I was just going through comments left on this site and Suzanne Ong nominated for the Liebster Award. This is a pleasant surprise to find.
So you might be asking, “What is a Liebster Award?” Basically it is an award given by fellow bloggers to other bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers. It’s a way to help bring them more exposure so that really great blogs that might other wise be missed can be more easily found.
Here are the simple rules for accepting the award:
- List 11 random facts about yourself.
- Answer 11 questions from the blogger who nominates you.
- Nominate 11 more blogs that have fewer than 200 followers then let them know they’ve been nominated.
- Post 11 new questions for those bloggers who choose to accept the award (although they don’t have to 🙂 ).
- Follow the blog of the person who nominated you.
So I’ve decided to accept this award. Maybe you’ll get to know me a little better as a result.
The first thing on the list is to list 11 random facts about myself.
1. We have two dogs and a cat. Our Boxer named Sierra. Our Jack Russell Terrier named Cody. And our cat named Bandit.
10. Since I was a teen I have loved reading romance books (I was going to show you a picture of the ones I still have in a bin after all these years, but alas, it is down in our basement storage area and not easy to get to). I started off with teen romances that grew into my love of adult romances. I read both contemporary and historical. Until I became a member of ACFW, the books I always read were secular. My favorite authors to read have been Virginia Henley, Nora Hess, and Amanda Quick. I’m not a big Nora Roberts fan or reader of her books, however, I love her Bridal Quartet.
After joining ACFW I was introduced to several published, debut, or aspiring authors all with the same aspirations of becoming the best writers we could be. Here is where I found new authors of romances books I love to read. Julie Lessman, Amanda Cabot, Rachel Hauck, Ann Shorey, Fay Lamb, Lynnette Bonner, Maggie Brendan, Mary Briggs, Sharon Srock, Elizabeth Byler Younts, plus many others.
9. I have been collecting Holiday Barbies since 1993. I don’t have every single one over the past 20+ years, but I have many of them. Here are pictures of the last four. The 2013 is my favorite one of all.
8. I am a crafty person at heart. My mom started to show me how to do so many things from the time I was very young. I know how to crochet, cross stitch, needlepoint, latch hook, embroider, sew, and my favorite thing to do of all is scrap booking. If this tells you anything, I have entire dresser filled with nothing but scrap booking stuff I use to make my books from brads to stickers to stencils to paper to you name it, I probably have it. I’ve honestly missed doing it as I haven’t done a single scrapbook things since right before Mari got sick and died. One of these days I’ll do it again.
7. Keith and I have a huge DVD/Blu-Ray collection that we have to shelving units to store all of them. The one on the left holds all the movies children can’t watch. The one on the right holds movies in this order: Top shelf – Christmas ones; 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and the first second on the left on the 6th shelf are all ones that are appropriate for children to be able to watch (which of course we own all the Barbie movies). The middle and right sections on the 6th shelf are all movies Keith likes to watch that I don’t like horror movies including the Alien/Predator movies and things like that as well as ones I simply have no interest in. On the bottom shelf holds TV series, a couple of VHSs ( I know, we should have gotten rid of them but we still do own a VHS player LOL), and some workout videos.
6. I’ve never been out of the United States other than two short week trips with my high school youth group when we went on missions trips down to a small town right on the other side of the Mexican border.
5. I have Dyslexia which I was diagnosed with around the age of 10 (I believe). While I still struggle with grammar and spelling, I’ve gotten much better. To this day I still struggles with tenses, homophones, and things like that. That’s why I love to have good critique partners as well as editors who help me along the way.
4. From the time I started school due to the many moves of my childhood or the circumstance at the time I went to 10 different school.
- Fairview Elementary School from Kindergarten to my first year of 2nd grade
- Another elementary school (although I can’t remember the name of this one) for about 3 months for my second year of 2nd grade due to being held back because of my Dyslexia and how much I struggled in school.
- Terre Buena Elementary School from the last 6 months of my second year in 2nd grade to 5th grade.
- A Christian school that I don’t remember the name of for my 6th grade year.
- Sutter Elementary school for the first three weeks of 7th grade until our ride to the school could not longer take us due to her hard pregnancy.
- Grey Avenue Junior High for about the next 3 months of 7th grade until a girl wanted to beat me up because she was a bully and lived in the housing area we lived in.
- Sutter Elementary school again for the next 2 to 3 months of 7th grade to get away from that girl.
- Grey Avenue Junior High for the rest of 7th grade and finished out 8th grade there as I had moved back home with my mom.
- Sacramento High School for my freshman year. Then a fire happened and we had to move.
- Foothill High School for my sophomore, junior and senior years where I graduated from high school.
3. My husband and I are raising our 10-year-old niece. She’s been with us almost three years and is now more our daughter than a niece.
2. My husband and I also had a little girl by the name of Mariana (pronounced Mar-E-awe-na) but we called her Mari for short. She had severe classic autism which she was diagnosed with at the age of 3. The in July 2008 our lives were forever changed when she contracted a rare, but very serious, strand of E. coli. To this day we still don’t know how she contracted it but what it did to her poor little body is still hard to wrap my brain around and it’s been almost six years. Sixteen days after the onset of the first symptom, our daughter passed away on July 16, 2008.
This is her last picture taken about one month before she passed away.
