what would yours say?

"Beware of Dog"

3. Do you have any fun family traditions?

does running around naked all the time count? does running around naked every time it rains count?

4. What’s your favourite book of all time?

this is a hard one for me. i have about 1,700 favourite books. but when pressed, i will say these 3:

i love all things T. S. Eliot. the blue book on the right is his complete poems and plays which i got for my 21st birthday from my friend R. (fun fact: did you know that the musical "Cats" by Andre Lloyd Webber is based on a series of poems from T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats"?) Anyway, T. S. Eliot's mentor was Ezra Pound, and while writing "The Wasteland" (my fave poem), he used to send draft copies to Pound for his input. the book up top and to the left is called "T. S. Eliot/The Wasteland/A Facsimile and transcript of the original drafts including the annotations of Ezra Pound" and the picture on bottom shows the actual hand-written notes of Pound that T.S. took very much into consideration. jambaloney got me that book in the summer of 2008.

i love all things Umberto Eco as well. He is better known as a semiotician, but he is an excellent writer and his most famous work is "The Name of the Rose" - an awesome book that i have read many times (and it became a movie). but as much as i love that book and everything Eco - my personal favourite is "Foucault's Pendulum" - that book is a scream! i even read the entire thing out loud to jambaloney - he loves it when i read stuff to him!

5. What’s the best holiday you’ve ever been on?

that's an easy one - or should i say 2 - both times that jambaloney and i spent up at his Granddad's, now his Mom's fishing camp at a beautiful lake in Quebec.

6. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would you change?

i would meet jambaloney when i was 7 and he was 12. he would still be young enough not to mind having a girl best friend and we would have gone fishing, climbed trees, searched for gold, played all kinds of made-up games...and gotten married when i was 12.

7. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

i would want more extended family. my family was only my mom, my dad, my 2 sisters and 1 brother. we had no aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents.

8. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be?

my 13 complete sets of old encyclopaedias!!!!!

9. If you could live somewhere else in the world, where would it be?

i think new zealand. i have never been there, but i was in australia. however, i worked with a lovely man from new zealand and the way he talked about it - i think i would pick there.

10. What makes you really angry?

this is going to be hard to describe but i will try. i get angry when i am asked to participate in something and i take it dead-seriously and other people are willy-nilly - does that make sense?

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so now here are my nominees (some whom i would nominate have already been nominated by others!):

1. Sol from Be Sol Be. she's a hoot and a half and be sure to dig through her old posts to see a pic of her bathroom when she first bought her new house - it's hysterical!

2. Fiona from Confessions of a crazed cattle woman. she and her husband just recently bought a farm and are working very hard to become more sustainable.

3. Mike from Living Prepared. he has one of the best prepping sites out there.

4. Pioneer Preppy from the Small Hold. this guy does it all - raising sheep, bees, mangy stray animals and farms! he is the most sustainable guy i know. plus - i can almost guarantee he won't take the time to do this award thing.

5. and saving the best for last - i'm throwing in two gals that have been really great friends to me over the years. both are preppers and both are doing everything to get themselvesinto more self-sufficient lifestyles. plus we call ourselves Charlie's Angels - bahahahhaah! they are Sweet Sandy from Oklahoma Transient, and Jacked Up Glock Mom from Tales from the Clothesline. (jambaloney catches trout for Sweet Sandy and calls Jacked Up Glock Mom, whose moniker is JUGM, "Juggum".)

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ok now on to my 10 questions:

1. what is your favourite thing to do when you have 2 free hours all to yourself?
2. who is your favourite author and why?
3. when it snows do you make snow angels or snowmen? (c'm PP - we all know that you do!)
4. do you ever walk through the mud and/or grass in bare feet?
5. do you love where you live?
6. what is the most exciting thing that you ever grew and were thoroughly pleased with yourself by?
7. what is your favourite house cleaning tip?
8. what is your favourite alcoholic drink?
9. do you love swimming?
10. if someone got you a mermaid tail, would you wear it? in private and in public?


ok kids my job is done. now it's off to let you all know that you've been nominated. get cracking on your answers kids!!!!