The Sunshine Award – aussie style

I love the idea of these awards because they allow us netizens to show appreciation for each other, and like the ripples in a pond, that little bit of love can have wide-reaching effects. I, personally, have met some very interesting people via awards.

So I do like awards, especially when they’re given by good friends like Candy Korman – that was a back-handed thank you Candy! – but when I looked at the list of questions that go with the Sunshine Award I literally came up blank:

What is your passion?
Favorite time of the year?
Favorite book?
Favorite movie?
Favorite animal?
Favorite time of the day?
Favorite Flower
Favorite nonalcoholic beverage?
Favorite physical activity?
Favorite vacation?

I could literally name at least 10 things for each and every question. 😦

I was just starting to panic when I remembered I’m an aussie. We live upside down to the rest of the world, and we tend to do some other things backwards as well, so why not this?

So instead of telling you about my favourite things I’m going to tell you all the things I absolutely hate!  -evil chuckle-

Pet hate?

For those of us DownUnder, September is Aussie Rules Football Month. You can’t get away from it. Blah blah about the footy is on the news, current affairs, panel shows, radio… ad nauseum. Great for those who live and breathe sport in general and footy in particular. Not so great for people like me. 40 years ago I was dragged to a couple of matches by my then boyfriend and his family, and I’ve hated the sport ever since. So my pet hate at the moment is footy. [I’m bracing for the backlash].

Least favourite time of year?

Summer, hands down. Living on the fringe of Melbourne as I do, summer equates to fire season, and a low grade fear from October to March.

Least favourite book?

Even in reverse, this question is impossible. I have read books I hated, but I can’t remember them precisely because they were so emminently forgetable. Pass.

Least favourite movie?

Easy – Starship Troupers. This was a movie that was just one long gore-fest. Sadly the special effects were so bad, I couldn’t even feel horrified. I only remember it because I couldn’t believe anyone could make such a movie with a straight face.

Least favourite animal?

Another easy one – spiders. -shudder-

Least favourite time of day?

3 – 4:00 pm when your brain tries to tell you it’s nap time. 😦

Least favourite flower?

Wattle. I know, I’ve just committed Aussie sacrilege, but wattle causes the most exquisite hay fever imaginable. Sorry.

Least favourite non-alcoholic beverage?

Coca Cola? I don’t mind the taste, but I do hate the whole empty calories thing. Plus I hate the brainwashing that goes with the advertising. When I absolutely have to have a cola drink I’ll buy a chinotto. It’s the Italian version of cola and has a slightly bitter after taste. Real grown-up cola. 😉

Least favourite physical activity?

Vacuuming. Okay, I know vacuum hurling hasn’t made it onto the official list of Olympic sports yet, but honestly, don’t you wish it had?

Least favourite vacation?

Camping. I suspect I’ve just burnt all my bridges with this last answer. Any moment now, our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is going to knock on my door to hand deliver my expulsion order, and I’ll probably be banned from all bbq’s for life, but… dammit! I do hate camping. I hate having to squat over a log in the dark, I hate sleeping on groundsheets that feel as if they’re laid on top of boulders, I hate not being able to stand upright in a freakin’ tent, I hate the flies, the mosquitoes, all the other assorted bugs. And I hate not being able to have a shower when I need one.

Now before everyone jumps down my throat, I know you can camp in a camping ground with toilets and showers, but what’s the point of being utterly uncomfortable just so you can be squashed in with hundreds of other, uncomfortable people? ‘Ah, the serenity’ -snort-

Anyway, apologies if I’ve offended anyone, but there you  have it, I’m a failure as an aussie. -glum- I do like the odd bbq-d snag though. Does that count?

Now to nominate my vic other bloggers for this award!

Chazz Writes – for the best zombie story I’ve ever read

EllaDee – because she’s just married, and an aussie, and may not kill me if I’m nice to her… -runs-

Chris James – because he’s a sci-fi writer and NOT an aussie so I’m pretty sure he won’t kill me. 🙂

Christie Meierz – because she’s a writer of SFR – science fiction romance – and not a camper as far as I know.;)

Pinky [aka The PinkAgendist] – because he writes a fun blog, shares my love of food and speaks French.

Kathryn Chastain Treat – a powerful writer, a generous friend and an incredibly gutsy lady who battles life threatening allergic reactions every day.

Right. I’m done. Now I just have to let all my nominees know that I’ve, um, nominated them.

Anyone seen my hardhat?

Meeks

Gargoyles, septic tanks and Awards!

I’m  normally a pretty laidback kind of person, but yesterday’s septic tank crisis left me in dire need of a pick-me-up. I won’t go into all the details except to say they were… smelly. [And yes, we can now use the toilets again].

So you can see why I’d need a pick-me-up. However, what you may not know is that I adore gargoyles.

