Lightning Strikes Again!

Andrea over at About 100% nominated me for a second Liebster Award!!!  All these compliments are going to start going to my head one of these days, y'all.  :)  Seriously, it means more to me than I can ever express that people are actually coming to this blog at all...these nominations are just the chocolate-curl-topped ganache on a cake that that was pretty darned sweet already.

Anywho, for those unfamiliar with the Liebster Award meme, it's an award given to up and coming bloggers (not my words!) who have fewer than 200 followers.  Not sure how you check this on other people's blogs, but I'm sure there's a way.  According to Google Translate, Liebster means "dearest" auf Deutsch, so I'll take it.

The rules (which I may not follow completely):

11 Facts About Me (different ones from the last time!)

1) Clutter makes me insane.  Yet I live in a perpetual state of chaos due to the other four members of my household not being driven insane by clutter.  :)

2) I get carsick and seasick but not airsick.  Go figure.

3) I'm a speed reader.

4) I try to get to taekwondo class three days a week.  Right now I'm a Blue belt getting ready to test for Senior Blue, which is somewhere in the upper-middle in the rank system.  Best way to vent stress ever!

5) One branch of my dad's family came to Massachusetts in the 1630s.  Seriously.  Not on the Mayflower, but one of the first boats to arrive after the Mayflower. 

6) I have one ceremonial beer every St. Patrick's Day in honor of my Irish heritage, but otherwise much prefer wine.  Or good gin and tonics, ideally made with Bombay Sapphire gin.  

7) I look good in jewel colors and positively hideous and toadlike in yellows and olive greens.  

8) I loved roller coasters as a kid, but if I ride one now it gives me a headache.

9) I much prefer raw cookie dough to baked cookies!

10) Vanilla and cinnamon are two of my favorite smells on Earth.

11) I've never met a cheese, fruit or vegetable that I don't like.  

Questions posed by Andrea:

1. What embarrasses you?

Feeling unprepared or that I could have done better at something.  (And my kids on a regular basis!)

2. How much do you swear around your kids, if you have kids?  If you don’t have kids, how much do you swear in general?

I try very hard not to swear at all around the younger two in particular...I'm a bit looser around Thing One but not much.  I have come up with some creative replacements for swearing in their vicinity and have been known to explain that, in the right context, the exclamation "Jesus Christ!" can be a prayer.  :)  When I'm alone, all bets are off, especially in the car.

3. Do you speak a foreign language?  Why or why not?

Courtesy of my international upbringing, I speak Chinese and some German and can swear fluently, give taxi directions and count to ten in half a dozen other languages.  :)   

4. If you could live anywhere else in the world, where would it be?  It’s okay if you say “right where I am now.”  I won’t judge you for being boring.

Ireland.  Love it, love it, love it.  Only place in the world with that much rain where I would live on purpose! 

5. Outside of your family and yourself, what is your biggest love?

Science.  Coolest thing in the world.  

6. What is one thing you are terrible at?

Being patient??  Also flexibility (the physical kind) and any kind of Latin dancing involving hip movement.  :)  

7. Your dream job.

I had it once, actually.  I got to review every single invention that came out of a major cancer center for patentability and marketing potential.  Fascinating as it gets and I didn't have to be the one doing the benchwork!

8. What is your biggest sociopolitical concern?

Access to clean water and medicine.  

9.  Where and when would you go if you could travel through time?

With written assurance that I could return home immediately and in one piece at any time, ancient Egypt so I could watch the Great Pyramid being built.  Followed closely by London in 1928, so I could personally observe the discovery of penicillin.  (Yes, I'm a dork.)   

10. Are you adventuresome?

I'm generally not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants kinda gal, but I've been known to have some adventures. I just prefer to plan them in advance.  :)

11. Creatively, what are you best at?  What are you worst at?

I'm a left-brainer in general...not so much creative.  Art of any kind is not my strong suit (especially drawing!), but I'm a decent musician.   I've played drums, several varieties of saxophone, organ, trumpet, and flute at different times in my life.  

At this stage of the game, I'm supposed to pick 11 other blogs and tag them, but since I've already done that (sort of) relatively recently, I'm changing up the game a little this time around. 

I'm going to take two of the questions I posed to the bloggers tagged in my first Liebster post, copy them here, and then ask you, whomever might be reading this, to answer them in the comment section if you are so inclined.  

No ulterior motive, I promise.  I 'know' some of the regular visitors here, but many more are a complete mystery to me.  I'd love to turn this award into an opportunity to learn a little more about whom I'm talking to when I sit down to write.  (And I firmly believe that the quotations that resonate with people and the foods they love the best are true windows into souls.) So here goes...

1) What is your favorite quotation?

2) If you were to die tomorrow, what would be your last meal request?

Thank you again, Andrea...this was fun and I am duly (deeply) honored!!