Thanks!

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but my little readerless blog was nominated for a Peer Award. Here’s the proof–and thanks, Cathy. 🙂

Now I get to tell you all seven things about me (which most of you surely know already), and then I pass on the spiffy little badge to someone else(s). So here goes:

1. I get more done when my daughter’s at my house. Counter-intuitive, I know. I keep reading about these post-divorce women who embrace their me-time and enjoy getting out and tackling projects when the kids are at Dad’s house, but I don’t think I will ever be one of them. Certainly, six years in, I’m not at this point. During the school year she’s mostly at my house, but in the summer we split time 50/50, and she goes away for a whole two-week stretch. Rather than getting the house whipped into shape or seeing all of my friends in a socializing binge or sewing something for myself for a change, I enter a pathetic little coccoon, characterized by spending more time at work and staring out the window at all the beautiful summer weather, shuddering.

2. I like snakes and spiders.

At my office, for some reason, there are always one or two fruit flies around my laptop. If I kill one (and I’ve gotten pretty good at it), another one soon replaces it. I don’t know where they come from or why they are always flying around my laptop screen, but there it is. For a short period about two months ago, though, an itty bitty jumping spider took up residence in my office. Not only did I like it just for being a jumping spider (they’re awfully cute, really), and for jumping all over my desk like the world’s tiniest black rubber ball, but I loved it for effectively eliminating my fruit fly problem. When I came back from vacation, no more jumping spider. Fruit flies are back. Curses.

3. I like to make things by hand. What I am making is not important, really, so long as when I’m done there is a physical object that I created. Sewing? Fabulous. Cooking and baking? Absolutely, as my 20-30 cookbooks in the kitchen and freezer full of leftovers can atest. Furniture? You bet, so long as it doesn’t involve a table saw–simply because I don’t own one. Gardening? Of course! This actually is going to be the subject of a post in the near future, once I am released from the grip of Frances-withdrawal.

4. I cannot play any sports involving balls to save my life. Doesn’t matter what kind of ball it is. Once it makes contact with me, it is guaranteed to go the wrong way.

5. I love reading. I started when I was three and have never really stopped. People who say they “love reading but stopped because life got in the way/I have to do so much reading for school/work/whatever” never really loved reading to begin with. Believe me, if you love reading, life NEVER completely gets in the way.

6. I run, in a religiously non-competitive way. I go out, I run for 20-45 minutes, I come home. Really, isn’t being able to run for 45 minutes good enough? Does it matter from a health perspective if I’m covering 5 or 7 or 10 km in that time? I don’t think so.

7. I read poetry. Not only that, I memorize poetry, though often not on purpose. Poetry is where everything interesting and beautiful in language begins. A good poet can achieve in 20 words what will take a prose-writer an essay or a novel to explain.

There you go. And now for some blogs. I’m going to go for the “painfully honest” route and list the ones I actually read nowadays, whether they’ve heard of me or not, and regardless of whether it has anything to do with my blog’s theme. In many cases it doesn’t.

SouleMama–Amanda Soule is doing all of the things you’re positive you don’t have time to do, and she’s doing it well. Also, she writes some pretty adorable books.

Follow the White Bunny–an embroidery blog from the co-creator of &Stitches (also worth checking out, if you like to stitch)

This (sorta) Old Life–Home renovations and the Meaning of Life, more or less.

feeling stitchy–group blog about embroidery. Absolutely inspiring.

Clean Break–a techy/eco blog, often about energy issues in a Southern Ontario context. By Tyler Hamilton, former energy columnist for the Toronto Star and currently editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights (where I published a few articles, once up on a time). If you want to learn about the warm and fuzzy side of Corporate Canada, Corporate Knights is what you want to read. Tyler is going to be absolutely uninterested in a peer award, I’ll bet, but I’ll include him here to point you all towards him and his writing.

And Active Kids Club, of course. Kari has started up a movement to connect kids with the outdoors and get them active year-round outside.

(As you might have guessed from the above list’s DIY-dominance, this year has been very much the Year of Ma Ingalls for me. I’ve been cooking, baking, canning, sewing, stitching, gardening, yard working, and even a bit of furniture making, in pretty much every spare moment. It’s actually been incredibly restorative, however exhausting it might look.)

Rules for the nominees:

1. As the recipient of the award you have to share 7 things about yourself with the blogosphere.

2. Link back to the post of the person who nominated you (me).

3. Copy and Paste the Award logos into your new post.

4. To pass on the award you then nominate other bloggers (This bit is sort of like knighting someone)

5. You should let all the lovely bloggers know that they have been nominated so they can claim their virtual reward.

Enjoy!