[What do gargoyles have to do with septic tanks? Trust me and read on.]

In fact I’ve adored gargoyles since I visited the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, climbed a million stairs, and saw these amazing sculptures at first hand. They were much, much bigger than I thought they would be, and even more ferocious up close. However the thing that amazed me was that they were not just decorative, they were also functional.

Gargoyles were, I believe, meant to scare away evil spirits, but they also had a far more prosaic function… as spouts to carry away rain water!

When I finally trudged down all those stairs, I made a bee-line to one of the many souvenir sellers clustering around the feet of the Cathedral, and bought a plaster of paris [no joke!] copy of one of my favourite gargoyles. It even had the depression down the back like its bigger cousins. I kept that souvenir for about 30 years until it finally lost its head in some domestic accident.

Anyway, I do love my gargoyles, so when I read Candy Korman’s post today about the Gargie Award, I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled to discover she had nominated me for one of these beauties!

Candy and I have been treading the Indie path together for a year now, and although her Monsters are mostly human, while mine are aliens who look a bit like a cross between a bat and a raptor, we share this love of the monstrous. And of gargoyles. 🙂 So thank you Candy, for nominating me and for literally making me smile! I am honoured to be given a Gargie! I’d also like to thank Jon Jefferson for creating the Gargies in the first place! I love all the awards I’ve been given, but the graphics of this one really struck a cord with me.

Now, just as Candy passed the torch of the Gargies on to me, I have to pass it on to another deserving blogger. But who?

Okay, I’m just drawing out the dramatic tension here. As soon as I started thinking about a suitable torch carrier for the Gargies, Metan’s blog – Buried Words and Bushwa – immediately popped into my head. Metan posts about articles she finds in old [very old] newspaper clippings. At first glance you’d think these articles would be dry, dusty, historical things. But you would be so very wrong! Metan has a talent for sniffing out some amazingly ghoulish stories – like wedding parties devoured by ravening wolf packs – which makes her the obvious choice. 🙂 I’m sure she will unearth something extremely suitable in response to the Gargie. Mwahahahaha… -cough-

Getting back to awards though, yesterday was not the only day I needed cheering, and I have the honour of being the recipient of even more awards. I apologize to the lovely bloggers who nominated me for these earlier awards. The last few weeks have been a rather strange mashup of good things and bad that left me without the energy to respond. Today, however, I intend to make up for lost time!

First up I’d like to thank Renata for nominating me for the Sunshine Awards. 

Renata and I are both friends of David Prosser, and we were both saddened by the death of David’s lovely wife, Lady J over Easter. When David is feeling up to it, I’d like to nominate him for this award in the hope it brings a little sunshine into his life.

When it came to the questions associated with the Sunshine Award I found myself cherry-picking just three of them. I know this is cheating, but I’m pretty sure no-one has ever asked me these particular questions before so they were the ones I wanted to answer!

What food can you absolutely not eat?

This one was so easy. I cannot stomach oysters in any manner, shape or form. I get queasy just thinking about their texture. My antipathy towards oysters is so bad I get nauseous from even cooked ones, mashed and hidden in a vol-au-vent. 😦 So please, if anyone ever asks me to dinner… PLEASE, no oysters.

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

I used to love Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate. Then I discovered Plaistowe Dark Cooking Chocolate [I use it in my chocolate mousse recipe], and suddenly I found milk chocolate too… sweet and milky. When the chocolate cravings hit I will now eat one or two squares of the Plaistowe Cooking Chocolate and feel satisfied. Weird, I know, but there you are. And no, I haven’t received any kick-backs from either Cadbury or Plaistowe. That said, I am open to any free samples either company might wish to send… Ahem.

Do you watch TV – if so, what are some of your favorite shows?

I don’t watch much TV – apart from a couple of news programs – but I watch Dr Who with religious fervour. In fact I’ve been watching Dr Who since I was a kid… and that was a long, long time ago! My two most favourite Doctors are Tom Baker [the tall, curly headed one with the ridiculously long scarf], and the current one, Matt Smith. 😀

And last but not least, Sandra [aka Quirkybooks] nominated me for two lovely awards – the blue Liebster Award and the Illuminating Blogger Award. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was particularly taken with Sandra’s questions for the Blue Liebster Award so those are the ones I’m going to try to answer :

Do you prefer black or white and why?

Both! I love the bold, crispness of these two ‘non’ colours. I love contrasts and you can’t get a greater contrast than black with white.

What do you like most about rain?

Not having to worry about bushfires! You’ve all probably picked up on my paranoia this last summer [in Australia] so you’ll understand how life-giving rain is Downunder.

If you could publish any one book that you are currently writing, which one would it be and why?

