Sunshine Blogger Award!

As I was heading towards the end of my work day last Thursday, I started getting a bunch of Twitter notifications on my phone. I got to a pausing point and checked to see what was going on, and it turns out that the amazingly sweet Fiona of like as the waves nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award! The plethora of alerts was from the initial tweet, as well as the following conversation among all the nominees.

From what Fiona said in her Sunshine Blogger post, the Sunshine Blogger Award allows bloggers to spotlight those bloggers they appreciate and enjoy on their blog. It’s a great way for bloggers to share the love, and to expose their readers to some other amazing blogs. I honestly love reading Fiona’s blog, as well as a huge chunk of her nominee list, so I recommend hopping over there and checking out what she has to share.

That said, there are some rules to the Sunshine Blogger Awards:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and link to their blog.
• Display the Sunshine Blogger Logo in your post or on your blog.
• List the rules in your blog post.
• Answer the 11 questions that are provided to you by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 11 bloggers.
• Provide your nominees with 11 questions (different from the ones you answered).

Fiona’s Questions for Me, and My Answers

1. What is your favourite book?

Wow, that’s a hard one. There are so many I enjoy! I don’t think I could pick a favorite, but some of my favorite series and authors are: Stephen King (I’m currently working on The Dark Tower series), Harry Potter, the Maze Runner series (James Dashner), the Mortality Doctrine series (also by James Dashner), Hunger Games, Divergent, and a vast number of stand alone books. I guess, in a lot of ways, my favorite book is whatever book I’m currently reading!

1. Which of your blog posts are you most proud of?

I think I’m most proud of my Celebrating Victories series, because each one is actually very hard to write. Like I said in my first Celebrating Victories post, I will procrastinate for what seems like forever, but, once I start something, I just want to be done with it. Therapy, and all the “stuff” that goes with it, is a slow process. I don’t like slow. I’m the kid that struggled in 2nd and 3rd grade math because I didn’t like doing the drills worksheets. It felt like doing the same thing over and over, and I got bored, because I couldn’t see any progress. So, forcing myself to slow down and see the small steps, taking the time to turn around and see how far up the hill I’ve come, is difficult but also very important for me.

1. What quality do you value most in others?

Honesty.

1. What is your best joke?

I actually really like dad jokes. One of my favorites is: I feel like a bicycle. Two tired.

1. Who is someone who had a big impact on your life?

Excluding family, my high school best friend, Keena. She passed away 4 ½ years ago from Muscular Dystrophy, but she was an amazing woman. She climbed the stairs like anyone else all through high school, and to the end she would knit, crochet and tat. Her determination, spirit, and humor through it all was the epitome of inspiration, and my heart broke when I heard she was gone. She was one of my best friends.

1. What’s one aspect of blogging that you dislike or find challenging?

Time management. Between my full time day job, my 3 year old son, therapy, self care, hula, personal writing and the blog, I sometimes feel challenged to stick with my sleeping goals. I would love to post more often, but once a week is about all I can handle at this point.

1. If you had to choose one meal to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Sushi.

1. What is your least favourite movie?

I may get a little hate for this, but I’ll say it anyway. It’s a toss-up between Titanic and the version of Romeo & Juliet that came out around the same time (also with Leonardo DiCaprio). I think his acting skills have vastly improved from the ‘90s. I do realize that some (though not all) of my dislike for these movies is from having been at an all girls’ high school when they both came out, and, well, I’ve never been a squeal-y, swoon-y, boy band-loving, mainstream kind of gal. While most of my classmates were blasting “My Heart Will Go On,” and dreaming of Leo, my friends and I were watching Rocky Horror, listening to the Beatles, and deciding who was the best match for each of the Beatles.

1. What is your favourite scent?

Fresh bread or fresh cookies. Or the rain, but I don’t get to smell that very often here in San Diego.

1. What is one way that you cope with bad days?

It depends on what kind of “bad day” it is. If it’s just a lousy work day, then a good venting session to the hubby, and maybe a hot bath or a walk is all it takes. If it’s a “bad day” where depression is getting pretty loud in my ear and I feel like symptoms could easily get worse, then it takes a lot more willpower to push through. The prescription, though, is often similar: a walk, and some sort of venting. When the depression is acting up, though, I try to do a “brain dump,” which is what I call my typed freewrite sessions. It’s kind of like using a “hot pen” technique (aka: what most people use for “morning pages”), but instead, I just keep my hands on the keyboard and keep typing whatever crosses my mind. It often helps me to corral the thoughts into some semblance of order, plus, seeing them on the screen somehow helps separate my thoughts from my feelings and from the lies of my depression. Then, once I’ve gotten a lot of the big feelings and thoughts out, my next step is trying to drown out the depression thoughts until my mind feels a little clearer.

1. Where is your favourite place?

So far? Seattle. I love the weather there. Counterintuitively, I feel like I do better, depression symptoms-wise, in cool, cloudy weather. Maybe it’s because I’m more prone to go outside when it’s chilly than when I feel like I’m melting in the heat.

Building a list of nominees got a bit challenging because a good number of people I wanted to nominate were on Fiona’s list. Another person was nominated the same day as I was. So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and re-reading, and here’s my list. I don’t know how many of the people may have been nominated before, so if it’s a second nomination, don’t feel obligated to answer, though I’d love to read your answers anyway. In fact, I know Kerry has been nominated last year, but I’m nominating you again, anyway!

1. worry-less-journey
2. Katie, How I Killed Betty!
3. Stephen & Fionnuala, Fractured Faith Blog
4. Chelsea, chelseaannowens.com
5. Aishwarya Shah, Eclipsed Words
6. Cris, The Biblio Blonde
7. DM, Pointless Overthinking
8. Nikki, A Kinder Way
9. Heather, Commonplace Book Blog
10. landundefined
11. Kerry, Running Forward…My Way

And, finally, my list of 11 questions for my nominees, though any of my readers can feel free to answer any of these in the comments, too.

1. What’s your favorite type of weather?
2. How many books are you reading right now, and what are they?
3. How do you unwind/destress?
4. If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, but you could not choose the season, where would you go?
5. What is one dish you wish you had the time or talent to make yourself?
6. If all the barriers were taken away (financial/stress/etc), would you want to go back to school to study anything? If so, what?
7. Do you have a favorite exercise/physical activity? What is it?
8. Where is your “happy place”?
9. What dreams or goals do you have for your blog?
10. What led you to starting a blog?
11. What is your favorite quote right now?

Until next week!