Two Awards, Neither As Scarring As Mrs. Sparkly

Liam, Head Phil has passed on a few blogging awards to me! Gratias tibi ago, Liam–you’ve saved me from having to write a boring post on John Steinbeck, as I had planned.

This first one…I must agree with Liam on the fact that the spelling is making me twitch. Luckily it isn’t as visually assaulting as Mrs. Sparkly. The rules for this one are as follows: you must answer ten questions, give ten random facts, and pass it on to seven other bloggers.

What is your favorite song? At the moment my favorite song is “No Light, No Light” by Florence + The Machine, but this will surely be different in a week or two.

What is your favorite dessert? There’s this monstrous dessert that can be found in a certain restaurant in New Hampshire–it’s called Mississippi Mud Pie, and consists of coffee and chocolate ice cream in an Oreo shell topped with hot fudge and mounds of whipped cream. Yeah, that one.

What ticks you off? Ignorance above all else.

When you’re upset, what do you do? I go for a walk in my friendly neighborhood cemetery. Being alone with the headstones and crows always calms me down.

What is your favorite pet? I’m partial to pet birds.

Which do you prefer: black or white? Black.

What is your attitude? Usually, or right now? My standard attitude is snarky,  but at the moment I’m fairly serene.

What is perfection? A myth invented to make us feel bad and spend money. (Oops, maybe I am still feeling snarky.)

What is your guilty pleasure? Tumblr. I know I spend much more time on it than I should, but there’s no going back now.

Now for those random facts:

1. I was recently disappointed to discover that it’s illegal in the United States to keep any native species of raven or crow as a pet. There goes my dream pet idea.
2. I was Pottermore sorted into Slytherin after identifying as a Ravenclaw since I first got into Harry Potter. I’ve since embraced my House fully.
3. My Meyers-Briggs personality type is INTP.
4. I’m currently listening to the album “Siberia” by Lights.
5. I’ve been seized by the wild desire to learn to draw. My obsession with art is coming close to my level of passion for writing.
6. I’m still recovering from the emotional upheaval that resulted from watching the Sherlock season two finale.
7. Today my friends said that, and I quote, “Allegra does not participate in tomfoolery and whimsical activities.” Make of that what you will.
8. Narcissism is probably one of my biggest flaws.
9. The only things I drink regularly are water, milk, and apple juice. I really love apple juice.
10. I’m trying to learn “Beatdown” from the Homestuck soundtrack on the piano despite being extremely bad at playing this particular song. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll only practice it when no one else is within earshot.

This one looks much better than the “Kreativ Blogger.”

Rules:

1. This award is for book bloggers only. To receive this award the blog must be at least 50% about books (reading or writing is okay)
2. Along with receiving this award, you must also share your top five favorite books you have ever read. (More than five is okay)
3. You must give this award to 5-10 other lucky book blogs you adore.

Top five favorite books? All right, here goes nothing. In no particular order:

• Beka Cooper: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Here are the joint recipients for both awards:

The Word Asylum

Novel Journeys

Comfy Sweaters, Writing, And Fish

A Farewell to Sanity

Kirsten Writes!

 

It’s like the Oscars in here.

Thanks to the brilliant Aloha over at Embracing Insanity, I have been given not one…not two…but four blogging awards! I am extremely grateful to you for this, Aloha, even though the icon for one of these awards is, to say the least, simply horrifying. We’ll get that one over with first.

Mrs. Sparkly’s Ten Commandments

How does that thing even exist? Seriously, just look at it. I’m going to have nightmares.

Now, for this award, I must answer the following questions.

Describe Yourself in Seven Words: Paranoid, sarcastic, obsessive, nerdy, a-touch-morbid (totally one word), spontaneous, awkward.

What Keeps You Up At Night: Irrational worries, ideas, and plans for the future.

Whom Would You Like to Be: Someone well-known for her writing. Ideally, my writing will have changed someone’s life for the better, even a little bit.

What Are You Wearing Right Now: Jeans, t-shirt from the Grand Canyon, argyle socks.

What Scares You: Dogs, large open spaces, clowns, and growing up and having responsibilities.

What Was the Last Website You Looked At: I did a Google search for how old Benedict Cumberbatch is.

What Is One Thing You Want to Change About Yourself: I would like to have a bit more self-confidence and have natural instincts allowing me to successfully navigate complex social situations.

Slankets, Yes or No: What in the name of Grendel’s mother is a Slanket? I’m too lazy to look it up, so I’ll just be safe and say no.

