Go Momma!

Thank you bucket loads to my new bloggy friend Alex, author of My Froley, for linking to me in her '11 Things' blog post the other week!

Yes, I know that was ages ago - I'm still working on my back-blog!

After only 7 months blogging - less than 6 in the public eye - I'm still very much a newbie to the wonderful world of blogging. Only recently have I started to find some fabulous friends within my blogosphere, and to be honored by one of them with this Liebstar Blog Award tickles me pink! 

I blog mostly for me (honest I do), but it's very nice to learn that someone else out there kinda digs me too... As we all need a bit of an ego stroke at times I am thrilled to bits to pick up the Liebster Blog gauntlet (yeehaa!) and pay it forward to some of my finest blogging friends!

Liebster Award rules (if you choose to humor Momma and the Liebstar legacy):

1) Answer my 11 probing questions (you don't have to ramble on like mouthy Momma - if you can say it in a one liner, those probably pack plenty enough punch)
2) Think of 11 questions of your own
3) Choose 11 worthy bloggers (who have fewer than 200 followers) to interrogate and pay it forward!


Eleven (rambling) answers for My Froley (and for you too):

1. What is the thing you enjoy most about blogging? 

I can be me - maybe a cleaned-up, toned-down, hubby approved version of me, but still me. And I absolutely love writing my stories - it's a most affordable therapy at the end of the day. Not long ago the hubs asked me Why do you blog? When I said I loved to write, it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to know why clicking 'publish' was important. As he pointed out I could easily write without sharing my stories with the world. I told him it was like training for a race. No matter how hard you train, you don't usually hit your PB until the heat is on. Clicking 'publish' for me is like being on the starting block - Seeing as tho' the Olympics are on I felt an athletics analogy was in order.

2. What are the top 3 songs on your playlist right now?

Ambient Rain Sounds, Ba Ba Black Sheep, and Signing Times with Alex and Leah (Seriously!). I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I don't actually have my own playlist at the mo. But when would I get time to listen to it - let alone compile it? I get my main musical fixes from kids' shows and their music CDs in the car - but even those have been usurped recently by my minivan's magical movie player! Don't worry - I'm not completely devoid of music in my life. The hubs will often plug his old Ipod into the speaker dock when he's chilling and grilling on the deck and it's super healing for me to hear a classic rock tune belting out. Last week I escaped alone to my Doc appointment so I took Daddy's car and Head over Feet by Alanis Morissette was blaring out on his radio. I sang (well, screamed) my lungs out!

3. What is your favorite movie and why?

I used to love that Brat Pack movie Reckless starring the oh-so-young and oh-so-yum Aiden Quinn - but seeing as though I'm not 15 anymore I'll go with that epic American Civil War classic and the greatest love story ever told, Gone With the Wind. 

I read (and subsequently fell in love with) the book when I was teenager, long before I ever saw the movie. The movie didn't disappoint me one bit; on the contrary it added music and beauty. Not only is the story itself romantic, but the fire between the ravishing (albeit mustached) Rhett and the striking and sexy Scarlett (yes sexy - even hidden under five hundred yards of fabric) rockets the movie right off the romance richter scale! The movie and its actors have that charm, grace and elegance that can only be found from the Golden Era of Hollywood!

If I had both DVDs in front of me now I'd still slap Reckless on though - and run about the house like the 'Kid In America' that I am! Footloose holds a similar power over me..

Aiden Quinn and Daryl Hannah about to get their 'rocks off' to
 Kim Wilde's Kids in America . (Reckless, 1984) 

4. What is your happiest childhood memory?

For some reason I'm finding it hard to isolate specific memories - I bet I remember loads after I've clicked the publish button - but family holidays in Bridlington (where all of my Brit family are gathered this very week) spring straight to mind. I used to love (and still do) walking around Bridlington harbour. I don't think any place on Earth holds quite the same nostalgia for me. Childood memories of Spain just don't hold a candle to the amalgamated aroma of fried breakfasts, fish and chips, donuts and coffee mingled with the fishy smell of the sea! 
  

