Proud to be a Liebster Award Nominee!!

YOWSA! I have been nominated for a Liebster Award!

I’m really enjoying sharing my crafts here and reading all of your new blogs that I discover every day. You are all so inspirational and creative!! So let’s get to my duties as a new Liebster nominee!

#1: Give Thanks!

Liebster Award: Online recognition from fellow bloggers for fun new blogs.

THANK YOU Hooked for the nomination! Please take a moment and check out her amazing blog: go for the delicious eye candy pictures of all things yarny…stay for the inspiration and free patterns! (Plus she has a facebook page – so much family fun and crafty goodness!) Thanks for this opportunity to recognize other cool bloggers like you…and to bare my soul to the internet (we’re all friends here, right? 🙂 )

#2: Spread the Love!

Now I get to nominate five of my favorite bloggers (besides Hooked, of course!). Please click through on these fantastic sites and let them know how much we appreciate their blogs…I start my mornings with their humor, art, travel and life stories.

Leaf and Twig – I appreciate this blogger’s photographic ability to capture both the spirit of her subject and her own experience of viewing it. And the poetry…sublime!

Sleepy Kitty Stitches – I love checking in on what this blogger is stitching up (such fine detailed work!) and her DIY instructions are very helpful!

Little Rivers – I enjoy following this blogger’s progress through a cool creative design university class she is documenting. Her photography is stunning and it’s fun to see the creative processes she is experiencing.

The Crafty Mummy – This blogger is SOOOO creative and shares detailed pics and patterns for every step. I instantly want to make 12 of everything I see on her site!

ChiliSarang – I love seeing this blogger’s posts to photography challenges and her travel advice is detailed and so interesting (makes me want to go to those places!).

#3 – Tell Us a Little About Yourself

Here are the questions my nominator asked me to answer…

1.What is your favourite colour? 

Yellow

2.What was the name of your first pet?

Jason (a miniature Schnauzer)

3.If you could marry any film star who would it be?

Liam Neeson

4.If you could be any animal what would you be and why?

A hummingbird, because I want to be able to fly and I like they way they do that (flying sideways and swooping high/low looks like a lot of fun!)

5.What would your dream job be (doesn’t have to be realistic)?

I would like to design outdoor art installations involving landscaping and plants.

6.If you could name yourself, what name would you give yourself?

Rosalee…no Anna…can I change it every day?

7.What is your favourite pudding?

Bread pudding

8.What is your favourite flower?

(today it’s) Freesia
(bonus: tomorrow it will be Gazania)

9.What hobbies do you have (or did have as a child)?

as a child: Reading, sewing, collecting…stamps, spoons, dolls, pill bugs (aka ‘rolie-polies’) and army worms (eww!!)

10. What is your favourite toast topping?

(Forget what you just read and think about yummy food now…)
I like peanut butter, apple and a drizzle of honey on my toast.

11. If you could meet anyone who had lived ever, who would it be?

Sacajawea – smart as a whip and oh the stories!!

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That was fun! Thanks for asking and thanks for listening!

#4 That Wasn’t Enough – Tell Us a Little More About Yourself

Phew! this feels like a lot of thinking about myself…kind of like therapy…

Here are 11 random facts about me:

1. I have completed over 20 sky dives, and I packed parachutes and manifested loads to pay my way.
2. I worked a fishing season in Petersburg, Alaska, fresh/frozen side during the day and cannery at night.
3. I know all the words to “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
4. I’ve worked at the same company for over 20 years.
5. I can type 100 words per minute.
6. I used to work at an answering service.
7. My first job at age 14 was dog washer.
8. I wore braces (on my teeth) for 6 years.
9. When I’m waiting for a plane at the airport I like to listen to music and pretend I’m in my own music video.
10. When visiting the Redwood forest, my mom and I drove our car into the tree with a tunnel for a photo op – then realized we couldn’t open the doors of the car (reverse, I hop out, forward, I run around: photo op ready!).
11. I had the following pets as a child (not all at the same time): dog, hamster, duck, goose, rabbit, fish, salamander. (Bonus: I recommend a guinea pig as a starter pet for kids over 6 or 7 years old – manageable and they hardly ever escape and hide behind the refrigerator to scare the bejeebies out of you.)

