My First Blog Award! :)

I've been awarded the Liebster Award from This is Life ~ by Charity Pence! I'm very honored as this is my first nomination for an award. Here're the rules:

1. Thank the blogger who presented this award and link back to their blog – Thanks Charity! 
2. Answer 11 questions posted by the presenter, ask your nominees 11 questions, and list eleven random facts about yourself.
3. Nominate 11 bloggers who you feel deserve this award and who have less than 200 followers.
4. Post the award on your blog.

So here are 11 random facts about me:

1. I once wrote my eulogy. It relayed that I was actually a recreation of my real self as I was accidentally killed by aliens who were studying my life. They didn’t only study my life, but it was me they happened to kill. They then recreated me in order that I might live my life as I should have. I wrote this for a speech class in high school.
2. My favorite food is corn – it’s so darned versatile. I mean you can make corn tortillas, corn on the cob, cornbread, nachos and popcorn, to name a few wonderful dishes.
3. My favorite vacation ever was the 14 day Panama Canal cruise on Princess.
4. If I had my choice of celebrities to marry, it would probably be Terrence Howard.
5. I am a sucker for sales people, including paid programs and timeshares salesmen. Pray for me and keep me away from any of them!
6. I would really like to learn to shoot a gun.
7. To me, the right to choose to have a baby and the right to marry whomever you’d like should be two primary rights in the world.
8. Though it needs work, I do believe in capital punishment.
9. Everybody in my family is crazy, though in an endearing and forgivable manner…at least most times.
10. I used to have a crush on Schroeder, you know from Peanuts.
11. When I retire and need to have assisted living, it’ll be on a cruise ship.

My retirement home

And here are my 11 answers to the questions Charity asked:

Amalfi Coast

1. What’s your favorite day of the week and why? Besides any vacation day? I’ll say Thursdays, because Wednesday evenings I have church after work and I usually have Thursdays off, so I can sleep in without worrying about being at church too late on Wednesdays.
2. What inspired you to become a writer? Going through difficult emotional turmoil as a teenager! Writing journals and poetry helped to keep me semi sane. Also the acknowledgment I received from creative writing instructors when I was in elementary school. Once my sixth grade English teacher said I was prolific after writing a story. Although I didn’t understand what that meant, I still felt proud. J
3. Where is your favorite place and why? The Amalfi Coast in Italy. It is the most beautiful place on this planet. If you’re at a hotel with a terrace looking out at the water, at night you see glowing lights in the middle of the sea, which are fishermen out working all night on tiny boats. Plus I can practice my Italian!
4. If you could have only one story published, what would it be about? I do love my debut novel Anticipation of the Penitent, so that’s the one if I had only one choice. It’s a Christian story about a serial killer and his mother.
5. Do you listen to music while writing? If so, what? Usually I do. I have my mixture of Christian music, classic rock, sound tracks, some hip hop, latin music and other types of rock on my phone.
6. What item can you not live without and why? I dare not say the TV or toilet paper. Those go without saying, right? No, I’ve got to say the Holy Bible, since it’s my inspiration in life in regard to human relationships, comfort, answering deep life questions, and even my writing.
7. What is your biggest pet peeve and why? Pop, pop, pop, smack, smack, pop. In other words, popping gum! – especially during meetings, church, prayer, waiting in the hospital – all of which I’ve had the unfortunate luck to experience.
8. What color describes you most and why? Brown, because that’s what I am J and look how much beautiful brown there is in nature!
9. What is your favorite number and why? Whatever age I am. At the moment that’s 44. But, if I win the lotto, that’ll change to be the last number that allowed me to win the jackpot.
10. If you could choose one genre to define your life, what would it be? Other than a memoir? (Okay smart alec!) My gosh. I’d say it would have to be a volume of books. One volume would be tragedy, another comedy, another dramatic. The current volume would be literary drama.
11. If you could change one event from your past, what would it be and why? This is muy personal. Should I go way back or a little bit back? More recently, I’d say that although I would still have gotten custody of my niece and nephew and done all I could to provide them with structure, love and guidance like I did for ten years, I would chose not to adopt them. With the difficulties they’re going through now, my having adopted them is taking me (my heart, world and potentially my bank account) through the ringer, which would be much less hurtful if I hadn’t adopted them.

The bloggers I'm nominating are:

M.J. Joachim

Samantha May

Sabrina A. Fish

S. Katherine Anthony

Tanya “T”

Jen Neumann

Jay Noel

T. Drecker

Mark Means

Julia Thorley

Clay

The 11 questions for my nominees:

1. Does your name have a backstory? Were you named after someone, does it have a special meaning, etc.
2. What’s the one thing you wish you could brag to everyone about?
3. What’s your favorite word and why?
4. If you could eat as much of anything you wanted without stopping until you could pop whenever you wanted, what would it be?
5. What’s the one thing you wish you could say to your spouse/parents/siblings/best friend but haven’t?
6. If you could make someone in your family the MC in a book or story, who would it be and what type of character would they be?
7. If you could be a #1 NY Times bestseller for the one book you’ve written and can ever write, or be a relatively unknown writer of many books, what would you choose and why?
8. Who’s your favorite actor and in what movie?
9. If you could only have a TV or stereo system (and no other music playing device), which would you pick?
10. Would you rather vacation somewhere hot or cold, and where would that be?
11. What’s your most controversial belief?

 Thanks again Charity for this award, and I hope the tradition carries on!