The Versatile Blogger Award — Moi? Cooooool…

Posted by chriskuhn on Apr 29, 2013 in Blog, Essays | 17 comments

So a lovely young woman who has a great blog called Family, Friends and Everything in Between recently surprised me by leaving a thoughtful comment on my About Author page and telling me that she had nominated me for The Versatile Blogger Award.

I was speechless.

Me, the long-winded nightmare.

It meant a lot to me but unfortunately, caught me off guard and at the time of an epic cluster-you-know-what deadline, and I wasn’t able to respond politely and graciously as I would have liked. So I apologize to her personally here for not thanking her sooner. Kristy has a smart, fun blog that brings positivity and thoughtful dialogue to the conversation.

If you have been nominated you have won the award.

So I’m following along with the “rules” of the award. (Well, kinda.) And posting below what is expected of me (sorta) as said winner.

Here’s the following rules for those that I nominate (If I always followed the rules, all of the time…) :

-Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy. (okay, did that)

-Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it. (absolutely, did that)

-Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly,  blogs or bloggers that are excellent! (okay…*getting tentative now*How about 9 instead?)

-Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site. http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com/  (so now all of these people must do the same thing…hmm. That’s a lot to ask…)

-Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself. (OK, I can do that)

The blogs I am nominating:

The following are in no special order but reflect an eclectic mix that I enjoy following – from family life to photography, from writing to witty observations. A quick note: I would like to have also included Stuff I Tell My Sister (http://stuffitellmysister.me/) but she was already nominated within my group, so she can’t make my list, but please check out her blog. It rocks, too!

I also want to point out that I follow a number of awesome authors’ blogs across romance, erotica, suspense and other genres. I haven’t featured any of them because frankly I wouldn’t know who to include and who to leave out. But anytime you’re looking for a suggestion in a particular genre, I hope you’ll pop by my blog and ask. I can point you in any number of fabulous directions.

Okay, back to the award stuff.

Please note that I am following the protocol of this said awesome award. (Okay, not really. I’m pretty much breaking a lot of the rules but I’m making an effort, so that’s something…).

Do with it as you will. Know that my little nod comes completely as a true fan of your work. If you’d like to pass along, do so. If not, I will not take it personally. I realize this award, while absolutely lovely and appreciated, asks a lot of its recipients, and I want to be respectful of your time. But do let me know that you did get my message of affection for the good stuff you’re putting out there for the rest of us. Deal? OK.

Here they are…

1.  A Nine Pound Hammer…or a woman like you, either of these will do  http://aninepoundhammer.com

2.  Christian Mihai http://cristianmihai.net/

3.  The Kitchen Witch http://thekitchwitch.com

4.  The Story Reading Ape http://thestoryreadingapeblog.wordpress.com/

5.  Peevish Penman http://peevishpenman.blogspot.com/

6.  The Duffel Blog http://www.duffelblog.com/

7.  Exploding Unicorn http://www.explodingunicorn.blogspot.com/

8.   Boxfotos http://boxfotos.com/

9.  The Parenting Beat http://theparentingbeat.wordpress.com

The 7 things about myself

1. My first job, besides a little babysitting, was working as a movie usher and theater concession worker. I loooooved it. Employees were allowed one free movie per day at any of the company’s area theaters. That really came in handy in the summer. This was one of the first movies I ushered, too. Damn. That was a funny movie.

2. First trip to Disney World, I was 4 years old and apparently balling like a baby because I didn’t get to see Mickey Mouse walking around like I had hoped. As it is reported to me (since I was a little young to remember), we were getting ready to leave and a wandering Mickey Mouse came right up to me and got in position to pose for a photo. And I’ve got the shot to prove it.

3. I can’t do anything really interesting. No cool tricks or skills. I have one really good card trick, but that’s it. I can’t juggle, I don’t balance things on any body parts, I can’t do sleight of hand tricks, touch my nose with my tongue or roll my eyes back into my head. Hell, I can’t even whistle. I’m just a boring girl raised by midwestern parents in southwest Florida who used to like sitting in her room and dreaming up made-up characters, songs, TV shows and movies while growing up. No biggie. The only two talents I can point to at all are that I can usually identify a pop song from 1960-2000 by just hearing one or two notes and…I at one time memorized every Oscar winning movie, actor and actress and still have some remnants of this completely useless knowledge lingering behind.

4. During my lifetime, I’ve been a financial aid counselor, on-air radio news announcer, evening switchboard operator, telemarketer, graphic designer, marketing manager, receptionist, metro newspaper promotional writer, magazine editor, and my personal favorite (and, yes, I’m being my signature, smart-ass self), an inbound phone rep selling cigars of all things (READ: lifelong non-smoker…I mean, like NEVER smoked anything…EVER! So how funny is that?)

5. I got my first dog as a pet at the age of THIRTY. His name is Dexter. Happy to say he’s still with us at the ripe old age of 15. I speak of him often online, snap pictures of him to annoy the hell out of him and consider him my “assistant” since I spend more time with him on a daily basis than any other animal or human. He’s a Dachshund-Chihuahua (aka chiwienie) -long legs, long back. Overall, a freak of nature. And I love him for it. Here he is working hard on the job, as always.

6. I’m a bit of a freak of nature myself (in more ways than I could possibly list here). But I love English and math. Usually, you’re only supposed to gravitate to one, but I’ve always loved words and numbers. In fact, when I was in college, I tutored algebra and English at the same time at the campus learning center. So when I release my next steamy romance series Lust and Logarithms, well, you’ll know why…

7. I’m shy. Okay, there’s a few people that will be laughing at this last “fact” about me, but it’s true. I may not seem that way here or on Twitter. If you’ve ever gone toe to toe with the banter or double entendres (or I suppose fingertip to fingertip is  more apropos), you’ll know I can hold my own. But it’s true. I’m the biggest wallflower there is. I freak out at even the concept of attending a party where I know nobody at all. Put me at the center of attention and I might as well curl up in the fetal position right now. I’m trying to work on it, but it isn’t easy. Within smaller groups or among those who really know me well, I can let loose. But out there…in that big scary place…*gasp* Writing is a solitary life that you can so easily choose to maintain every day. We like our quiet, we like our solitude – well, some of us do. I’m sure there are exceptions, but for most of us, we’d much rather hang with the dog.

Wow. What a munchkin he was then. Only a year or so after we got him. Yes, we all look much younger then.

I will say this whole experience virtually meeting others and forcing myself to come out of my little shell to talk to others and begin promoting the book is, I know, going to be a very valuable all-around experience, as I suspect it is for other shy, quiet types. So… *takes a deep inhale* I’m ready for it.

I think.

No, I am. Really.

Let’s do this thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so, there you go… my little foray into award land. Once again, thank you, Kristy, for the nod. And to anyone looking for interesting blogs, I do hope if you take away anything at all from this bizarro blog entry that you check out some of these groovy sites I suggested. I’m confident you’ll find them as interesting as I do.

Happy reading!

ck