The Honest Scrap Award

GrafixMuse bestowed the Honest Scrap Award to me the other day. Thanks!

Here are the Guidelines of The Honest Scrap Award:
1. Brag about the award.
2. Include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on me and link back to the blogger.
3. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that I find brilliant in content or design.
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5. List at least ten (10) honest things about myself.

I'm going to list my ten things first. Usually I find a lot in common with other bloggers. At least half the things they say about themselves fit with me, sometimes all of them, but when GrafixMuse listed hers, I had to say, "That's not me at all." So I'm going to take her list and make it mine.

1) She is number challenged. I come from a line of number nerds and proudly follow in their tradition. My mother was a human calculator. I had one math teacher that told me I didn't even have to show up to class, I just had to take the tests. He loved giving me unsolvable math problems to see if I could do them. My son taught himself calculus while he was taking the precalc course in high school. He took the BC Calc AP test that year and got a 5. He ended up with five college level math courses under his belt before he hit college. My daughter wants to go into quantum gravity and thinks quantum mechanics is easy. Even I don't think that. When I tell her I don't get it she tells me, "It's just math mom." BTW I aced quantum in college but I still don't get it. We are a family of number nerds and are proud of it.

2) She can't buy anything over $100 dollars without researching it to death. I rarely spend much, but if I want something I can send it without batting an eyelash. I will research something to death to make sure I get the right one if I'm not sure. But I'll do that with any sized thing. I hate buying something I won't use in the future.

3) She says as she has matured she likes quiet nights at home more than nights out. I'm half there. I love quite nights at home, but I still love my parties. The reason is that I love to socialize. I also love going out to eat with my family. I have a family of introverts and they are forced to talk to me then. My husband and I have recently started going to the Boston Seminar Series (nerdy talks at MIT) and MIT's science breakfasts. I love that. I can socialize and be nerdy all at the same time.

4) She is a workaholic. I'm so not. I do get obsessed with projects at times, but I'm really happy doing nothing too. Work does not consume me.

5) She has naturally hard nails. I so don't. They break all the time. I never polish them, but leave them natural.

6) Her hair began to turn gray at 18. I'm 47 and I have one gray hair. My mom wasn't really gray until 60. I think I'm following in her footsteps.

7) She hates driving in the snow. I hate driving, but the snow doesn't bother me. I didn't get my license until I was 23. Cars are just death traps waiting to happen. I don't understand the American love for the car.

8) She says she is a trustworthy person. I am too. She says she is non judgemental. So am I. I don't understand the propensity for people to lie. I once read a study that said most people lie everyday. Really? Do people do it just for fun? I can think of four reasons to lie. 1) to make people like you better 2) to keep from getting in trouble 3) to get something you want 4) to keep from hurting someone. So I guess I just don't have a lot of reason to lie. 1) If someone doesn't like me for who I am, then I don't need them around. 2) People ought to take responsibility for themselves. 3) I hardly need to lie to get what I want. If I want something I ask for it. People are usually good about giving it. 4) On very rare occasion I'll lie for this reason, but rarely. Even here I'll tend to be honest. If I liked your hair better the other way, I'll tell you. Sorry. But I won't tell you unless you ask. I will try to be tactful about how I say it, but I won't lie about it if you are a friend. I will lie about it to people I don't know. My friends know I'm saying things with love. Strangers don't. I also don't know strangers and don't have their life story. So I can't really say if it is good or not.

9) She can have trouble pronouncing words. I can pronounce words just fine. Well unless I'm really cold then I tend to slur my words. It is spelling that I can't do. Without spell check I'd be lost. Plus I type pretty quickly and flip letters occasionally. I am however what my husband used to term a mule. A decade ago he used to be the lead engineer on Dragon Naturally Speaking (speech recognition software). Mules are people that the system can't recognize. It gets trained to your individual voice. We are inconsistent speakers so it never gets trained.

