I want to thank Steven for nominating me for the Liebster Award – THANKS, STEVEN!!! 🙂 It is a great honor to feel appreciated for the artwork I do, but also as a friend. I am glad we met, and I love his art. We have had some great laughs in our comments back and forth on various posts.

Here are my answers to Steven’s questions:

1. So, when and why did you start blogging?
I started blogging in May of 2013. I had started a blog on another site, but it wasn’t working out very well. So my husband told me about WordPress, and after a few days of figuring it out, I got my blog up and running.

2. What is your wildest dream?
My wildest dream is to be able to go to Europe someday. I’d like to visit all of the famous art museums where my favorite artists’ work is, and visit the Sistine Chapel. I’d like to see real castles, and of course visit my friends Steven and Sherri.

3. When you were growing up, what did you always want to be?
When I was little, I wanted to be a mom like my mom. I wanted to be a nurse, and a teacher also. When I became a teenager, I enjoyed creative writing in high school, and wanted to be a writer. Now I am an artist. Who knew?

4. What makes up your ideal “me” time/day off?
I love to stay home, have leisure cups of coffee or tea, have time to chat with my family, catch up on things online, do some art, write a little, and read a lot or watch television.

5. You can have anybody, living or dead, over for dinner. Who would that lucky someone be?
That would have to be my mom. If more than one person, my dad would be with her. I would want to show them my work. I know they would be proud of me.

6. Are you a city-dweller or are you a rural, country soul?
Fourteen years ago I would have said city-dweller. I even enjoyed visiting San Francisco a few times through the years. I love Fisherman’s Wharf for the fresh crab and sourdough bread. But now I am a country soul. We live way out of town and have for fourteen years now. I have grown to love the quiet, the house, the safe environment. It will be difficult to leave when my husband retires someday. Then we will probably have to be city-dwellers again, although, I’d like to be on the very outskirts of the city!!

7. Do you prefer a dark, cozy winter’s night, or long, hot summer evening.
I really hate the heat so it would have to be the winter’s night.

8. What is your favorite word?
Hopefully, that doesn’t mean the word that slips when I’m really angry! I think my favorite word is “grace.” I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am today without God’s grace in my life. Plus, it is our daughter’s first name!

9. Cats or dogs?
Dogs for sure!! I have owned only four dogs in my whole life. I don’t count the “family dog I grew up with. He was mostly my mom’s dog, and I didn’t like him anyway.

10. What is the best joke you know?
Okay, this is super corny. Ready?
What kind of jokes do sea turtles tell?
Shell-arious ones!

Told ya.

Now here are 11 random facts about myself.

1. I have to sleep in total darkness.
2. My favorite ice cream is butter pecan.
3. I love almost every Hallmark movie ever made.
4. Mother’s Day Hallmark card commercials make me cry, and also made my mom cry.
5. My husband and two children are my three favorite people in the world.
6. I want our dog, Brownie, to live forever.
7. I love our homemade pizza better than any other pizza I have ever eaten.
8. The ocean is my favorite place to visit or vacation at.
9. I miss my mom more than any person I’ve ever know who has died.
10. No matter what my kids ever do or don’t do, no matter how they think, I am and always will be PROUD of them for who they are.
11. I love getting lost in a great novel. (I wish I knew how many I’ve read in my whole life. This is another way I take after my mom. 🙂

NOW, here are MY eleven questions for my nominees to answer!
1. Do you have one or several favorite colors?
2. What is your favorite type of restaurant to visit?
3. Where is your favorite quiet spot?
4. Who do you love visiting with the most?
5. Who in your life do you wish could live forever?
6. What is your favorite animal?
7. Are you an ocean, desert or mountain person?
8. What is your favorite recreational activity?
9. What is your favorite beverage?
10. Are you an apartment or house-with-a-yard person?
11. What is one thing you would like to change about yourself?

strong>The Official Rules Of The Liebster Award (which I may or may not have followed precisely! So hang me!)

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)
3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.
5. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)
6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
7. List these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:
8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

And finally, here are my nominees. I think these have been some of the most encouraging blogs for me personally, and I enjoy talking with all of the wonderful people who write them! 

http://kilgorehendel.wordpress.com
http://watercolor365.wordpress.com
http://annesartstuff.com
http://zenschoolforcreatives.wordpress.com
http://sherrimatthewsblog.com
http://oilpastelsbymary.com
http://jillweatherholt.wordpress.com