Overture, Curtains, Lights!

ImageThis is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you’ll hit the heights
And oh what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it

It’s that time again. Time to acknowledge some really great bloggers who have passed out awards, and time to pass out some awards from here as well.

I’ve come to appreciate the awards. I’m honored when someone has thought enough of me and/or my silly blog to send an award my way, and I like how the awards give us an opportunity to point others in the direction of bloggers we enjoy and think others would, too.

We may run over time with today’s awards, so I’m going to list the award winners first. They are more important than any babbling I may do, so here we go …

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Click the award for the rules for this award.

On September 13, recently published author Tessa Sheppard honored me with the Reader Appreciation Award. I am passing this award on to three good men who you might appreciate reading:
vinnylanni – Live the Dream. He’s a dreamer, he still watches cartoons, and I like his outlook.
Simplicity Lane – Steven writes some beautiful pieces and poetry. I like his “building blocks.”
tincantheory – I love Jerron Tables. He writes things that I can’t make heads or tails of, and then he writes something that has me tapping my toes. I find him hugely entertaining (even though he can be quite serious at times), and he has the best tags out there.

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Click the award for the rules for this award.

On September 28, Zen of Zen Scribbles awarded to me the Super Sweet Blog Award. I choose these super sweet women to accept this award. They have wonderful blogs, and I think of each of them as friends:
Dianne Gray author
Michelle Proulx Official
retiredruth Life in the 50’s and beyond
stuff i tell my sister
Maggie Myklebust

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Click the award for the rules for this award

The One Lovely Blog Award came to me from Chelsea Brown of The Jenny Mac Book Blog on September 14. I nominate these lovely ladies – and two lovely critters – for this award:
Valerie Clarizio – I’m reading her lovely book right now. It’s really good!
Tales of a Charm City Chick – La La is lovely and fun. I enjoy her sense of humor.
Scatterbrain – I enjoy reading about Jae’s lovely life and family.
Seriously Seeking Grannies – Mary is a favorite blogger of mine. She has a lovely spirit, and I enjoy reading her musings.
Teaching David to Cook – Rita Kay is as lovely as they come. She is sweet, full of life, and I always enjoy a visit with her.
Deep in the Heart of Textiles – Textile Ranger has wonderful, lovely photos of textiles treasures. I always enjoy a visit to her blog.
Spineless Wonders – Cyrus and Willy. A snail and a worm. They are lovely together. You just have to go see.

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Click the award for the rules for the award.

The Liebster Blog Award came twice. Once from Malinka of Malinka’s Studio on October 9, and one from Jackie at Change Is Good…..Right??? This award comes with questions to be answered, and I choose these two authors for this award:
Keri Peardon
That Girl Who Reads Books

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Click the award for the rules for the award.

Three Very Inspiring Blogger Award(s) came my way from Chelsea Brown (11/16), Marie at good morning, joe (12/4), and from Claire at LilyPetal (12/16).  This nice mix of bloggers will inspire you in their own unique way.
Brother Jon
Daniel Koeker
Bo Lumpkin at Gatorhead Comics
Rachelle at A Rich, Full Life in Spite of It
Kris at vikingessa

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Click the award for the rules for the award.

I was very honored to receive five stars for the Blog of the Year 2012 Award. They came from Maggie, Chelsea, Mary, Carolyn, and Paula. I think these bloggers deserve Blog of the Year 2012 awards:
Tessa Sheppard – One of the hardest working writers I know.
The Cheeky Diva – Julie! Cheeky and fun!
Pam Tanzey, Artist – Her artwork is fantastic, and she even does it for Trader Joe’s.
Before I Forget – Katykins! Kate! Creator of Cyrus and Willy. You never know what you’ll get here, and it’s always fun!
Michelle at Play – Probably one of the nicest people I’ve run across in the blogosphere. She makes great lists, and she has wonderful bits of wisdom to share.
Kat at Travel Garden Eat – Kat is inviting, and her blog is a visual delight in addition to giving us wonderful words to read.

 

The music is playing. They’re telling me to hurry up.

 

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Click the award for the rules for the award.

The final award is humbly and graciously accepted. I was amongst a fine group of people chosen to receive the first ever Cheeky Diva Award on October 7. She is so cheeky, she made her own award. What do you have to do to accept the award? In her own words, “Not a damn thing.” I think these fine folks would love a Cheeky Diva Award, too:
Kate at Let’s Get Milkshakes! – If nothing else, read about her fabulous vacation to Fiji.
Marcus at Voices in His Head – You get fabulous humor here.
The Famous David Harding – He’s just fabulous. Period.
Jackie at Change Is Good…..Right??? – She posts fabulous recipes, her fabulous comments are witty, and her writing is fabulous.
john the aussie – There’s always a laugh at his blog, and his Murphy’s Road Rules posts are fabulous!

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I simply cannot make this post any longer. I will do a separate post with answers to questions and some fascinating to me, boring to you, tidbits about me to go along with these awards.

Please do check out some of these fine blogs. There is something for everyone here, and it took a couple of hours to assemble all of the links, so please click some or all!

Finally, I wish I had my own award to give. I’m not quite as cheeky as Julie, but if I did have my own award, I would give one to everyone who follows me, and one to everyone I follow. I’ve only been blogging for seven months, and it has been a great experience. It’s been wonderful getting to know so many nice people.

If you stop by and see your award, please let me know. I’m afraid it will take days for me to notify everyone.  If you haven’t clicked on the award for your rules, click here for all of the award rules.

Is Your Life a Musical?

Music has always surrounded my life.

I have four siblings, and we were all teenagers at the same time. Thanks to my mother, our house was filled with music – blues, jazz, top 40, country, and yes, even rock.

I wanted to expose our son to music, too. He was pretty young when we started taking him to our local Imagedinner theater to see musicals. Every Friday night for an entire winter, we watched a movie musical – Singing in the Rain, Oklahoma, Man of La Mancha, etc.

We did unit studies for music. We jumped on beds to classical music, sampled opera which we first heard from Bugs Bunny, and the kid eventually taught himself to play the guitar.

It was nothing for one of us to ask another a question and get a response in song. Sometimes the stuff we would come up with would send us off into gales of laughter, and we thought we would die laughing (see Roly at Comedy in Crisis). Of course, the rest of my family thought we had gone bonkers, because we turned our life into a musical.

It’s been quite a few years since then, but there is still a lot of music in our home. My husband and I play Dr. Mario on an old Nintendo 64. We turn the sound off, put our own music on, and play into the wee hours of the night while we chat and listen to music. I’ve noticed he likes to sing along with the girl backup singers. Just the girl backup singers. It’s hilarious. And he’s ruined about a bajillion songs for me because he changes lyrics, and then I have his lyrics stuck in my head.

So, that’s it. My musical life. I have nothing profound to say. I simply wanted to veer away from a writing post today. But I did put song lyrics in my first two books, and then panicked when I found out it could cost me a fortune, and I had to REPUBLISH!