A fellow blogger, Susannah at outwentthelight.blogspot.com, nominated me for a Liebster Award for blogging. Danke, Susannah! Even though I have no idea what this is and did nothing to earn it, I am extremely excited and am going to dress up fancy today so that I am worthy of this great honor. So excuse me while I change out of my filthy sweatshirt and yoga pants and put on a clean sweatshirt and yoga pants. Please go read Susannah’s blog – it is hilarious, and I can’t wait to read her erotic bondage and vampires autobiography. Wait, I mean novel.

The only other award I have ever won is a hot ham and cheese sandwich at a sub shop in central Missouri, where I grew up. When I was in elementary school, I was briefly obsessed with hearing my voice on the local radio station and winning one of their contests. They gave out great prizes, such as a gift certificate to the mall, or two gift certificates to the mall, or lunch at the mall. But the day I won the radio contest, the prize was a gift certificate to a sub shop that was NOT at the mall. The DJ posed a simple trivia question: name the three chipmunks. I didn’t care about the non-mall prize – I dialed the phone like a maniac (it was a rotary phone, and it was exhausting) and after several busy signals I got through. When the DJ played my recorded response on the air, with my squeaky little voice whispering, “Alvin, Simon, and Theodore?”, I was so proud. And then that bastard said, “I guess the question was a little too easy today if some LITTLE KID is getting it right!” Hey, then how about you don’t ask questions about cartoon characters? And can I trade in my sub sandwich for some neon jelly bracelets?

Anywho, the Liebster Award is for up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers as a way of getting the word out. The rules of acceptance for the Liebster Award are:
1. Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Acknowledge that blogger and link back.
3. Answer the ten questions posed by the blogger who nominated you.
4. Select three to five bloggers for the award.
5. Pose ten new questions to the new nominees.
6. Post the award on your blog.

Steps 1, 2, and 6, check. So here are the questions from Susannah that I need to answer:
1. If you could have any super power, what would it be? Invisibility, so I could watch people and not be creepy. And so I could shoplift.
2. What has been the proudest moment in your life so far? Winning the Liebster Award, obvs.
3. If you could go to any point in history, what would it be and why? I was going to say 19th century England because I have romantic notions of Jane Austen times, but I think women had it pretty crappy back then. So I’m thinking yesterday, because I took a really good nap.
4. Did you have an imaginary friend as a child? No, I had real friends because I was not a huge loser.
5. What is the best thing about blogging? Using humor to avoid actual emotional intimacy on a near daily basis.
6. What is the worst thing about blogging? I AM SO LONELY.
7. People would be surprised to know that I ________________. Can’t stand any of the Real Housewives from any season or city ever.
8. What is your favorite movie? All I can think of is Shawshank Redemption, probably because it is on TBS every night.
9. Beach or mountains? Beach, because if you stay out of the water, your chances of being eaten by an animal are very small. The mountains have bears, pumas, and Sasquatches, all of which can and will eat you.
10. Cats or Dogs? Dogs. My daughter just said this weekend that if we get a dog she will make a saddle for it and ride it like it is “my tiny small pony.” No daughter of mine is going to ride a cat, for crying out loud.

So now the next step to claim my award is to name some other small bloggers that I like. I can only think of two right now, but I am still claiming my award because DON’T I DESERVE SOME SMALL BIT OF HAPPINESS? Wow, not sure where that came from. So check out: Karen at karenleonardphotography.com/blog/ — she doesn’t post too often because she’s on some amazing sabbatical in Vermont right now, but she takes beautiful pictures and her blog highlights her favorites; and Cindy at www.eyecovet.com, who has lots of eye candy and beautiful images pulled together on a lovely site. I had a hard time answering ten questions, so I’m only posting one for Karen and Cindy to answer: how YOU doin’?

Auf Wiedersehen! Oh, and CHECK IT: