Liebster Award

Thanks to Samantha Stroh Bailey, the divinely talented author of Finding Lucas, for nominating me for the Liebster award.

Nominees need to do the following:

When one receives the award, one posts 11 random facts about oneself and answers the 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you.

Pass the award onto 11 other blogs (while making sure one notifies the blogger that one nominated them!)

One writes up 11 NEW questions directed towards YOUR nominees.

One is not allowed to nominate the blog who nominated one’s own blog!

One pastes the award picture into ones blog. (You can Google the image, there are plenty of them!)

Here are 11 Random Facts about Me!



1. I am obsessed with my guinea pigs and have made youtube videos of them (please don't judge me).

2. I wrote a Judy Blume type book when I was nine where all the words were American (even though I was living and am born in the UK) like diapers etc. It was about me being the head of a family of six kids. I actually only wrote the first chapter and sent it to Jackanory. They said they liked it but I needed to finish it. I will get round to it....

3. I once wrote to Jimmy Saville on Jim'll Fix It to get him to arrange for me to meet Abba. My wish never came true and I was gutted at the time but after all the allegations I'm now quite glad I never met Jimmy.

4. I once dyed my hair orange with Hydrogen Peroxide (it was the eighties).

5. I am an only child but had many imaginary friends.




6. My favorite kids' show was Roobarb and Custard.

7. I love pickled onion flavored Monster Munch even though it gives you stinky breath.

8. I had a massive crush on Rupert Everett as a young adolescent (don't think I had twigged he was gay at the time).

9. I am obsessed with crocheting animals and have a blog about my crafty side side here.

10. I am the only person in the USA who does not own an iPhone or even a Smartphone. I have a dumb phone.

11. I love having my nails done in different shades and patterns.


Here are the questions from the lovely Samantha Stroh Bailey:

1. What is the best costume you've ever worn?

I once went to a Halloween party as a kid as a box of cornflakes.

2. What's the best gift you've ever given?

The gift of life and I have the stretch marks to prove it!

3. If you could be invisible for a day, where would you go and what would you do?

I would love to be a fly on the wall at Will and Kate's place, if only to find out how the deflowering really happened - although I have my ideas

4. Who's your Hollywood crush?

Don't really have one except maybe Al Pacino in Sea of Love. Hawt.

5. What movie always makes you cry?

Bambi


6. What book can you read again and again?

Only cookbooks really like Nigella Lawson's How To Eat.

7. If you could live in the home of any television series, which would it be?

Ten and a Half Men but not now, when it has Charlie Sheen in it. Yeah I wanna be beachside in Malibu! (btw have you read how the 'boy' in it now thinks the show is filth)


8. What is something you have always wanted to try?

Being a workaholic.


9. What's your favorite food?

Chip butty.


10. What's your favorite song?

Win by David Bowie.

11. Describe yourself with one adjective.

Anxious.


Questions for my Nominees:

1. Have you ever Googled yourself and been surprised at what you’ve found?

2. Who would play youin a movie of your life?

3. Have you ever been naked in public?

4. If you could travel in time...where in time would you go? Why?

5. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?

6. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

7. What did you have for breakfast?

8. Who or what has made you believe in yourself as a writer?

9. What habit or habits do you need to stop?

10. Do you have tattoos? Is so what motifs are they?  

11. Have you started Christmas shopping yet?

Here are my wonderful nominees: UK Desperate Housewife, Salem Patterson, Sibel Hodge, Expat Mum, Note From Lapland, Joanne Clancy, The American Resident, About Last Weekend, Honest Mum, Slummy Single Mummy and Mum in the South.


If I haven't added your name, it's because I know someone else nominated you first!

Who will be nominated next?

From Tantrums to Tiles - A Spiritual Journey

Excuse my absence but I have been busy modelling. Well remodelling really. One kitchen. One bathroom. One new deck. One complete nervous breakdown!

This has been a bit of a learning curve for me. Let's put it this way: I am not a morning person. Usually I need three cups of strong coffee to kick start the motor before even doing a Neantherthal grunt to the spousal unit. But, believe me, having a bunch of men in your house blasting Thin Lizzie in your earholes while bashing down walls with a sledgehammer at seven o'clock every morning will push you to the limit - and beyond.

I mean look, I simply don't get those shows like Hell's Kitchen where the chefs are asleep in a room (with six others) and som Kitchen Hitler comes in at three in the morning and bangs on a steel drum and toots on a trumpet and everyone has to get up immediately and skin a cow and make an entree out of its entrails. And the thing is, everyone seems to do it without going ballistic.

How? Will someone please explain?

Well, I have had the remodellers in for two months and yes it was a bit of a shock to the system. To be fair they are a nice bunch. But I don't find it easy to talk about the texture of wall tiles or the size of  lightbulbs at the crack of sparrows. But you know what, I have managed it. I have become a nicer person. I cannot bite the head off a contractor at seven in the morning or they might retaliate and sew a dead rat behind one of the walls...or something worse!

And what about the strain on one's marriage? Fifty thousand mind blowingly boring discussions about shades of paint have been conducted with Mr Mommy Has a Headache. "I want beige paint for the trim!" "Well I don't! I want oatmeal!"

"Okay, how to you feel about perlescent tiles?" "I don't give a fig for perlescent tiles."

It becomes a tug of war about every little decision. So in the end it's like SURRENDER. You choose the color of the deck and I'll choose the light fixtures. If you don't try and be mature about it you can see yourself ending up in a scene from War of the Roses.

I'm just pleased to say that we are now on the home stretch. For some, alas, things did not end so well. Including this note left by a husband at the close of a remodel project in the 70s was rediscovered recently behind some wainscoting [via Found mag]…

So tell me all about your remodelling experiences. I've heard of awful, drunken contractors who put up wonky walls. So do dish all...if you dare....