THE SUNSHINE BLOGGER AWARD

It’s been a while since the Sunshine Blogger Award has been in the spotlight. Sally Cronin (found at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine), a much-deserved nominee, nominated me, along with some other bloggers who are downright amazing. I am honored to be in their company.

1. Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
2. Thank the person/people who nominated you.
3. Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
4. Answer your nominator’s questions.
5. Nominate up to eleven bloggers.
6. Ask your nominees eleven questions.
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs.

There are so many deserving fellow bloggers out there that I had a hard time selecting. Here are my nominees for this award and I hope they will pass the award on to some other of the many deserving writers out there:

             Janice Spina

             Diana Peach

             Teagan Geneviene

              Jemima Pett

              Bruce Goodman

              Nicholas Rossi

Here are the questions Sally asked me.

            1 Where is your favorite place in the world?

The  beach! Any beach. I grew up on the ocean, listening to its rhythmic waves and hearing the sound of the fog horn from Gurnett lighthouse on foggy nights. I find a great sense of peace walking in the water and feeling the waves break over my feet, and searching tide pools for intertidal animals is really enjoyable. I can watch waves breaking on rocks for hours, the up and down and spray of the water. It has been calculated that adult humans are 60% water, while children are 75-78%. I think I never lost the childhood water!

• If animals could talk, which one would you have a conversation with?

Probably an octopus. They are incredibly smart and adaptive, which most people don’t realize. You can even make friends with them. It would be fun to have a conversation about their lives, which are regrettably short. I do not eat octopus.

3 If you only had two minutes to get out of your house, what would you grab?

Assuming my husband could get out on his own, my two cats and my computer’s external hard drive. He would grab his own drive and as many photographs as he could carry! Memories are so important! And my cats would never forgive me if I left them behind.

       4)   What place you’ve lived or visited has remained special to you?

Prague is probably the once place I love that is never far from my mind.  My husband and I lived there for a year with a Czech family while doing research, and we have visited the city many times. Sadly, we’ve have lost many of our Czech friends in recent years. But the beauty and grandeur of the city remains, and I do love good Czech food. I never tire of traversing the Charles Bridge or meandering through Kampa, an island just off the bridge with lovely parks and old buildings.

     5) If you were invisible, what three things would you like to do?

• Spend some time in the White House and Congress, seeing how government really functions.
• Sail on a boat in the America’s Cup races, holding on for dear life!
• Take a ride on Artemis III.

    6)   If you could pass two new laws, what would they be?

• Require real-time, public disclosure of all political donations, lobbying activity, and major financial interests of elected officials and candidates—presented in a simple, searchable database.
• Require all teachers unions to bring our students up to age appropriate reading and math levels or be banned.

       7)   What two people would you like to invite for lunch (famous, dead or alive).

Excluding Jesus, which might be a stretch, I would choose Leonard da Vinci and the first Queen Elizabeth.

• Leonardo because of his study of human anatomy (which I taught for so many years) and his facile mind. His interest ran to many topics, which he explored in his artistry, and some have thought he might have had ADHD! I’d love to pick his brain about the times and his interests … and maybe correct some of his anatomy. 
• Queen Elizabeth I is a natural choice for me. Her reign spanned tumultuous times for both England and Europe and I’d love chat with her about Elizabethan society, international relations, clothing, music, and books. I might be a bit nervous, since she was highly intelligent, speaking many languages (including Latin) and had such a depth of knowledge of history, art and music. Perhaps we could go for a ride together, since she loved horses.

      8) What would you wish for if you could have ANYTHING?

A longer life. I don’t want to miss my grandchildren’s’ growing up, and when you reach my age, each day is a gift and a jewel.

      9) Apart from reading and writing, what other ways do you like to relax?

Nothing out of the ordinary, I’m afraid. Swimming, of course. And sailing when I get the chance. I also like to cook and bake and use my writer’s group as a test kitchen for new recipes. I like to knit — children always need sweaters.

I love watching mysteries and documentaries of historical events. I’m definitely a life-long learner, having taken a course in Gaelic at the University of North Carolina a few years back. What a difficult language!

I would like to include travel, but our last trips were rather stressful, especially a tour of Scotland led by an energizer bunny on a run.

      10) Do you have a phobia and do you remember how it started?

My son tried to instill a phobia in me with his selection of pets when he was young: various snakes, lizards, iguanas, turtles, and a tarantula. Unfortunately for him, I liked all of them. I even learned how to inject our iguana with antibiotics when it got sick. It loved being stroked and would climb out of its terrarium when I came with the needle, looking for some loving!

Heights are also not a problem. I also went sky-diving several years ago. What a thrill!  

So no real phobias!

            11) You have  24 hours left on the planet! How would you spend them?

That’s easy, with my family, with a lot of comfort food! Never mind the calories!

Here are my questions for my nominees:

1. What’s your ideal way to spend a day?
2. Is there a childhood memory that has stuck with you over the years and maybe shaped the person you’ve become?
3. If you could have anything you wish for, what would be your wish?
4. If you could pass two new laws, what would they be? (I liked this one!)
5. If all you could listen to is one type of music, what would you choose?
6. What is the most difficult or challenging thing you’ve ever done?
7. If you could do one outrageous (thrilling, something-to –write-home about) thing in your life that you hesitate to do, what would it be?
8. If there was one thing you could change about yourself, what would it be?
9. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads in your life, and what did you do?
10. If you had to move to a different country tomorrow, where would you go?
11. What’s a random opinion you have that you’ll defend no matter what?

I’m looking forward to the answers!