Liebster Blog Award

Thank you Janet at Seize the Day RV Adventure – for honoring me with this award! “Seize the Day” is a great principle to adopt. Visit Janet and Kevin on their blog of travel, RVing, birding, Jeeping (I made up that word!), eating and more.

The Liebster Blog Award is described as; “ An award to spread blog love and draw attention to blogs with fewer followers”. Many thanks, Janet!

The criteria for accepting this award – numbers are flexible:

• Acknowledge the person who nominated you
• Answer a number of questions
• List some bloggers with fewer than 200 (or so) followers who you really feel deserve a little blogging love! (If I’ve got your numbers wrong, sorree! I have a few more than that as well.)
• Let all the bloggers know you have nominated them. You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you!
• Post questions for the blogger you have nominated to answerHere are some very tricky things I’ve been asked to tell about myself:

1. Favorite author?

I could not possibly name just one. I have a list and here are a few: Peter Mayle, Bill Bryson, Sebastian Faulks, John Steinbeck, Diane Ackerman, Joanne Harris, Clare Francis, Lauren Belfer, Sue Grafton. Look them up! Enjoy!

2. Why did you start blogging?

I had already written dozens of stories. I just wanted to put them “out there.” I hope when you read them you don’t think I’m “out there.”

3. What’s your favorite TV Show?

Doc Martin, about an unusual country doctor practicing in my favorite English county – Cornwall.

4. What is your favorite season of the year?

A prefect English summer -whenever that might happen.

5.  If you have some spare time, what do you do?

Read or write! That’s predictable isn’t it?

6. What is your favorite type of music?

Not much of a music doyen, but I don’t like jazz and rap.

7. What do you do to keep fit?

Yoga, swimming and walking from one room to another and back again because I forget why I’m there.

8. Tea or Coffee?

If I really have to choose – tea. But I’ll have a cup of coffee when you’re not looking.

9.What is your favorite kind of animal? Dog? Cat? Fish? Deer? etc

Cat. But maybe dog if it’s a Labrador.

10. Favorite place you have traveled?

UNFAIR! Absolutely cannot answer this. Somewhere (or everywhere) in America or Europe.

Here are some blogs I would like to nominate for the Liebster Award. Read! Enjoy!

http://discoveringwithdaisy.com/

http://vanessaspostcards.wordpress.com/

http://beartracksblog.wordpress.com/

http://thecrazycrone.org/

http://twotrailsoneroad.wordpress.com/

http://theripestpics.com/

http://mosblissfulbouquets.com/

http://theprestemons.wordpress.com/

http://motormommy.wordpress.com/

http://midlifeonwheels.wordpress.com/

Should you decide to accept this award – and there is no pressure to accept – here are some questions for you to answer:

1. What was (is) the favorite year of your life?
2. Who is your favorite person in history?
3. Can you do better than me and name just one favorite author?
4. With money as an object what is top of your bucket list?
5. If money were no object what would be top of your bucket list?
6. What one word best describes you?
7. What is your favorite post on your blog? Please share the link.
8. What five (endless supply of) foods would you have on a desert island?
9. What is your favorite color?
10. If you had to choose between traveling the world with endless funds but with no home OR having an extravagantly fabulous home anywhere – what would you do? Why?

If you can’t be bothered with all those questions, and I wouldn’t blame you, please just answer the last one. I really would like to hear what you have to say!!! Anyone reading this is welcome to jump in with an opinion. 😀

 

We’re Cracking Up

Our car is groaning and our trailer is cracking up, to say nothing of its occupants.

What has so far been a U.S. grand tour must now become a serious pursuit for a home base. Apart from getting on each others’ nerves in our mini home with no friends nearby to inflict our gripes on, things are conspiring against us – terrorism, government, airline policies, finances and weather.

Starting with the least inflammatory subject of weather, alternating humid heat and hard freezes are more than difficult to tolerate in our small living space. Both happened within the space of two weeks which came as a bit of a surprise in a winter snow bird paradise.

Everywhere we go we are of course the new kids in town and moving every three to seven days we don’t know what to expect of the weather. In a bid to find out we tune in the TV which is a game in itself. Jimmy winds the aerial up with a handle on the ceiling and tries to aim it vaguely in the same direction as others on the campsite. After a lengthy tuning process Jimmy announces glumly, “We’ve only got two channels.”

“Well that’s something. What are they?”

“One’s in Spanish and the other one is commercials.”

Himself, the holder of the remote, insists on muting the sound of commercials so I lose interest. Nothing is more mind numbing than commercials without sound, except commercials with sound, but at least you know when the program comes back on. The next time I look up it’s still commercials. “Do you know what channel it is yet?”

“Umm . . . .” He had his head in the newspaper. “We can do better than this. The picture’s not very good anyway. Turn the aerial just a little that way.” I’m sure he knows what he means when he points from a distance of six feet to a three inch handle but I don’t. “No! The other way.”

The tuning process begins again and sometimes we manage to catch some local news – the car that stalled and held up traffic in town for two hours at rush hour, little Sammy’s lost cooter, iguanas dropping out of trees like overripe fruit due to the cold weather.

Just as we start to prepare for the night with blankets and setting the furnace just high enough to keep hypothermia at bay, we realize we’ve been watching the news in a town in the next state.

By the time we locate our nearest town on the weather map Wendell Weatherman has moved on to the weekend forecast. I lay down in bed with a quilt and two blankets to hand if I get cold. There is a little fan heater I can snick on quietly in the night to keep the temperature even between blasts from the furnace.

Hot weather is more difficult to manage. Our small fan is ineffectual in humid heat and to put on the air conditioner in the middle of the night involves putting on a light, finding my glasses and the remote control, and causing a great whumph! as the fan and cooling unit kick in. Which of course is why himself hides the remote under his pillow.

The rant continues on Friday.

Kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bedroom, TV room, yoga studio all in one. How claustrophobic is that?