Sunday, May 17, 2020

Liebster Award Nomination

Thank you to Tierney at Tierney Creates for nominating my blog for a Liebster Award.  It is always so interesting to learn more about other people like this.


According to Tierney's research,  the definition for “Liebster” is: “friend, dear, sweetheart. That is so sweet, and I am delighted and honored to be nominated as Tierney's friend.

The rules for the award are as follows:

LIEBSTER AWARD RULES
•       Thank the blogger who nominated you, and provide a link to their blog.
•       Answer the 11 questions given to you.
•       Share 11 facts about yourself.
•       Nominate 5-11 other bloggers.
•       Ask your nominees 11 questions of your choice.
•       Notify your nominees once you have uploaded your post.

As I was reading Tierney's answers, I felt like I could copy most of her answers and still reply honestly to the questions. Lucky for me, she chose different questions for me to answer, so I do not feel like I am plagiarizing. Thank you also, Tierney, for reducing the number of questions to seven. This is quite a challenging task.

Zeus 2011

ANSWER QUESTIONS
Question 1: What made you start a blog and do you have any favorite topics for your blog posts?

I have enjoyed keeping a journal since I was a young child, and a blog gave me a way to share what I have made with other people.  It also helps me keep a record of the things I have made, especially things I have given away. It helps me remember how old some of my projects are. For example, in my last post, I shared some blocks I want to put together into a quilt. I searched my blog to find out that they were 10 years old. It feels like they were made more recently.

An added bonus of the blog is that it helps me connect with other people who share my interests. My favorite topics for my blog posts are the things I have made, which is mostly quilting projects. Since I enjoy the process more than the finished product, I take my time in making things and I  share my works in progress on this blog.  I also take photographs almost every day, usually pictures of nature and  use mostly original photographs on the blog.

Question 2: If you could move to a different town, state or country… where would you be?

I have no interest in moving anywhere else.  I live in a beautiful state with green grass and blue skies.  The roads are flat and easy to navigate, and I know where things are in the grocery store. I also live within walking distance to a lot of my family members.

Question 3: What is your favorite quality about yourself?

My favorite quality about myself is that I don't feel the need to fit in. Fitting in is nice, but the fact that I can break away from the pack gives me a chance to do things and to pursue passions that may not be socially acceptable or encouraged.  Quilting, for example, is considered to be an old person's hobby, yet I started quilting in my 20s. Nobody discouraged me, but I was able to find the joy in it for myself without any encouragement. Likewise with genealogy. Why would anybody want to dig up facts about people who have died? For me, it feels important to honor my ancestors and thank them for their part in making me.
Question 4: What are your favorite creation(s) to date during the pandemic’s stay-at-home times (if you are expressing yourself creatively during this time)?

Unfortunately, I have not been able to do anything creative during this time.  After I lost my job, I had two weeks of unemployment. The first week was a "vacation" where I rested and was not required to do anything. The second week was support to gear up to being productive again. I spent a lot of this time looking up mask patterns.  Since my employer offered another, lower paying job, I spent my two weeks getting ready for the job by cooking and freezing meals. I also kept telling myself that this would be a good time to do the spring cleaning, but I had a hard time finding the motivation to do much of that.  Since then, I have been training and working at the new job, adjusting to the new time schedule.

Spring is usually busy for me anyway, because there is yard work to do in addition to the job and housework. The longer days and sunshine does help and now I am working on a mini quilt which does feel like I have adjusted to a new normal.



Question 5: Where is one of the first places you plan on going after quarantine is over?

You may think I am stealing Tierney's answer here, but I too would go to the public library. I don't really need to go. The library has extended the deadlines on all the books I have checked out and I haven't read many of them so I still have plenty to read.  I also have access to digital books and audio books.  However, just going to the library to pick out books brings a special kind of joy. It is nice to see the new book shelf to see what kinds of books are being written and discovering ones that call out to me to bring home. I even go to different branches of the library for different experiences. One day, I might even do a tour of all of the public libraries in the city.

In case you are thinking, "that is a big stack of library books and they look like they could topple at any moment," when you look at the picture, you would be right.  However, please note that the top shelf on the right is also filled with library books.


Question 6: Other than blogging/writing what is the one favorite thing you LOVE to do?

Quilting and genealogy both compete for my time and I am obsessed with both of them. I love to cook and have been expressing myself creatively with scrapbooks and embroidery. Sometimes I try to combine crafts and interests.  The photo above shows two genealogy scrapbooks I have made.

