Eleven.

One of the best things about blogging is the friendships that are formed with other bloggers.  One of the first bloggers that I met when I started this whole thing was Mary.  She writes a food blog.  I know.  That just sounds whacky, no?  Me.  Food.  I honestly don't follow many food blogs.  However, I love Mary's food blog because I love Mary.  We have become wonderful friends who talk about many things other than food via email.  She occasionally veers off the course of food and offers a peek into the Life of Mary on her blog, too.  I always consider that a treat!  Right now, Mary is on hiatus.  She writes for various food publications in Michigan, and holds down a full-time job, so something had to give for the summer and it turned out to be her blog.  However, she did pop in to bestow this lovely award.  I hope that you decide to visit her place and follow along when she returns.  Her recipes are delish and she is a delight.  Plus, she offers insight into Jewish traditions, so you will probably learn something, too.  Thank you, Yenta Mary the Food Floozie for honoring me and my blog with The Liebster Award.  You are a maven.

 The rules of the award are that the nominee must:

- link back to whomever awarded the prize
- state 11 random facts about him- or herself
- answer the 11 questions from the award giver, and then - finally!
- nominate another 11 bloggers and devise 11 questions for them to answer.


11 Random Facts About Me
1. My favorite color is purple.  It has been purple as long as I can remember.  For the first time in a long time, purple is actually an "in" color in terms of fashion.  The last time I went shopping I bought purple capri pants and a whole bunch of blouses that had purple in them.  Purple is everywhere!!!  I am totally digging it.  Can I say it is the New Black????

image found on www.weheartit.com

2. I hate high heeled shoes.  I love pictures of high heeled shoes.  I like the idea of high heeled shoes.  I hate actually trying to walk in high heeled shoes.  Ergo, I don't own many high heeled shoes.  The ones I do own, I avoid wearing at all costs.

3. I am learning to like foods that I previously wouldn't eat.  All of the greens are back in my diet.  Yeah, I am talking collard greens and turnip greens.  I have liked spinach for a long time.  I am eating squash (previously a "no way") as well as red and yellow peppers.  I still don't care for green pepper.  But, hey, this is Big Improvement!

4. I hate reality television.  The only show I can tolerate watching is Dancing With The Stars and that is because I like the dancing.  It is not because I like the stars.  Sometimes, they grow on me.  Sometimes, not so much.  But, the dancing...  Yeah, I do enjoy that.  All of the rest of reality TV can sit and spin.

image found on www.photobucket.com

5. I adore everything 80s except the clothes.  80s music and 80s movies will always be my favorites.

6. My mom and I are saving up to go to Vegas in the fall.  We were debating going to Tunica, but Vegas is calling our names.  So, Viva Las Vegas it is.  I am so excited.  There is no place like Vegas.  I have written before about my fascination with the casinos, so I am not going to go into great detail here, but suffice to say that there is no place like it.

7. I have started working on a novel again.  Alex J. Cavanaugh said that I would start writing when the timing was right.  It turns out that when a story starts banging around in your head, you really don't have much choice.  I have no idea whether it is brilliant or crap, but I plan to actually finish this one.

8. I hate snow, but I love snowmen.  I have this huge snowman collection for Christmas.  It has gotten a little bit bigger every year.  It is now a fairly large display.  Aside from a nativity scene, I don't have any other Christmas decorations.  It's all snowmen at my house!

9. My favorite smell is puppy breath.  Ironically, dog breath can be pretty terrible.

10. I no longer drink alcohol at all.  Due to my migraines, it is one more thing in a fairly long list that I have given up in search of better health.

11. When I was living in New York City, I worked in the publicity department at St. Martin's Press for two years as an assistant.  This was my first job out of college.  Given that I was a lowly assistant my brushes with anyone "important" were rare and short-lived.  However, I did meet G. Gordon Liddy when he was in the office promoting his book.  Same goes for MacDonald Carey (he was on Days of Our Lives forever, for those of you not in the know).  I also met the infamous "Holly" from Lou Reed's song Take A Walk on the Wild Side.  Yep.  Holly is/was a real person.  And he/she wrote a book called A Low Life In High Heels.  SMP published it and we threw a big party at The Limelight.  I went to that, too.  It was one of the most interesting parties I have ever been to and way too much for this blog posting.  Let's just say I arrived in New York City a naive young girl and left... not.



Mary's 11 Questions for Me
1. What is the first thing you'll ask God when you get to Heaven? (We're all going to Heaven, we're just taking different scenic routes.)  Here is the thing I believe about God.  God is not big into answering questions.  Every now and then, God has given prophets more knowledge than others to try and answer the Big Questions so that people have some perspective on this Life Thing.  And then Jesus came and answered a lot of questions.  For me, the biggest one was that we all have a spark of the divine inside of us.  That says to me that when go to heaven, we won't need to ask God anything, we will literally be plugged into divinity.  We will simply know the things that we didn't know before.  How well we understand that information will have to do with our own spiritual growth.  However, our access will be unfettered.  And God still isn't in the business of answering questions.