10) She always wears heels because she is short. I've worn heals once in the last year (and only for five minutes). For my wedding I wore flats so I wouldn't be taller than my husband in the photos. The last time I wore heals consistently was when a bunch of friends and I took ballroom dancing together. Since we did this for over a year, I got some nice dancing shoes with suede on the bottom. For dancing I'll wear heals if I have to, but not for many other things. I'll blame my lack of fashion for growing up in the Colorado mountains. We walked to parties in our hiking boots and skirts. I just could never get into shoe fashion. I have a total of three pairs of heels. One black pair, one off white pair and my dancing shoes. I have more working/exercise shoes in my closet than pretty shoes.

I should just copy her list of people though. I'm alike with her on that. She picked all people I would have picked. Now I have to go figure out who I've given awards to already so I don't get duplicates.

OK back. I've given awards already to the following people:

Michelle at From Seed To Table
Kate at Gardening Without Skills
kitsapFG at The Modern Victory Garden
June at Four Green Acres
Sally at My Dirt
Amanda at Cooking in someone else's kitchen
Miss M at The Informal Gardener
Annie's Granny from Annie's Kitchen Garden
Dan from Urban Veggie Garden Blog
EG from Our Engineered Garden
Frances from Fairegarden
Our Friend Ben from Poor Richard's Almanac
Cindy at Brambleberries in the Rain
Shibaguyz
Ali at Henbogle
Kate at The Manic Gardener
Green Bean Dreams
A Sonoma Garden
Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings
Kathy from "Skippy's Vegetable Garden"
Margo from "Garden Misadventures"
Melissa from "Garden Portraits"
S. Jones from "Compostings"
Mike from "Tiny Farm Blog"
Kate from "The Root"

Wow that's a lot of people (I'd add some link love, but really it is way too much work). I always feel like I should come up with new people and spread the love around. There are just too many fine bloggers out there. So in no particular order:

• The Mom From Heather's Homemaking and I'm so trying her eggrolls with the next Chinese cabbage I pick.
  
• Susy from Chiot's Run
• Toni from Toni's Weedless Square Foot Garden
• Nathan at 2 Acre Farm
• Lou from Lou Murray's Green World Blog
• Selina from Indiana Girl
• Emily from greens and jeans

So now I have to work on letting them all know.

The Me Meme

Gratuitous flower photo

Dot from A Faerie's Garden has passed a meme award to me. Here are the rules:

• Link back to the person who gave you the award
  
• Reveal the 7 things about yourself
  
• Tag 7 other bloggers at the end of your post and link to them
  
• Let each blogger know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
  
• Let the tagger know when your post is up.

So I get to ramble on about myself with seven different things. What should I pick?

1. I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and had a hard time getting used to the East Coast. Everything here is so close together. The houses, the trees, the people - everything. It makes me a bit claustrophobic. I've been slowly getting used to it. I've lived here way more than half my life so you'd think I'd have adjusted already. Almost.

2. My trail name is Blue Sky. I got it in 2003. I know we have complained over our wet summer, but that summer was horribly wet even in August when our weather usually dries out. It was much wetter than this year. It rained ALL the time. This was the year my daughter and I decided to go on a 100 mile hike of the Long Trail in Vermont (Massachusetts to Route 4) in August during some of the really bad storms. Every time I would look up and see blue sky, I would point it out and then it would start pouring again. My misplaced optimism really brought on the rain.

3. My dog, Kayla, died in June after a bout with brain cancer. I cried for two weeks straight afterward. Whenever I open the door to go out to the garden, I still have that moment when I expect her to come barreling over to join me. That moment always makes me sad.

4. I love to dance. There is nothing more joyous in the world than letting yourself go to the music. Sadly my husband doesn't share my love. The rest of the family has hang ups over looking silly while dancing. Sigh. I've found if you are a bad dancer, no one looks at you they look at the other dancers. They only watch you if you are any good. This fall I signed up for a Bollywood class - something I've never done before. It isn't quite as fun since it is all choreographed and learning it is a challenge to my memory.

