Here Comes the Sun

Roughly a month ago, fellow blogger Jansen Schmidt surprised and honored me  with the Sunshine Award. (Does she believe I have a sunny disposition? Clearly, she's never been a passenger in a car driven by me.) 

Jansen Schmidt is the nom de plume of my friend Patricia Rickrode. Patricia's talented in many areas: she's a writer, a stage actress, a Disney World/Disneyland aficionado who knows the parks inside out, a travel expert, and president of the Sacramento chapter of RWA. You'll find her blog here: http://jansenschmidt.wordpress.com Here's her Sunshine Award post: http://jansenschmidt.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/you-are-my-sunshine/

According to Jansen/Patricia, the Sunshine Award is best enjoyed when shared with others. Here are its rules:

Include the award’s logo (and rules) in a post on your blog. Simply cut and paste the photo at the top left into your own blog post.

Link to the person who nominated you.

Answer the ten questions below with your answers instead of mine.

Pass the award on to a bunch of “Sunshine Inspiring” bloggers.

Here are the questions:

Favorite Color:  Magenta (I wear this color but don't live with it. My house has a lot of cream, sage green, and pops of orange. In short, I clash with my house.)

Favorite Animal:  Cat 

Favorite Number:  Uh oh. I can't reveal this as I've used it in too many passwords

Favorite Non Alcoholic Drink:  Coffee. How I love it.

Favorite Alcoholic Drink: Red wine

Facebook or Twitter:  Neither

Passions:  Writing, reading, traveling, trip-planning, cooking, Zumba 

Prefer Getting or Giving Gifts:  Giving.

Favorite City:  I like something about every city I've visited. Favorites include San Francisco, New York, Charleston, San Antonio, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Munich, Uzes, France, Ennis, Ireland, Passau, Germany, and I could go on and on. 

Favorite TV Show:  Top Chef, Project Runway, Call the Midwife

And now, here are my nominations for the Sunshine Award:

Linda Barrett blogs about starting over, a subject she understands. She moved halfway across the country twice, traded traditional publishing for self-publishing, and is a two-time breast-cancer survivor. http://www.linda-barrett.com/blog/

Fiorella Plum is the pen name of an Austin-area writer. Her daily (you read that right) posts are short but wide-ranging. Fio writes about people in the news, her dog's obedience-training mishaps, amateur theatricals, Texas politics, and the armadillos plowing through her garden. http://fiorellaplum.blogspot.com

I write and read women's fiction and have a soft spot for British or Irish writers like Maggie O'Farrell, JoJo Moyes, Rachel Joyce, and the late Maeve Binchy. That said, science-fiction writer Lynette Burrows is responsible for wrenching me from Aga stoves to space-landing equipment, and from Devon to Mars via her blog, Of Martians and Marshmallows. By day, Lynette cares for the tiniest, most fragile babies. By night, her imagination sends her into space. http://lynettemburrows.com/blog/  

My thanks, again, to Jansen/Patricia for brightening my day with an award I aspire to earn.

Versatile? Me? (Switches from Tap-Dancing to Juggling)

Lynn Kelley, children's book author (Curse at Zala Manor. Secret of Haunted Bog) and creator of the Random Acts of Weirdness blog has conferred upon me the Versatile Blogger Award. Whoa! I'm thrilled although my so-called versatility is due to an inability to focus rather than talent.

Like most awards, this one comes with rules and responsibilities. For the Versatile Blogger Award, the rules are as follows:

Thank the blogger who nominated you!
Add the award pic to your blog post.
Nominate fifteen fellow bloggers and let them know about it!
Share seven random things about yourself.

I'll nominate seven bloggers today and eight more Friday. By dividing up my nominations, I give myself time and space to able to say a few words about each pick. But, before we get to my picks, here are seven random things you didn't know (and may not have wanted to know) about me:

1. I'm a firstborn. The eldest child's oft-noted quest for perfection doesn't extend to my appearance or housekeeping, but it affects my writing. The trait's good in that I aim high, and bad in that I always fall short.
2. The New York Times Sunday magazine has a feature called "Diagnosis" that introduces a medical patient and his ailment and shows the steps leading to a diagnosis. The feature could be the Rosetta Stone the way I pore over it and try to out-think the medical professionals even though I'm a wuss who has to close her eyes every time a TV surgeon cuts into a patient. Not surprisingly, I'm the kind of viewer who shouts out diagnosis suggestions to TV's Dr. Gregory House. No wonder the guy's cranky.
3. Amazon Prime member? C'est moi. Some people think a $79 per year Prime membership is for those with money to burn, but it's for forgetful types who don't remember the birthdays and special occasions of far-flung friends and relations until it's too late for anything but second-day shipping. My Prime membership pays for itself in saved shipping costs, and, at one point, I feared Amazon wouldn't let me renew because of the number of boxes I had it ship hither and yon. My husband set me straight. "You think Amazon won't renew your membership because you bought too much?"
4. I have ten place settings of Fiestaware in ten different colors. When I reach into the cabinet and pull out a cup for my morning coffee, I never know which color I'm going to get. Will it be turquoise, plum, chocolate?
5. When we moved into our first apartment, I told my husband we'd make all the furniture/decorating decisions together except one: I got to decide where and what pictures we put on the walls.
6. I've lived more years in Texas than in my home state of New Jersey.
7. When Older Daughter was in scouting, she insisted I accompany her troop on camping trips. I hated the first one, but then I fell for sleeping in tents, cooking over campfires, and hiking in the woods. When OD left Girl Scouts, I was the one who missed sleeping under the stars.

Enough about me! Let me introduce you to seven blogs (Introductions to the remaining eight will come soon.) by writers who have inspired me, and/or made me laugh, think, and nod in recognition.

· Tim L. O'Brien's Static in the Airwaves Tim is a writer, husband, father, and friend who chronicles events such as as the reunion of buddies since high school and reflects on subjects that range from how to raise kids who read to the news his son-in-law is deploying to Afghanistan.
· Kiss and Thrill is a new blog started by the 2011 RWA Golden Heart finalists in romantic suspense. The blog's inaugural author interview was with RS best-seller Allison Brennan, and an interview with Brenda Novak is set for tomorrow, December 6. I'm waving at two of the blog's writers: Sarah Andre and Lena Diaz.
· Wild, Wicked, and Wacky Suzan Harden is self-published and proud of it. Her blog offers information for those interested in the indie route, along with movie reviews, guest interviews, song clips, and more. She's a lawyer by training and knows her Gaga from her gag order.
· Fiorella Plum is the nom de plume of an Austin-area blogger who posts every day on subjects ranging from her pastor's reaction to a mugger to what's new in the Luann comic strip.
· Kay Hudson writes about whatever strikes her fancy: books, television, and cats that fall asleep in the carcass of the Thanksgiving turkey.
· Jansen Schmidt's Blogging from the Edge of Eternity is new, just two entries so far, but the posts capture Schmidt's sly humor and enjoyment of life.
· Kecia's Blog is the work of Kecia Adams, a writer, editor, and Navy veteran. The blog's new, but the first post is the POV of a thoughtful mom, and the second is that of a thoughtful citizen of the world.

Hope you like the blogs mentioned above. Lynn, thanks a million for the award.