1. Losing my daughter leads me to share, which many of you know by know, that I became a writer through the tragedy of losing my precious little girl. I never had any inclining of wanting to do this a day before she got sick. However, tragedy changes a person perspective of life and out of terrible sadness one can find beauty in those ashes. I’ve now written and completed a memoir of what happened. It is with beta readers right now. I’ve received such positive feedback. I’ve had a couple of them tell me they read it in one sitting because they couldn’t put it down. I had another tell me I have a strong voice which is what ever writer strives for that a reader will be able to see. I’m so thankful writing came into my life when I needed it the most.
Okay, so now that I’ve given 11 random facts about myself I’m onto answer the 11 questions from the person who nominated me.
1. What are you thankful for today? I’m so thankful for the gift of writing God has given me. I’m thankful God has allowed Keith and I to raise our niece. I’m thankful for the friends and family in my life.
2. What genre books do you read and why? My favorite genre to read is romance. If I had to pick between historical and contemporary, I’d pick historical. While I write women’s fiction I find it harder for me to get into this genre for reading. Go figure.
3. Why do you blog? I started to blog because one day about three months after my daughter died I had all these thoughts swirling around inside my head that I had to get written down. So I sat at my computer and began to type. Those thoughts became the first post for my daughter’s dedication site. I do it because it helps me and I do it so others can get to know me as a person.
4. What do you hope to achieve through blogging? Honestly, I hope people learn to get to know me better. That they can see the growth I’ve been on over the last several years. I hope to one day have many followers because they honestly love to read what I write because they can either relate to it somehow or it touches them in someway.
5. How many hours a day do you spend going online? It’s hard to say. To be honest, most of my time online is spent with email but that is through my email program Outlook. If that time is included then about two or three hours at most. However, I do keep Facebook open for only one reason and that’s so I can talk to my crit partners as we are a close group. We’re able to bounce almost anything off each other when we need to.
6. Would you rather speak every language in the world fluently or speak only English? Why? If I could speak ever language in the world I think that would be awesome because then I know I could communicate with whom ever I come into contact with.
7. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? No matter where I’m at I always want to be with my husband. I know that one day our niece/daughter will be grown and on her own. However, I will always have my husband and I want to spend my quality time with him when possible.
8. If you could have anything in the world, what would it be? I guess most people might say a million dollars. While that would be nice, I’d rather be 100% out of debt as well as having a home that is completely paid off and enough money to comfortably survive once we retire.
9. Are you introverted or extroverted? Which do you prefer? I think I can be both at different times. I like being social but I also like being at home. So I think it depends on my mood which I prefer in that moment.
10. Cat person or dog person? I am a total cat person. Bandit is my cat and I love him to pieces.
11. iPhone or Android? To be honest, I’ve never had an Android phone. However, I do love my iPhone 5. I’ve had an iPhone since December 2008/January 2009 as I accidentally left my Motorola Razor phone in the bathroom stall at the Honolulu Airport our first day in Hawaii. So when we got back to the Chicago area, we went to AT&T and I got the iPhone 3Gs.
So the next part to being nominated is to nominate those blogs with under 200 followers. I will do my best. While I’m uncertain of the total number of blog followers of each of these blogs, I felt they deserved to be nominated if I couldn’t find the number of followers.
- Amanda Cabot: She blogs at amandajoycabot.blogspot.com
- Ann Shorey: She blogs at annshorey.blogspot.com
- Fay Lamb: She blogs at faylamb.com/ontheledge
- Maggie Brendan: She blogs at southernbellewriter.blogspot.com
- Sharon Srock: She blogs at womenofvalleyview.blogspot.com
- Joy Melville: She blogs at www.journeystojoy.net
- Deirdre Lockhart: She blogs at brilliantcutediting.blogspot.com
- Elizabeth Byler Younts: She blogs at elizabethbyleryounts.com/blog
- Kristen Stieffel: She blogs at kristenstieffel.com
- Ralene Burke: She blogs at www.raleneburke.com/blog
- Jennifer Slattery: She blogs at jenniferslatterylivesoutloud.com
The last part to being nominated is to come up with 11 questions for the nominees above to answer if they choose to accept the award.
- What genre of book(s) do you love to read the most? And if you’re a writer, what genre do you write in?
- Who you could choose any spot in the world to vacation, where would you go?
- What do you love about writing/editing books?
- Who is your top 3 favorite authors?
- If you could realize any dream what would it be?
- What do kind of collectibles do you like to collect?
- How many pets do you have?
- What is your least favorite chore to do? Your favorite (if you have one 🙂 )?
- Are you a morning person or a night owl or somewhere in between?
- What’s the most important character trait to find in a good friend?
- Do you prefer cold or hot weather?
That’s it. I hope you’ve been able to learn a little bit more about me. Please check out the blogs I’ve nominated. My hope is you will find what they have to say interesting and decide to follow them.
What a fun interview, and thank you so much for the honor! I used to collect barbies, waaaaaaay back (when I was a kid). I had like 16, but then I traded them for a tv. Which is kinda crazy considering I’m not much of a tv watcher. Now I collect my daughter’s art. 😛
Thank you Jennifer. I think when we become mom’s we all become art collector’s of our children’s art or whatever they do we like to save.