5. Which brings me to my weird memory. I'd make the perfect absent minded professor since I can't remember anything and yet I remember the weirdest things.

6. I grew up a river rat. For those that don't know, it means I spent a lot of time on rivers. I started rowing when I was 16 and the first river I ever rowed by myself was the "River of No Return", better known as the middle fork of the Salmon in Idaho. I've never rowed the Grand Canyon, but have been down the length three times.

7. I'm a beadweaver by trade. I sell my work through two Artisans' Cooperatives, The Sign of the Dove and The Clever Hand Gallery.

So now I have to pick seven other bloggers. I really hate picking who to choose, but first I'll eliminate the people I've chosen before and there are quite a lot of you from previous memes. There are so many more I'd like to put on the list, but here is seven of you:

• Michelle at From Seed To Table
• Kate at Gardening Without Skills
• kitsapFG at The Modern Victory Garden
• June at Four Green Acres
• Sally at My Dirt
• Amanda at Cooking in someone else's kitchen
• Miss M at The Informal Gardener

Now I have to go post over at your blogs to let you know.

BTW speaking of awards, it is time for the Blotanical Awards nominations. So I'll do a little stumping for myself to try to get into the finalists. In the category section I've chosen to put myself in the running for: Best Vegetable Gardening Blog, Best Organic Blog and Best Photography Blog. I really don't deserve the last nomination. I've had some good photography, but I'm not really a photography blog. I picked it because I was to pick three categories and couldn't think of another one to put myself in. I do a lot of canning and veg growing, but am hardly a homesteading blog and don't have the land for an agrarian blog. Maybe urban farming will be my next career, but for now I'm just an organic veg grower so I think I'm a much better fit for the vegetable and organic categories. My state is Massachusetts. So if you belong to Blotanical log in and vote. If not for me at least for someone. And if you don't belong to Blotanical, why not?

Blogger Trophy Award

It seems to be meme season. I've seen several different awards going around recently. Wendy over at Rambling Unsettled Vagabond has sent me the Blogger Trophy Award. Thank you Wendy. It has a pretty enough award photo to go with it but there seems to be no story behind it. Most awards have some story, or at least some criteria for passing it along. I'm wondering if I should jazz it up by making up a story.

The photo seems stately and maybe a bit pretentious at first glance. However it uses Blogger and Bloger, so maybe it is more of a fickle award? Or an award for those that can't spell? The last one would surely be me. Without spell check I would have so many incorrectly spelled words - half from mistyping, the other half because I really can't spell anything to save my life.

I think I'll just pick 5 people whose blogs I like and I haven't passed an award to in the past. Don't think of this as an implication that you can't spell. As always if you want to play along, go for it. If you aren't into memes feel free to ignore my paltry attempt to get a link back to my blog.

• Annie's Granny from Annie's Kitchen Garden
  
• Dan from Urban Veggie Garden Blog
  
• EG from Our Engineered Garden
  
• Frances from Fairegarden
  
• Our Friend Ben from Poor Richard's Almanac
  

Thank You

Outer Banks Mom sent me an award the other day. Thank you. Your comment was so sweet. If I want, I can pass it on to seven other blogs. There are so many wonderful blogs. Last time I was sent a meme it was only three months ago, but I have found so many more blogs I love since then, I'm sure I can come up with seven. So here goes:

• Brambleberries in the Rain
  Cynthia has one of my favorite gardening blogs. She has struggled a bit this year with a garden pest. We were all trying to guess what it was and it turned out to be a fox! A first for me.
  
• Shibaguyz
  You have to love these two guys in Seattle trying to grow their own on a tiny patch of land in their back yard. It is so overrun with vegetables they call it the jungle.
  
• Henboggle
  Whose freezer is the envy of anyone that grows their own food. Now I'm drooling over their hoophouse.
  
• The Manic Gardener
  Who has had the worst trouble with hail taking out her garden this year. No one should have to see their poor vegetables shredded like that.
  