2. What is your favorite "me time" indulgence?  This is a love it/hate it pastime, but I really cherish my writing time.  Of course, when the writing isn't going well, it doesn't feel so much like an indulgence.  It tends to feel more excruciating.  However, when it's all flowing, it's wonderful.

3. What is the word or phrase you overuse the most?  I have gone through these phases in the past, but I am not in one NOW.  Too funny.  So, I am taking a "pass" on this one. 

4. What is your favorite side dish at Thanksgiving?  This is hard.  I love Thanksgiving dinner.  The side I miss the most is mashed potatoes.  I became allergic to potatoes back in the early 90s.  I really feel the pain of that allergy on Thanksgiving.  However, I love green bean casserole and candied sweet potatoes.  However, I would give them all up for a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.  ::sigh::

image found on Facebook

5. What is your most cringe-inducing, most appalling, most ridiculous dating story?  Seriously, Mary?  Do you want cringe-inducing, appalling, or ridiculous?  Cringe-inducing would be the long-term relationship after my ex who turned out to be a thief, liar, cheater, and actual criminal.  Appalling would be my ex-husband.  It started with dating so it counts.  It's appalling because it is where I lost all sense of myself and my boundaries.  He didn't respect them and pretty soon I had none.  That is what abuse looks like.  I would like to lay all of the blame on him, but I can't.  It's appalling.  And ridiculous would be the amount of time I dated a really nice guy for whom I had zero attraction and he broke up with me by asking for the return of his garage door opener.  The excuse: his mother's was broken and she needed it.  I gave it up easily.   After that, he never called me again.  It took me several days to understand that it was his way of breaking up.  What makes it ridiculous is that I was just dumped via Garage Door Opener and didn't even know it.

6. What has your greatest accomplishment been so far in 2013?  My first thought was getting off all pain medication for the first time in ten years.  And that is pretty darn big.  My second thought was recognizing the underlying pattern of why all my relationships for my entire life have been so horrible (boundary issues), and working on me so that it never happens again.  I am not sure which of those two is bigger.  They both go toward making me a healthier person in different ways.

7. What website do you check most often throughout the day?  It is a tight race between this one and Facebook.

8. It's Christmas in July; in your letter to Santa, what are you asking him to leave under the tree for you?  I could use an IPad.  Since they are so small, they are very mobile and it would make my life a lot easier when we travel.  I would still have to carry a keyboard to get any real writing done, but still a huge improvement over the laptop.  Plus, I could hole up in my room for quiet time to get some actual writing done without constant interruption, which would be LOVELY.  So, my answer is an IPad!!!!

9. Have you ever been to Michigan?  Yes. 

image found on www.photobucket.com

10. If so, when, where, why? If not, why not??? I went to college in Michigan, so I spent four years there.  I met a boy at said college who was from Michigan, so several years after graduating, I moved back to Michigan with him and lived there (again) for a couple of years before we called it quits. 

11. What is your favorite kind of pie?  Pecan pie.  Maybe that is actually my favorite side at Thanksgiving.  Hmmmm.


My 11 Questions
1. Who do you miss the most?

2. What is your favorite word, and why?

3. Where do you want to go that you have never been, and why?

4. Where do you want to you go that you have already been, and why?

5. If you could relive any experience in your life just for the pleasure of doing it one more time, what would you choose?

6. What is your favorite holiday?

7. Do you feel like you are doing what you are meant to be doing?  If so, what is that?  If not, what is holding you back?

8. Do you remember your dreams?  Have any of them ever been significant in your life?

9. Tell me about the first time you learned the lesson that life simply was not fair.  (It's not a question because I know it has happened to you.)

10.  Who, or what, did you want to be when you grew up (earliest memory)?   (For example, I wanted to be Cher when I grew up when I was about five or six.  That is my earliest desire that I can recall.)

11. Why do you blog?


Choosing 11 of you to pass this on to is the hardest part.  I know that some of you don't accept awards.  I don't always recall who does and who doesn't.  So, I am going to pass this on to 11 people that I don't think have received the award and who I would like to answer MY questions.  Plus, I am interested in knowing 11 random things about them.  So there.  That is my method.  I hope that you will participate even if you don't normally "do" awards.  Here goes...

Jasmine at A Yellow Rose of Texas

Linda Pressman at BarMitzvahzilla

Susan at I Think; Therefore, I Yam

Rawkynrobyn at Life by Chocolate: Robyn Alana Engel's Blog

Red Shoes at Red Shoe's Chronicles

Memphis Steve at Steve's Nude Memphis Blog

Liza at Middle Passages

JJ The Disconnected Writer

Dana Martin at Waiter, drink please!

Manzanita at Wanna Buy A Duck

Yvonne at Writing my life away!