I was completely taken aback when I came home from vacation last month to find that I had been nominated for a Liebster Award by my good friend Dana Fashina of I’ve Got Cake.  Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this award, I’ll try my best to explain it.  The Liebster Award is an award that is given to bloggers who have under 1000 followers as a way to promote their blogs and spread a little Blogger Love around the Internet.  Since this is my first ever blog award, you’d think I’d be bouncing off the walls to get started on my acceptance speech!  But, the honest truth was that I procrastinated long and hard on it.  Mostly because I was nervous about sharing 11 random facts about myself!  Now that I’ve written them out, though, they aren’t quite as scary as they first seemed.  I think maybe everyone has an inner weirdo that they are little bit nervous to let out in public…ok, actually maybe not everyone….because, reality shows.  So, while this is not my normal recipe post, I hope you’ll enjoy learning a little bit about me.

So the rules for accepting the Liebster Award are as follows:

1. LINK back to the person who nominated you;

2. SHARE 11 facts about yourself;

3. ANSWER 11 questions set by your nominator;

4. NOMINATE 5-11 people who you think deserves the Liebster Award

5. ASK your nominees 11 questions to answer

6. AFTER YOU PUBLISH your Liebster post, go to your nominees blog and let them know you nominated them.

So, first things first.  I want to thank Dana from I’ve Got Cake for nominating me for this award!  Dana is extremely funny, stylish, and a most adventurous cook!  Plus, she’s like a rocket scientist.  Ok, she’s an electrical engineer, but that may as well be rocket science!

11 Random Facts About Me

1. I’m an oldest and only girl with 3 younger brothers.

2. I spent about a decade as a professional singer and for part of that time, was a Diana Ross Impersonator. I live in Las Vegas…we all do this at one point or another. 🙂

3. In lieu of children, I have two hairless cats–Sophie and Simon.

4. I just learned how to take a selfie this year.  Seriously, I could never figure out the right place to look!

5. I taught myself to eat olives when I turned 18.

6. I share a birthday with Neil Patrick Harris and by proxy that makes me a Very Cool Chick.

7. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Art History, which has absolutely nothing to do with what I do for a living.

8. In 1989 I published a book of poetry with my mother. I wonder who has those two used copies that Amazon is talking about?

9. I am almost always reading something and when I’m not, I feel out-of-sorts.

10. I have had many surgeries; thus I have many scars, but I treasure each and every one of them because they remind me to be grateful and to not take my health for granted.  Modern Medicine Rocks.

11. I spent the better part of a decade in what could be considered by some, a religious cult; after which I became an agnostic.

Now to answer the questions posed to me by my nominator:

1.  What’s a day in your life? Take your time…paint a picture for us.
I rise at about 5:30 a.m.  Ok, scratch that.  I open my eyes at about 5:30 and think to myself, “just 10 more minutes”, then sleep for an additional 25 minutes, waking at 5:55 a.m. with 5 minutes to get out the door and walk for a half hour. After my morning walk, I get ready for work. This entails me standing in the closet saying “I don’t have anything to wear!!” After cobbling together something that looks presentable, I make breakfast if I haven’t made refrigerator oatmeal the night before and head out the door.  When I get to work I make myself a cup of green tea (the first of many during the day) and get started reviewing my case files for the day.  Each day I am scheduled to hear about 12 cases.  I go over the cases for the day and court starts promptly at 9:00 a.m.  After hearing my cases, I retreat to my…chambers…and decide cases that I heard earlier in the week.  After work, I usually stop at the grocery store, then come home and start cooking dinner.  If I’ve made something that’s slated for the blog, I take photos of it and edit them later on after dinner. The rest is normal stuff–bedtime and the like.

2.  If you could only keep what piece of clothing in your closet, what would it be and why?
My thick, cozy “Pottery Barn” bathrobe.  I have had this robe since 2006 and I can’t live without it.  I wear it year round.  In the winter, it keeps me warm.  In the summer, it shields me from my air conditioner, which blows with all the force of a polar vortex.

3.  Do you prefer music or books? Why?
Books, because they have been my best friends since I first learned to read.  I read all the time.