• Green Bean Dreams
  She is trying to convert the world to a greener place one blog post at a time. I love her picture of her self - a green super hero.
  
• A Sonoma Garden
  Is so much fun to read. I loved their post about finding the great grandma's recipe box, and how they used to eat a couple of generations back. It's not what you think. But they are a treasure.
  
• Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings
  Right now I don't read many blogs that aren't about gardening, but I read this one to drool over the food. I may be an omnivore, but it has great ideas on how to use those vegetables coming out of the garden.
  

So thanks again. I'll leave one note. Tyson is giving away food to the food banks. It is based upon how many comments they get. They will give up to 200,000lbs of protein food, 100llbs for each comment. Last time I looked there were 618 comments. If they get 2000, they will give the max. So go comment. It only has to be one word. I find giving food away an interesting way to advertise and I'm certainly willing to play along.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Kanak from halfway around the world- Guwahati, Assam, India, so of course I must play. The rules are as follows:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on the blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So I need six random things that "you" don't know about me. Of course who "you" are is very variable. My husband reads my blog and sometimes my son. They probably know all the things I would possibly write:

1. My father thinks I'm fickle, since I haven't stayed in one profession very long. I have a degree in chemistry (hated the politics and hated the chemicals); then went to art school; painted for a short while (had kids and found I couldn't paint while tending kids); stayed home with my kids (they grew up and didn't need me as much); programmed (they shut down the office on me, but I missed my kids so stayed home with them some more and started beading); now I'm a beadweaver and make jewelry. Will I do something else at some point? Maybe. My husband doesn't think I'm fickle. I've been married to him for 24 years now.
2. I was a river rat as a kid. The first river I rowed was the River of No Return when I was 16. Don't you love that nickname? Its real name is the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho. This was before such things were really popular. Now everyone does it. My dad helped make kayaking popular in the US. Before you could go to a store and buy a kayak, my dad taught classes on how to make your own. I grew up watching kayak races, though have never been a whitewater kayaker myself. I like rafts in whitewater.
3. My daughter and I backpacked a hundred miles of the Long Trail one summer. We had so much fun together even though it poured on us almost every day.
4. I go to one or two science fiction conventions every year. Yes I'm a strange person that dresses up in costumes. My husband has always loved the conventions (he took me to my first one), but it took arm twisting for him to dress up. Once I made him a wizard's costume in black silk with a dragon beaded on the front (huge dragon, tons of beads) he was a convert. My favorite costume is a druid costume. I made it using an old Irish dress pattern and it has vines twining up from the bottom done in appliqué and beadwork around each leaf. My favorite part of the conventions is volunteering. The greatest people are the ones that volunteer there and when you volunteer you get to meet them all.
5. I'm proud of my nephew that is going to go to grad school at my alma mater, MIT (yes I'm a nerd, couldn't you guess that from number 4?) and is going to work on the moon project. And how could I be proud of my nephew without being proud of my own kids? My son is going to Brown to study computers and my daughter to WPI to study physics and her senior project is on quantum computing. Yes the whole family is happy talking nerdly and we are proud of it.
   
6. Writing is hard for me. I'm doing this blog as a challenge to myself.

So now I must tag six people. Just so the people know, you don't have to play if you don't want to.

• Kathy from "Skippy's Vegetable Garden", she is probably the first garden blog I found.
  
• Margo from "Garden Misadventures", she just lives in the next town though we've never met.
  
• Melissa from "Garden Portraits", just north of me in NH.
• Cindy from "Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen", who has my love for cilantro.
• S. Jones from "Compostings" who is less squeamish than I and can squishes bugs with his fingers.
  
• Mike from "Tiny Farm Blog", who has a micro farm that is fun to follow.
  
• Kate from "The Root", who has the most interesting trellises.
  

So why do we play such silly tag games. I would never do chain letters as a kid. Well it gets you linked into other blogs. Bloggers are always looking for more readers and search engines like that. And it lets you know a little more about your blogger.