Harbour Road, Bridlington

I thought long and hard about this question. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure an actual memory and all I came up with was my twin brother peeing over the harbor wall onto a seagull's head! We were about 23... only kidding. We must have been about four at the time.

5. What would your ideal job be, if you could do anything?

I'm doing it! I'm actually lucky enough to be working the ideal job I coveted for years before making my break from the Oil Industry. I'm still in training - I'm not sure what (if any) qualifications will ever deem me 'professional'.... But who the hell cares (really). I'm a most hard-working, and emotionally rewarded SAHM (stay-at-home-Momma) and I LOVE IT! I'm paid in the strongest currency on Earth - love and hugs! 

OK - I know my non-Mommy friends are starting to spew about now. So I'll cut the nappy crap. Ten years ago I would have said travel journalist. I'd have loved to work for National Geographic magazine. Life has somewhat changed (for the better) and now, galavanting off to exotic faraway places without my kids in tow seems like hell on Earth! These days I'd settle for being a parenting mag journalist, or even editor (why not?)! 

6. What is your favourite book you’ve read?

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Also Gone with the Wind (see above). No wait.. I've got it... It has to be The Earth's Children 6 book series (starting with The Clan of the Cave Bear) by Jean M. Auel. My hubs recommended I read them when we lived in Scotland after which he didn't see me for nearly a month. I was so captivated he had to drag me out from under my duvet kicking and screaming! It has everything I love in a book; history, fantasy, sci-fi, spirituality, and (more to the point) sex - GREAT explicit romantic sex (and lots of it) - just wait until you get into book two!  

7. Where do you see yourself in 20 years?

Somewhere (anywhere) with the hubs, helping our +3 babies through college. If I have managed to publish a few books and/or articles and be making a respectable living on the side (the side of Mommy-hood that is) that would be the icing on the cake.   

8. If you could meet one person, past or present, that you have never met who would it be?

MJ looking very cute here!

Michael Jackson - he was one fascinating, effed-up MOFO.  
     

9. Where is your favourite place in the world that you've been?

The Galapagos Islands - where my own love story A Darwinian Love Affair took place.

10. What is a positive inspirational quote you believe in?

I don't know many inspirational quotes off the top of my head - I'd have to go Googling around to find something profound (and that's just cheating). The following phrases spring to mind though: 

"Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups!" 

I thought my twin bro coined it - apparently it's from that classic movie Under Siege 2! Going along the same vein I also like: 

When you assume, you are making an ASS out of U and ME! 

Not positive and inspirational enough? Then I'll go with:  "You can't polish a turd."

11. What 3 words would your best friend use to describe you?
honest, talkative, easy-going (......am I close hun?) 

Go Momma wants to ask these eclectic eleven:

~*~Whatever~*~ (getting so damn popular you almost didn't make the cut!)
Cranky Old Man (very funny - but perhaps too cranky for this...?) 

Commonplace Crazy (intellectual and down to earth)
Stirring the Mud Puddle (easy breezy beautiful blogger)

Jlees's Blog (sending some reverence right back atcha girl) 

life on the c train (distant cuz - and oh, so FUNNY!)  

follow me home... (a lovely lovely lady) 

Slu's World (he's an ex-fireman - Need I say more?)

Love Conquers All (A thrill seeking travel blogger with lots to say!)

The Seaman Mom  (cruising through life - fabulous Mommy wisdom found here)  

Skyebird and Jules (bezzie mate's blog- I always want to hear what this lady has to say!)

.... these eleven probing (and mildly inappropriate) questions:

1. Who are you writing for (besides yourself) when you blog?

2. Which of your family members (if any) enjoy reading your blog?

3. How much information is TMI for you?

4. What's the worst 'groan' joke you can think of?

5. What subjects are off limits on your blog and why?

6. Have you offended anyone with your blog - would you care if you did?

7. What did you laugh about today?

8. When is the last time you cried and why?

9. What's the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?

10. Who (can be ANYONE) makes you laugh the most - and why?

11. What's the funniest thing you've ever seen?

Congratulations on winning the Liebster Blog Award! I can't wait to read your answers....