Versatility… My First Award!

StillMary at Musings of the Sixties gave me an award on Tuesday. An AWARD! Thanks, StillMary!

It’s not a huge award and it won’t make me world-famous or rich or anything, but I still think it’s pretty cool. Because it’s a total stranger saying, “I like reading your Blog.” Which is awesome, if you ask me. I like reading her Blog, too. And seeing her pictures. She’s a mother of six, one of whom happens to be Beth (I Should Be Folding Laundry), the lovely young lady who started the You Capture meme I participate in sporadically. She’s got 19 grandchildren and 1 great-grandson, too. She’s no boring Granny, though. Be sure to check out her Blog when you have time.

Anyway… people who have been given this award are supposed to share the love as follows:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award (done!);

2.Tell seven things about yourself; and

3. Pass the award on to other Bloggers you find to be versatile, too.

Hmmm. This might be harder than I thought…

Although, truth be told, my department at work is having a contest where you have to match everyone’s picture with their brief bio. To participate, we all had to write a bio, so I could just cheat and use that. But I’ll be different and reveal some stuff that fans may or may not already know…

Thing 1: My Job

Most people know I have a full-time job. I’ve been working for this particular employer for almost four years (gasp!). The job isn’t always fun, but I do work with some very nice, interesting people.

Wanna know what’s weird, though? Most of the people I work with on a regular basis, I have never met in person. There are some I’ve seen once or twice, but most of them I have never seen. That’s why we’re doing the picture + bio contest.

Are you wondering why I don’t get to see my co-workers? It’s because, like me, many of them are regional employees and work either from their home or one of the company’s more-remote locations. We communicate primarily by e-mail and telephone. When I say I’m having a “meeting,” I really mean a teleconference. It may sound easy and full of perks, but I gotta say the hours can sometimes be long and it is often very stressful. I write proposals, which are subject to pretty tight turnaround times. Not only do I have to write the proposal describing the services we are providing, I have to develop the budget to go along with each. Sometimes there are multiple budgets.

Imagine being given a week to crank out a 60-page document and 1,000-line budget describing services you sort of understand and detailing costs others, who are often too busy to respond to your requests for input, have to define. Like I said, it can get a bit stressful. And as deadlines approach, the days can be long.

Thing 2: What I’d Rather Be Doing

As jobs go, I guess mine is okay. But there’s lots of other stuff I would rather be doing. I guess you’d call these activities hobbies. Photography is one of those things, of course. But then y’all knew that, right?

Did you know I like to sew? I’m a total novice. And I don’t have nearly enough time to do as much stuff as I’d like. But I will one day. What I like most about sewing is the creativity in finding a bunch of different fabrics that I think will work well together. Most of the time, they do, too. The quilt pictured here is the one I made for one of the guest bedrooms at the WV place (I made the curtains to match, too). It is a very rudimentary, hand-tied quilt. I’m not sure if I’ll ever have the patience to do the really intricate hand-stitched quilting, but some of the projects I’ve made have turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.

Thing 3: The Job I Wish I Had Chosen

You know what they say about hindsight… I should have been a forest ranger. That would be a job I would really enjoy. I could work at Yosemite National Park. Or maybe Yellowstone. Although they might be too crowded. How about a more remote one like maybe Katmai National Park in Alaska? Or Denali?

Although, with my luck, I’d get stuck somewhere hugely boring like George Washington Birthplace National Monument. That is NOT the same thing as Mt. Vernon in Northern Virginia. It is in Virginia, but it’s in the sticks.

Can’t you just see me as a ranger? I wouldn’t want to be stuck at the entry gate, though. I’d want to be doing stuff like patrolling the woods for lost hikers, or monitoring the critters in their habitat, or guiding kayak trips in Glacier Bay. You know, nature stuff.

Thing 4: Why I Haven’t Been Online Much Lately

Hubby and I have been on a house beautification kick. The MD house has been sorely neglected over the past several years. With us spending most weekends at the WV place, we just don’t have much time to do things at the house in MD. Things like flower bed maintenance. Painting. Home improvements. You know, normal stuff. We’ve been doing all of those things lately and it’s been keeping us pretty busy. That’s why it took me so long to acknowledge this award. That and the fact that it’s hard to come up with seven interesting things to say about myself.

