Blog Post 57 – An Award!

So after spending nearly a week recuperating from my “swamp virus,” I used yesterday to catch up on emails and comment replies on the blog.  Much to my great surprise and delight, someone had lobbed a shiny happy little blogging award our way.  Sarah over at Crooked Ways has tagged me as a “Kreativ Blogger,” so I figured that’s as good a way as any to start the week!  The rules are pretty straightforward:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog
3. Link the person who has nominated you for the award
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate
7. Let the nominated victims bloggers know they have been tagged

So first things first, Thanks Sarah!  It’s always an honor to be nominated.  As for the logo, ::twitches nose::

Here it is!

I’ve already linked Sarah, so now on to the “7 Things” segment.

1. I grow and can my own food – I even teach classes on the subject sometimes.  I prefer to do the hot-water bath method, as most people can get a stock-pot of boiling water pretty easily, but a pressure canner’s a little harder to come by.  I love to put up things like tomatoes, pickles, jalapenos, salsas, apple butter, and brandied peaches (DELICIOUS over vanilla ice cream).
2. I’m a published poet – My work has appeared in Raving Dove Literary Journal, Merge Poetry Review, and a couple of other places.  Why don’t I put my poetry on my blog?  Because I didn’t say I was a very good published poet.
3. My first year of marriage was spent in Prague – My wife and I, who had not lived together before due to religious reasons, wed and moved thousands of miles away from our families and friends.  We spent almost a year there, and it was really spectacular.  Prague remains one of my favorite cities in the world.
4. I’ve also spent time in Spain (mostly in Murcia and Valencia) and Scotland, and made short trips to Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, and London.  And I’ve visited 38 of the 50 US States.  At some point, I’d really like to go to Greece, Italy, and Turkey.  And eventually, I’d LOVE to go to Japan and possibly China (if its political climate ever calms down).  My next big trip will probably be up to the Pacific Northwest, though, as that’s where my wife really wants to go.  Really, I’d be happy to travel just about anywhere.
5. I’m a very lazy polyglot – I learn languages and then never use them, other than to show I can remember key phrases.  I’ve taken courses in Latin, Russian, Portuguese, Czech, and Japanese, and my minor at University was Spanish.  Plus I’ve tried to independently learn Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Yiddish, and German.  Of all of them, Spanish has stuck with me enough that I’m still conversant in it, and I could probably survive in Japan long enough to begin picking that up again as well.  Despite the fact my mother, my wife, and several of our friends all speak (or have spoken) French, I’ve never tried to learn that one, though.
6. I’m a trivia addict – I watch shows like Jeopardy! as often as I can, and I subscribe to the magazine mental_floss, which is basically full of trivia (like “10 Presidents Who Could Drink You Under the Table”).  I can make hours disappear from my life by opening a box of Trivial Pursuit cards and just sitting and reading them.  It’s kind of sad, really…
7. I have an odd phobia of rabbits.  I’ve mentioned this before, and I’m not outright scared of them, but vaguely creeped out.  Really, I only discuss it here to give myself a reason to link to the cause of my wariness:  the cartoon version of Watership Down.  The clip shows a few of the more brutal highlights of that particular film, but if you imagine an 8-year-old seeing any movie with this stuff in it, a fear of bunnies seems much less weird.

Okay, so now on to my Seven Nominees:

1. Sarah, the Witch of Forest Grove (of course) – She has some of the most creative work I’ve seen, and one of the most informative sites around.  Big kudos to her.
2. Papa Toad Bone – His apotheca takes me out of the internet and puts me barefoot into the swamp, and I like that.
3. Juniper’s Walking the Hedge site – It’s lovely and she really puts a great deal of effort into making it a nice place to just go and visit.
4. Lady Lavona – She has two blogs that I just eat up, her main Cabinet of Curiosities site, and a Tumblr site called Witch Mountain.  Both are easy to spend oodles of time on.
5. Jude over at Spirit Cloth always captures my attention with her amazing fabric works.  They have a tangibly magical quality that just makes me want to curl up in all her scraps of cloth and live there.
6. My friend Saturn over at Pennies in the Well – It’s a pretty site, and her Mad Hatter episodes are fun, insightful, and just a pleasure to listen to.  All her episodes are, actually, but the Mad Hatter ones really show off her creativity.
7. Finally, Oraia the Sphinx has a blog over at Sphinx Words that I really like, not just because she’s also my friend, but because her writing style is so familiar and pleasant.  She has a way of getting into my head sometimes that is uncanny, so big kudos to her.

So that’s that.  Again, huge thanks to Sarah at Crooked Ways (another very well-written and marvelously creative blog, if you haven’t checked it out)!  Hopefully you’ll be seeing a couple more articles from me this week as I get back up to my usual posting habits.  But for now, thanks so much for reading!

Be well,

Cory