Versatile Blogging Award

Alisa, the awesome blogger/artist from Picture Me Reading has kindly awarded me with the Green Award, as I think of it in my head. Honestly, I was super excited because I really thought the Green Award would look nice on my side bar complementing my theme. I know, I’m lame. 😀

You know if you think about it, the Versatile Blogging Awards are sort of like solicitation of prostitution. Here is a green item, something you’ve always wanted, that only has merit hypothetically, and if you do these 7, 13, 25 things than I’ll give you this green item. I know glitter is the herpes of the Art/Crafting world, I wonder what the herpes of blogging is? Spamming comments with poor English?

cc Inkwina via Wikimedia Commons

The rules for this award are as follows:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you. (And done! Also I called her awesome, which goes above and beyond. You are welcome. ;D)
•  Add the Versatile Blogger award picture to your post. (Holla! ::raiseshandsintheair:: ::quicklylooksaround::  Never doing that again!)
• Share 7 random facts about yourself.
• Nominate 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging. (When I see a number in a blogging award, I always think ish. Basically, I’ll let you all know about some cool folks I’ve recently found.)
• Let the nominees know that they’ve been nominated. (Following nominees you are hereby notified of your nominification (it’s a word) at the publishing of this posting. This is where everyone was wishing I wasn’t a lawyer. HA!)

Seven Random Facts

1. I used to dance for church competitions. We called it interpretive dancing. It was basically a mixture of not great but not bad contemporary dancing and sign language. My sisters, best friend and I did a dance to Lamb of God for which we won a two foot trophy in the national competition among other competitors in our denomination. Big stuff.

I went and tried to find a youtube video that reminded me of us dancing, but honestly, we were more creative than most of the ones I found on youtube. We did have some dance background. But here is the song, by Twila Paris, and the video mix of cartoon and dreamy illustrations cracked me up. Quite a few handsome Jesuses if I do say so myself. (Also, apparently I still remember all the words. Good lord. Pun intended.)

2. I’m a huge fan of SYTYCD. See above random fact for why I probably am. My favorite SYTYCD dancer is Kathryn. I love her! I mean she is just amazing!

3. I’m really good at card games. But not any of the normal ones. I grew up playing Dutch Blitz, which is a card game the Amish came up with. Yes, the Amish. It is really fast, I’ve been playing for a long time, and I usually win, even against my siblings and extended family. In college a suitemate invited me to join her and some other people playing Dutch Blitz. I hesitated before informing them that I had been playing since I was a kid and would probably beat them all. My suitemate informed me she had been playing since she was 12, I told her, well I’ve been playing since I was 7. They still asked me to join them. I beat them all (I’m highly competitive) and they never asked me to play again. I actually took that as a badge of honor. But the weird thing is that Dutch Bitz is played with a special deck of cards as the Amish believe faces on dolls and cards is having Idols which is a big no no for real Christians. (And now you are more highly edumacated.)

4. I call comics in newspapers the funnies and I love reading them at every chance. My favorite is Agnes. Here are my favorite all time funnies strips. Check them out here, here, and here. I shared the last one with my friend and now and inside joke are our Sympathy Calories. I cut out those particular funnies and some from Pearls Before Swine and pinned them to my giant TARDIS cork board at work.

5. I love going to museums and art galleries. I love looking at the history of other people expressed through their art. I get so excited when I have friends in from out of town and I can drag them off to do the tourist thing and spend hours gazing at model ships, paintings by famous artists long gone, and reading placards about the lives of people I will never meet.

At the Science and Industry Museum

6. My favorite form of exercise is Yoga. I practice it at least three times a week and I’ve been practicing Yoga regularly for five years. I would love to be a trained Yogi and teach other people, but courses are all around three thousand dollars and alas, I do not have that kind of money (especially not up front), nor do I really have the time. But it is definitely one of my future goals. The philosophy behind breathing and holding stretches is so important to our muscle health, and I encourage everyone to start practicing. Building up and elongating muscles, strengthening the core, and creating spinal alignment is important to everyone’s health.

By Master Sgt. Christina Bhatti (United States Army) via Wikimedia Commons
Even the U.S. Army knows Yoga is good for you.

7. I grew up among the mountains, in the Adirondacks and down in the Shenandoah valley. I miss them every single day, in a way I don’t even really miss people. Skyscrapers don’t even begin to make up for the lack of an array of nature. I don’t even have anything clever or funny to say about this, I really never breath freely until I’m driving back through the mountains to Virginia or New York.

cc Jessica Dubé via Wikimedia Commons

Below are some really cool bloggers that I read and communicate with here on the blogosphere.

Genius Book Reviews Whom I’m following on Twitter

My Morning Joe  A humor blogger I actually find funny

Belle’s Bookshelf Another reviewer who I follow on Twitter

The Book Cellarx A reviewer of the YA genre

The Hiding Spot Book Blogger

Claire Legrand Whose first novel is about to be released, also a very funny Tweeter

How I Met Ted Mosby Blogging about life in the big City, finding love and happiness (hopefully soon! :D)

Pussy Owl A webcomic about a cat and an owl