Thing 5: I Am Really Bad When It Comes to Deleting Pictures

You all know I like to take pictures. What you probably don’t know is just how many pictures I have taken over the years (a lot, trust me). Sometimes, you have to take 20-30 shots to get one really good image. So I end up with all these extra images that I say I’ll delete one day. And then I don’t.

Couple that with the fact that I take pictures of odd stuff, too. Like these cinnamon rolls…

Most of the really weird images you’ll find on the computer are shots I have taken for the Blog.

Thing 6: Which House I Like Best

Hands down, I enjoy being at the WV place more than I like being at the MD place. Most of you know the story behind the WV place. For those of you who only discovered me recently, you should CLICK HERE to see what “story” I am talking about. THAT was quite the DIY project. Looking back, I’m glad we did it, of course, even if it was a lot of work. I really enjoy living in the woods.  Hopefully, once we whip the MD place back into shape, we’ll be able to spend some more time there. I mean, jeez. Pretty soon I’ll be saying the WV place has been neglected…

Thing 7: I’m Playing Soccer Again!

I can’t remember if it was eight or nine years ago. Either way, I was either 34 or 35 when I started playing soccer. I grew up in Baltimore City during the late-70s/early-to-mid-80s. They didn’t have soccer programs for girls. Heck, there weren’t a lot of sports programs period. Except for in the high schools. I played a lot of baseball and football (the American kind) when I was in elementary and junior high school. Had I known anything about soccer back then, I would have just played on the boys’ team.

Anyway… eight or nine years ago I saw an ad in the paper about this program to create real soccer moms. Not the sideline-riding, kid-taxiing, snack-bringing kind. The kind that actually got out onto the field and play. I’d always enjoyed watching the kids play. I thought it looked like fun, so I gave it a try. And I loved it.

I stopped playing a year or two ago mainly because I needed a break. I hated having to rush back from the WV place to make it to the games, which are played on Sundays. I mean, we’d finally finished the WV place, I wanted to be able to enjoy it. Plus, I’d packed on some pounds and running wasn’t easy.

Last year, I decided to shed some of those extra pounds. (I lost 30 pounds!) Of course, I gained a few back over the Winter (who do you think ate those cinnamon rolls?). And, honestly, I’ve missed playing soccer. It really is a fun sport. So I rejoined my team in April. And I am so glad I did. I am also happy to report that I made it through the season injury-free. Except for a couple of pretty big bruises, but those aren’t really injuries.

Versatile Bloggers I Know

Talk about tough! There are quite a few blogs that I frequent. Most are on my Blogroll on the left side of the screen. Rather than give this award to any of those folks, I decided to pass it on to Bloggers I’ve only recently (relatively) discovered. These are all people whose Blogs I think you might enjoy, too.

So here goes…

Household Diva 6: This Blog belongs to Ann Marie, an American mother of three, married to a soldier, who happens to be living in Germany right now. I met her through the aforementioned I Should Be Folding Laundry (StillMary already gave her the Versatile Blogger Award). Ann Marie takes awesome pictures, she makes really cool cakes, she’s got three adorable kids. The list goes on. Just check her out. Really.

The Old Nichols Farm: Meet Jess, another Mom photographer with a twist. She lives on a farm. So, in addition to her very good photographs and cute kids, she has lots of cool critter pics, too.

Random Ramblings: Finally, there’s Melissa. An Iowan with three dogs (one that’s REALLY bad), two cats and a husband that’s a kidney cancer survivor. She doesn’t post nearly as frequently as the other two, but she’s got some great stories and also takes very nice pictures.

I hope you take a few minutes to visit each of these blogs. And be sure to leave a comment saying something like, “The awesomw, amazing, VERSATILE, and witty ToadMama sent me!” Or maybe “ToadMama sent me” would be sufficient.