Tell Us Something About the Person Who Nominated You: Aloha is thoroughly amazing. She’s witty, a talented writer, and a proud nerd, and I really admire her. We met when she reblogged my Freshly Pressed post.

Now, for award number two:

The Sunshine Award

Well, this icon’s a bit better, even if it dates back to the ancient times of 2011.

Apparently, for this one I’m supposed to thank the person who nominated me, so thanks again, Aloha! Now, more questions.

Favorite colors: Glossy black and purple.

Favorite animal: Corvids (ravens, crows and magpies).

Favorite number: 7.

Favorite drink: Coffee, with tea at a close second.

Facebook or Twitter: Twitter.

Your passion: Writing–words in general.

Giving or Receiving: Giving.

Favorite pattern: Plaid.

Favorite day of the week: Saturday.

Favorite flower: Carnations.

Award number three is:

The Candle Lighter Award

There don’t appear to be any rules for this one–a welcome change.

Liebster Blog Award

I already received the Liebster Blog Award once, so if you’re interested, you can read my acceptance post here. Just replace the name of the nominator in your head.

Now we need to nominate some lucky bloggers to undergo Mrs. Sparkly’s Inquisition, not to mention the rest of it. There are many wonderful people who have already been nominated in this uncontrollable wave of award-giving that has taken over our little corner of the blogosphere. I’ll try my best to nominate new people.

tomte at From My Head

Pherispena Ladea at The Word Asylum

TayMik23 at Novel Journeys

Miriam Joy at A Farewell to Sanity

Good luck to you all. I hope the Mrs. Sparkly badge doesn’t permanently damage your eyesight.

I guess you shouldn’t read my blog at work…or in study hall.

Thanks to the lovely Kirsten at Kirsten Writes!, I have received my second blogging award this month: the Don’t Read This Blog At Work Award.

Here are The Rules for this one:

1. You may nominate no more than three bloggers, each of whom must have made you laugh out loud with at least one post.
2. Those who receive the nominations may consider themselves as having received the award, and they must post a gushing acceptance speech thanking the person who nominated them, and perhaps thanking any companion animals they may blog about.
3. Those who receive the award may, but need not, pass on the award, but will not themselves be eligible again until they have published at least ten more posts.

Friends, readers, followers, lend me your ears–we have come to praise Allegra, not to bury her. If we were burying her, and she was writing the speech on her blog, she would be a zombie, which would be COOL. But she is perfectly alive and suddenly speaking in the third person.

Anywho, I’d like to thank Kirsten, of course, for sending me this award. I’m glad my posts are as amusing as I think they are. I’m feeling as if I should try to write more comical stuff and fewer long-winded hoity-toity book reviews. Would anybody actually be upset with me if I stopped writing book reviews? Do any of you people actually read them? Would any of you like me to hurry and wrap up this speech?

The rest of my thanks go to everyone who’s commented on any of my posts, especially the funny ones, and all of my followers. I’m also obligated to thank everyone who’s ever written something funny that I read, because they’re all my inspirations. Also my mom, for making me keep blogging when I almost quit. I was really annoyed by that at the time. Funny how things work out.

OK, that’s the acceptance speech. I hereby nominate:

Liam, Head Phil: Liam’s posts rarely fail to make me laugh, and they only don’t make me laugh when he’s not trying to be funny.

John Hansen: Pure dry wit is readily available on John’s fantastic blog.

Josie, aka EricDoesNotExist: Josie hasn’t posted in a very long time, which is saddening to me, because Eric Does Not Exist is one of my favorite blogs, and riotously funny to boot.

Just in the event that I don’t get around to posting and/or I can’t come up with a creative way with which to present the sentiment, happy holidays to all of you, whether you celebrate steampunk Christmas or Saturnalia. Hopefully there’ll be lots of nerdiness in store.

The Liebster Award and Profuse Apologies

Thanks to TayMik over at Novel Journeys, I have been graced with another blogging award: The Liebster. If you aren’t following TayMik’s blog yet, you should. Follow that link. Read, like, comment, then hit the follow button. Lovely.

Anyway, here are The Rules for this award:

Upon receiving your Liebster award, you should:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.

4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed. (some say just 3 or more blogs of less than 200 followers each)

5. Let them know they have been chosen, by leaving a comment at their blog.

I hereby nominate:

Liam, Head Phil with his blob, This Page Intentionally Left Blank

John Hansen with his blog, The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer

Aloha with her blog, Embracing Insanity

Felicity with her blog, Eat, Sleep, Write, Repeat

Keep on blogging!