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That was a fun walk down Random Lane for me – hope you had fun too.

#5 – My Questions for My Nominees

Here’s what I’m hoping my nominees will share with us in their “acceptance speech.”

1. What is your favorite drink on a hot day vs. a cold day?
2. Where would you say is the most beautiful place you’ve been so far?
3. What is your favorite spice (or condiment) that you use most often?
4. What is your favorite pizza topping?
5. Did you teach yourself the skills you highlight in your blog, or were they handed down and/or taught?
6. What is the best movie you’ve seen recently?
7. What is the best book you’ve read recently (you don’t have to be done with it yet)?
8. Do you enjoy answering surveys? (an easy “yes/no” as a breather…)
9. Describe what you see outside the nearest window right now (hopefully there isn’t a lot of travel involved in answering this one).
10. What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?
11. What’s your favorite museum?

Another Phew! I went for “interested without being invasive or obtuse…,” hopefully I landed somewhere close to the target drop zone.

#6 Logo Time!

The last requirement is to post a Liebster image, and I chose the ‘Celebratory Chic-ster’ version:

That was pretty fun, and I hope my nominees take a moment to share some version of this beeswax with the rest of us enquiring minds (I think it’s obvious: I’m brazenly looking for my next favorite libation, movie, book, spice/condiment, museum, etc. – share your knowledge!).

Sending extra love to everyone reading this – we all need a hug today and every day.

Now off to today’s crafting!!

Coloring meet-up!

I love the meetup.com site – such a quick way to find folks nearby with similar interests! Usually my groups meet in other parts of town, but tonight I got to attend my across-the-street neighbor’s meet-up for coloring!! So fun! Our hostess provided lots of books and coloring tools, but what really interested me is how many folks came with their own supplies, and in same cases pictures already started that they wanted to finish (and their own portable ott lights…I WANT!!! My ott lights have a very heavy base and are not fun to tote around the house, much less across the street.).

I also need to order a set of gel-pens immediately, some of which must have glitter in them. Because of this y’all!

dragonfly wing

(be sure to click on it for a close-up of glittery goodness)

Unfortunately I didn’t have an ott light while coloring this, so the detail could be better. But who cares about that when there’s shiny glitter!!

(plus I like how my stalwart home ott light provided a magnifying circle)

 

 

dragonfly

 

A broader picture. I think he needs more color but I ran out of time. I’ll tend to him later (with my new glitter pens…mwhahaha!)

Actually I think pencils could fill in some of those spaces nicely…(calm down crazy artist who needs new supplies all the time.)

 

Another thing I really liked about tonight’s meet-up is the camaraderie and support between artists. We really took time to look at each other’s work (past and present), commenting on things we loved and giving support and encouragement for stuff not yet done. We all need that extra nudge past the “I think I hate this” moment that usually precedes an amazing work of art. My favorite advice is to put it away for awhile and look at it again later. Amazement usually follows, if even just at the magnitude of the effort and the obvious step forward it represents from your past stuff. We’re moving forward all the time but it seems so hard sometimes to note that forward progress while it’s happening.

I can’t wait for my March time off to focus on these (most important) things full time! Sabbatical here I come!

 

 

 

 

Making Science

I have volunteered in the past for the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center here in San Diego which seems to have landed me on an amazing VIP invite list to attend some really fun events. I got to attend our most recent TEDx event for free (I helped with a semi-conductor experiment that “wow-ed” the crowd. I have video of it somewhere…no time for that now…maybe later.)

Tonight there was an apparatus made of packing tape that we could climb in, crawl through, jump on and slide down. Of course I slid down that slide, and if I were super cool I’m sure I could embed that video here. However, I’m not. So perhaps you can view it here.

This was also on my phone from this evening.

??

I’m clueless on this one. My date and my favorite cocktail of the evening are featured in the middle of a strange organism. I suspect this happened when I handed my phone off temporarily. Details pending…

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW – If you haven’t seen Joe Gordon-Levitt’s new collaboration site, you should check it out. I’m excited to join and play a part in some way (weekend plan!).