I intend to publish them all, eventually. That’s the great thing about being an Indie. However, right at this moment I would really love to finish, and publish Innerscape. I wrote the first draft during the 2012 Nanowrimo and then set it aside so I could publish the first of the Vokhtah books. Writing Innerscape felt like a holiday, and I know the story was much easier for readers to relate to. However the business ‘me’ knows I have to get the second Vokhtah book out there soon to keep the momentum going. So my writing holiday will have to wait.

If you weren’t a writer, what other job would you be doing and why?

Teaching. Not in a school. Been there, done that and in the current climate I wouldn’t go back if my life depended on it. But teaching can take all sorts of forms and I do love disseminating knowledge so I’d find some way of doing that.

Do you prefer poetry or prose?

Prose. In the last year I have discovered that there are some forms of modern poetry that I can really relate to, but as a general rule I’m more comfortable with prose.

What is your greatest writing moment to date and why?

Mmmm… I think it was the very first time I wrote ‘The End’ in a story. I don’t think anything will ever compete with that euphoric sense of finally having achieved something.

What is your favourite genre to read and why?

Science fiction. The why is rather hard to explain though. Even at my most creative, I’m still a realist. I need my fantasies grounded in something that is at least possible, and science fiction does that. But my love of sci-fi goes beyond that grounding. To me, sci-fi opens up the realms of possibility so authors, and readers, can imagine how real people might react to extreme situations. Even with my aliens, the traits they share with humanity allowed me to explore issues such as integrity and honour. More importantly though, their biology allowed me to explore gender in a way that has never been done before. I’m a humanist rather than a feminist so I wanted to ask the question – what would life be like if gender was mostly a non-issue? Some of the answers surprised even me.

What is you favourite animated film?

Spirited Away by Miyazaki. 😀

Do you prefer How to or self-help books and why?

I will read how-to articles when I’m looking for information but I tend to steer clear of self-help books. I believe that we are ultimately all capable of helping ourselves. When I hit a situation where I do need outside help I’d rather go to someone I trust, like a friend or a family member, because they know me.

How would you like people to remember you?

I think this is my favourite question. 🙂 To me, living on in the memory of others is the only immortality I believe in, so I would want to be remembered as someone who challenged others to grow and explore, while holding a safety net beneath their feet for the hard times.

What are your three most positive words.

Why? How? Yes!

And now to indulge my curiosity, I’m going to ask all of you to answer these questions too. If you don’t want to answer all of them, that’s ok but I’d really, really like to know the answer to this one : How would you like people to remember you? I truly believe this is one of the big, no, huge questions in life. Humour me… please. 🙂

-hugs to all-

Meeks

Super Sweet Blogger Award

Kindred spirits are rather hard to define but I know them when I meet them and now I’m very pleased to welcome lowerarchy to my family of kindreds!

In the spirit of kindreds, lowerarchy has nominated me for the ‘Super Sweet Blogger Award’ but you can see from the picture that it could easily have been called the ‘creative cupcakes award’. 😉 Thank you lowerarchy and may I just say my waistline is grateful those cupcakes are digital!

When nominated for the Super Sweet Blogger Award the nominees have to;

1. Thank the super sweet blogger that nominated them.

2. Nominate a baker’s dozen of other bloggers (see below; with links to their blogs), and

3. Answer 5 super sweet questions.

4. Add the Super Sweet Blogging Award image to your blog post.

5. Notify your nominees at their blogs

Questions

1.Cookies or Cake?

Cake

2. Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chocolate, rich, dark, luscious chocolate all the way!

3. What is your fave sweet treat?

Chocolate mousse cake. 😀

4. When do you crave sweet things the most?

After dinner, which is weird as I should be too full for sweets.

5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be?

Chocie 😀

And now to nominate 13 sweet bloggers. [I had to look up just exactly how many a baker’s dozen was. Doh :D] This is the part in these awards that I always find so very hard to do because there are always more people I’d like to nominate than the rules allow. This time I’ve decided to nominate 12 people I’ve never nominated before and one old friend.

1. I happen to know that Daud aka Lord David Prosser has a terrible sweet tooth so he just has to be that ‘old friend’! And yes Daud, I’ve just named and shamed you!

The other 12 are all newish friends, kindred spirits and creative people one and all. So, onwards in no particular order.

2. David Gaughran of Let’s get digital

3. Carrie Rubin of The Write Transition

4. Rich of Brainsnorts

5. Kate of Old New or True

6. Pennycoho of The Why About This

7. Spool2spool

8. Laurie Boris

9. Nancy De Marco

10. Russel Ray Photos and Zoey the Cat

11. Patricia Awapara

12. Jennifer of Mother, Beader and Coffee lover

13. Rigel Ordinario

Now all that’s left is to tell all these lovely people that I’ve dobbed them in as sweet bloggers 😀