Gracy Singh

Question 7: If a movie was made about your life, what actor would like casts in the leading role (as you)?

I don't keep up with actors so I don't really know who that could be, but just for you, I looked for some photos of actresses and this picture looks like someone whose personality seems to match mine. She could show a better public version of me. I hope she is a nice person in real life.

SEVEN FACTS ABOUT ME

I'm not sure if there are seven additional facts about me that I haven't already told you in this post. I may expand things I already told you and hope you find the additional facts interesting.

Fact 1.  I like to travel and have managed to do some extensive travel through my employers and on my own.  I would love to see India, Pakistan, Morocco, Australia, New Zealand, and many other places. I would also like to go back to visit Spain and Italy.  I like to collect keychains from the places I visit and have an extensive key chain collection shown above.

Fact 2.  I like taking photographs every day. The neighborhood does not change very much day to day, but nature provides a change of scenery every day with the clouds, the trees and other plants, the squirrels, and the birds.  Each walk is unique.

Fact 3. Long-term readers of this blog will know that I like to use up every tiny snippet of fabric.  There is so little expectations of these little scraps that I don't have any fear of making a mistake or doing something wrong.  My favorite pieces are the ones that use the tiny pieces other quilters would have thrown away in the trash.  Sometimes I have to make myself throw away the snippets so I can start over again with bigger pieces of fabric to make more snippets.

Fact 4. I have transcribed genealogy records and taken photos of headstones to help other genealogists move forward in their research.

Fact 5. I like math, especially on spreadsheets. I track my quilt statistics. Today, the stats show I have finished 78% of the quilts I have started and have finished 110 quilts. Of the quilts I have finished, it took me an average of 274 days to finish one. That number changes a lot based on the age of the quilt I just finished . Finishing an older quilt makes the average go up, since UFOs aren't included in that number and making a quick mini quilt makes it move down. It is fun to see it go up and down.

Fact 6. Zeus is my first and only dog. He came into our lives in 2011 when he was about 3 or 4 years old and has brought us all joy every day since. He is a stickler for the schedule and keeps me on track with eating and getting exercise.

Fact 7. I take my quilts on walks. My quilts don't like being cooped up in the house, so sometimes when we go to a park, I will choose one of them to take with us. We shower it with lots of attention. We take lots of pictures of the quilt during the walk so it doesn't forget its special day.


NOMINATE OTHER BLOGGERS TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

This is the part while I will break ranks and not nominate anyone. Some people hate answering these types of things and others will feel left out if I don't choose them. Please, if you want to do this, answer the following questions. Let me know, and I will retroactively nominate you.

QUESTIONS FOR THESE BLOGGERS TO ANSWER (most borrowed from the previous list I was given)

  1. What made you start a blog and do you have any favorite topics for your blog posts?
  2. What is your favorite quality about yourself?
  3. What are your favorite creation(s) to date?
  4. What are you doing during the pandemic’s stay-at-home times? Are you keeping a journal?
  5. How would you like to be remembered?
  6. Where is one of the first places you plan on going after quarantine is over?
  7. Other than blogging/writing what is the one favorite thing you love to do?
In addition to answering these 7 questions, if you like please also share 7 facts about yourself. 
And if you like, nominate 7 other bloggers for this award to introduce your readers to blogs they may not already follow but you think they will enjoy!


6 comments:

Joyful Quilter said...

Fun post. It is always nice to learn more about the person than just their blog stuff. I am not nominating myself. ;o) I track my quilts in Excel also...just not to the same level as you...more of a log than statistics.

Quiltdivajulie said...

Well written post - I don't do awards so I'll pass, but thanks for sharing more about yourself!

Emily said...

I enjoyed reading more about you! Some things I knew, some things I did not. That's a great stack of library books! We have a lot, too--I made it to our public library in the last hour they were open!

Tanya said...

I loved reading this post and a lot of things you wrote about I could say "Yeah, I know that about her! I've been a long time blog reader!" But I DIDN'T know about the key chain collection. How neat is that!

tierneycreates said...

I so enjoyed reading your responses! Hey do you know that one of those library books you had in your stack has five of my quilts in it - It’s 1000 quilts inspiration one. That is a beautiful actress that you have a picture of on the post or is that a picture of you I was getting confused? If so you look very glamorous! :-)

Kim said...

I have arrived at this post very late, but oh I have enjoyed reading about you. A toppling stack of library books is always a most excellent thing, and such fun to take one of your quilts along with you and enjoy the beauty of each one whilst you are picnicking or enjoying the great outdoors. I hope your new job is going well.