4. What’s something you’d secretly like to wear but haven’t worked the courage up to try it?
I am not very fashion-adventurous.  A few of the ladies I work with wear these awesome, patterned palazzo pants.  They look like really fancy pajama pants and I think they look great in them.  But every time I try on patterned pants, they just seem so busy and I think they make my butt look really big.  BUT, I did recently buy a pair of red pixie pants from Old Navy and I feel very avant garde when I wear them.

5.  What are 3 guilty pleasures of yours?
Potato chips, french fries, hotdogs.

6.  What are 3 bad habits of yours?
I am horrible at packing a lunch, which leads right into my next bad habit: starving and then giving in and eating at McDonald’s. I don’t like it, it’s just convenient and less than 5 minutes from the office. My husband would tell you that I don’t discipline the kitties which causes them to behave badly, but really, I’m just playing the “good cop”.

7.  What post would you re-do if you could? Link to it. 
The Margherita Pizza, because I have learned better pizza dough techniques since I posted this.

8.  When you take pictures for your blog, do you already have a concept in mind or are you kind of winging it?
Both.  I usually have a concept in mind but I find that it’s difficult to translate that to the actual photograph.  I end up changing things on the fly until reality lines up with the conceptualized idea.

9.  What are the ways your drive engagement within your blog?
That’s a good question that I haven’t figured out the answer to yet.  I use all the main social media outlets, but I haven’t quite nailed the magic formula in driving engagement. I will say that Google+ has been a great place to share posts and I get way more engagement there than on Facebook.

10.  What do you find is the optimal posting time?
Another good question that I haven’t quite figured the answer out yet, but I find that Friday and Saturday mornings seem to be a good time.

11.  What message do you want people who read your blog to take away?

In my town, people eat out a lot and I think that’s kind of sad.  I want to inspire people to make great quality meals and drinks at home, where they can better control the ingredients. Plus, I think cooking and eating at home with family and friends is the surest way to world peace.

My Nominees:

Christina @ A Soulful Twist  – I “met” Christina through Google+ and it was her fried chicken and waffles that drew me right in.  Her photography is really amazing and I always want to eat the food right off the screen! I love her healthy spin on Southern classics! She’s had a broken camera of late and I miss her blog posts so much!  How she juggles 4 children, a household and blogging is something I’ll never understand.

Josie @ The Roed to Good Cooking – Josie just started her blog a couple of months ago as a way to deal with the grief of the sudden the loss of her dear husband, Jerry.    She is Queen of the Smoker and I always look forward to seeing what she’s making.

Melanie @ Bon Appet’eat – Just one look at Melanie’s drool-worthy photos and you be a fan!

Chef Brenda @ Live Beautifull – I met Brenda last month at a photography workshop and I just loved her philosophy about food.  She is all about living a full life; being healthy without deprivation.

Sonia and Candice @ Everybody Loves Pretty – these ladies are prolific!  They post a recipe every single day and everything looks so pretty–just like their name says!

Alyssa @ My Sequinned Life – Alyssa was the very first person to follow my blog and she is just as sweet as the beautiful desserts she makes on her blog. I love her fresh, exuberant writing style.  She makes you feel like you’re right at home with her in the kitchen!

Kerry and Ryan @ The American Cocktail – This mother and son blogging duo inspire me so much! I love the story that they tell with each cocktail that they make.  Inspiring and informative!

If I’ve nominated you for this award and you have more than 1000 followers, please forgive me!  Sometimes it’s hard to get accurate readership numbers!

Now for my questions to my nominees:

1. What do you eat when you’re alone?
2. What are your top 3 blogging pet peeves?
3. People always say that blogging takes “hard work and dedication”.  Define what that means to you.
4. What do you feel is the most difficult part of blogging–the writing or the photography?
5. What was the last thing you read that really blew your socks off?
6. What is your favorite movie and why?
7. If you had to eat one thing every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?
8. Sweet or savory?
9. If you had unlimited time to learn a skill, what would it be?
10. When you were in high school, which group or clique were you in?
11. Describe your blogging process.

For my nominees, please leave a link to your award acceptance in the comments section so that I can see your answers!

Well, that’s it!  Again, thank you Dana for your nomination!  I think this is officially the longest post I’ve ever written!