I’m sure this is rather a disappointing post to all you followers. What has it been, seventeen days? And I give you a blog award acceptance? I do apologize. I promise we’ll be back to regular posting soon–coming up we have a review of Tamora Pierce’s latest Tortall novel, and a post for the Teens Can Write Too! blog chain, so stay tuned.

The Versatile Blogging Awards

Thanks to Aloha over at Embracing Insanity (you have not lived if you have not checked out her supreme awesomeness!), I am now the proud recipient of my second blogging award, not counting being Freshly Pressed, to date. And I don’t count being FP’d as an award. I consider the feedback of my fellow bloggers much more valuable than what the blogging gods of WordPress have to say. Anywho, here’s how the Versatile Blogging Award works:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself. [Oh, no, not again…]
3. Pass the award along to 5-7 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them!

Okay, here goes nothing on the seven facts. I’ll try not to repeat anything from last time.

1. I make myself feel guilty for not writing in my novels and short stories often enough. I feel like I owe it to my characters to pay them a bit more attention; after all, I really put them through the wringer with all that death of companions and betrayal by respected elders and dressing up as court jesters to get out of trouble. Especially that last one. Perhaps even worse is my guilt if I leave my characters off in an awkward spot, such as the middle of a conversation or running through the woods. Once I stayed up several hours past my bedtime until I was half-dead over the keyboard so that they could find a decent spot to rest for the night and not be left on the streets. I can tell you’re all out there either laughing your arses off or researching what to do if a friend is displaying signs of insanity.
2. I can read three titles of computer printouts filed on top of my desk from here: “Colloquial Latin phrases for everyday usage,” “Medieval English Pronunciation,” and “Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon.”
3. I have had more crushes on fictional characters than actual guys. Men are just so much more attractive in books.
4. I am going through a sort of wannabe-everything phase. Most of the time, the replacement word for “everything” in that last phrase is either “goth” or “steampunker.” The trouble is, I’m a very, very low-budget whatever-it-is, so I’m just adding the occasional appropriate touch to old outfits. I attract a good deal of odd looks for wearing, oh, say, a necklace with a raven on it over a pink knit top.
5. Speaking of ravens, I have a serious thing for crows, ravens, magpies, and all related avian beasts. I talk to them like some people talk to dogs.
6. I’ve gotten into the habit of saying “Pro Iuppiter!” when others would say “Oh my God,” “OMG,” “Good God,” or any other related invocations. My version roughly means “By Jove” or “By Jupiter” in Latin.
7. My five favorite words in the English language are, in no particular order, zounds, dubious, pandemonium, maelstrom, and snogging.

Now for the awarding! Congratulations to:

Miriam

Nerdygirl98

Taymik23

Faith Othello

John Hansen

EricDoesNotExist

You are all amazing.

The Seven Facts Award

I’ve just won my first blogging award! “The Seven Facts” award, as it’s called, has just been bestowed on me by Confessions of a Readaholic. Thank you very much! Here’s how it works:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to his/her blog.
2. Write a post about the award, in which you share seven facts about yourself.
3. Share the award with fifteen worthy bloggers.

Here are seven things about me:

1. I don’t think that I could go for a day without listening to music. What kind, you ask? I’ll listen to anything, and my collection includes such diverse selections as Dolly Parton, The Beatles, Lady Gaga, and Counting Crows.
2. My room is decorated with a model dragon hanging from the ceiling and a huge Harry Potter movie poster. I’m on the lookout for some Edward Gorey prints to hang on the wall.
3. Je parle un peu français. (Translation: I speak a little French. Just a little, mind you).
4. My deepest hope is to become a published author.
5. If I could teleport to any location on the planet, I would visit the Cotehele estate in Cornwall, England. I visited it once and would probably scream in delight and jump up and down if I got to go again.
6. I am a major classics geek. Salve! Quid agis? 🙂
7. Much to the confusion and disbelief of my peers, I do not like dogs and cats, soda, Justin Bieber, or the color pink.

Here are the bloggers I’m passing on the award to (in no particular order):

Always Dreaming

Eric Does Not Exist

Kid Reviewer

Pica Reads

Angieville

Icey Books

Kay’s Bookshelf

Katelyn’s Blog

Indi’,d Books

My blog!

The Last Muggle to Read Harry Potter

Thoroughly Modern Tilly

And life goes on.

Teen Baker

The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl