Still Orphan’s Liebster Award

I have been nominated for a Liebster Award, which is really the equivalent of receiving a chain letter in middle school because it’s an award from bloggers to bloggers where the prize is answering a bunch of questions.  I’m doing it for two reasons: one, I’m doing it because it shines a light on smaller blogs on the internet like my own, and two, I don’t share a lot about myself on this platform.  I write anonymously due to the sensitive nature of foster care and to protect my identity and the people and places I write about.  Some of you know who I am, but the large majority of my readership does not.  I figured it’s high time I shared a little more about myself.

 

Here are the basic guidelines of the Liebster Award:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.  Thank you, From Toddler to Traveler!  You can see the post Still Orphans was nominated in here.
2. Answer the questions that blogger gave their nominees (see below).
3. Provide 10 random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate 5 or more other blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1,000 followers.
5. Ask your nominees questions of your own.
6. List the rules in your post (check √).

 

 

My 10 Random Facts

1. I have goats, and my goats have goats!  We went through our first ever kidding a couple days ago, and now we have these two cuties: 
   

   
2. My pipe dreams are starting a school, having a self-sufficient farm, and opening a tiny house bed and breakfast.
3. I’ve been robbed at gunpoint.  My husband and I spent several months volunteering at an orphanage in Peru as newly weds.  Across the street from the orphanage was the ocean that we’d walk to on days off.  We were held up on one of those excursions and my wedding rings were taken.  From there we had a few firsts: we unsuccessfully tried to locate and buy back my wedding rings on the black market, we leafed through a huge, handwritten book of Peruvian mugshots in a dimly lit police station, and we happened to ride the bus with one of the people who had robbed us.  Twice.
4. I judge people who are self-proclaimed coffee drinkers and only drink light roast coffee.
5. I have an inexplicable intolerance to certain music and sounds.  My husband lives with a pair of earphones around his neck, so he doesn’t believe that I can like music until I don’t, and once I reach a certain quota, it becomes grating.
6. On the Myer’s Brigg personality test, I’m an INFJ, which is the most rare personality accounting for 1-2% of the population.
7. I enjoy language learning.  I minored in Ancient Greek in college in order to study the New Testament better.  I try to be somewhat conversational in Spanish and have recently gotten into studying Ojibwe (although that one in particular has given me a run for my money.  I am really, really bad at it).
8. I’m fine with bugs, snakes, spiders, and a lot of gross things, but I cannot handle mice.  They are vile.
9. I can lucid dream.  I’m usually aware on some level that I’m dreaming, so I tend to have very simple and reality-based dreams.  In fact, one time I had a dream that was so boring, I woke myself up.
10. Early in our marriage, my husband and I applied for Mars One in their first round of accepting young couples to colonize Mars.  I mentioned this to a group of students once, and for some reason it was one of those things that stuck and students asked me about years later.

 

 

Questions with the Nomination

 

• What’s one thing you didn’t know about blogging that surprised you?

I kept a blog in high school on a blogging site that no longer exists.  I assumed that blogging was a dying art and I’d be one of the few people who was a decade behind the times, but I was very surprised to see such a large community of people still out there writing.  Even in my niche of foster care blogging, there are many of us out there.

• What is your least favorite thing about blogging?

There is a lot of marketing with successful blogs.  Even if you don’t care to make money off it, you still have to at least consider how layout and font and thumbnails will affect how many people will actually take time to stay for the content.  I’ve done the very bare minimum on that front.

• If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?

I’d want to manipulate time so I could spend days in a single, happy moment with my family and speed up tantrums.  I could get a lot more accomplished during naps and waiting in line at the DMV would feel like it only lasted seconds.

• What is your “last meal” meal, i.e. what would you eat if you knew it would be your last meal?

If I had to pick a last meal, it’d be ice cream and coffee.  That’s a meal, right?

• Plane, train, or automobile?

This one is easy: the answer is trains.  There is something romantic and awe-inspiring about trains.  From the station to the sounds and smells, it’s no wonder it’s the preferred mode of transportation for many favorite books.  Can you imagine if the Hogwarts Express was your mom’s Suburban instead?  Where’s the magic in that?

• What’s your favorite “cocktail party” story?

I hate to be a wet blanket, but I really don’t have a cocktail party story.  Is that a thing?  Does everyone else have a cocktail party story in their back pocket to whip out in times like this?

• Tell me a joke (PG, please, there are little ears around).

What was Boaz like before he got married?

Ruthless.

• What was your worst vacation and why?

I haven’t had any truly terrible vacation experiences mostly because I’m both low maintenance and cheap.   We go the economical route every time, so we can plan on the usual inconveniences like barely catching connecting flights because it saves us $50 to avoid a direct flight or waiting for 6 hours in an L.A. car rental facility because it was the cheapest place to rent a car (which did happen and we did miss my brother’s wedding rehearsal because of it).

• Let’s say you could travel with your favorite Disney character. Who would you travel with and why?

I’m not a huge Disney fan, but we did get sucked into the Moana craze.  I don’t hate it.  I do not hate it.  It get points for not being a love story, and I do see parallels between the movie and the heart of adoption/God’s view of our worth.

I have crossed the horizon to find you
I know your name
They have stolen the heart from inside you
But this does not define you
This is not who you are
You know who you are

Yup, that got me.  And if I’m traveling with Moana, maybe it’d involve sailing.  That’s a plus.

• If you could invent one tool to make your life easier, what would it be?

I guess something that would wash diapers and fold laundry would be awesome.  Either that or something that would make me smoothies and wash the blender afterwards.

• What is your favorite kind of candy?

Chocolate candy is really the only way to go for me.  I don’t have very refined tastes, so I don’t like chocolate by itself.  Dove, Hershey’s, a bar of something expensive and fancy- not my thing.

 

 

My Nominations and Questions

Life Observed: This is a blog about life’s musing and observations of her parents as foster parents and the impact of that on the whole family

Beautiful Chaos x7: This is one of the first blogs I read when I was starting my own, and their adoption story is truly beautiful

Lucky in Luv: You will find foster care tips and meal prep ideas here

Ryan Brinson: I’ve been low level obsessed with this blog and the writing style.  I’ve yet to share my undying love for this blog with the world and make the obsession official, but as of right now, I’m breaking new ground.

Loving Deeply Holding Loosely: The name says of this blog says it all.  She’s real and has a great perspective on fostering.

 

Questions for My Nominees

1. Why did you start your blog?
2. What advice would you give new writers?
3. What is your favorite post you’ve written (link please!)?
4. What book should I be reading?
5. If you could redo college, would you major in the same thing?  If not, what would you go for instead and why?
6. What is your guilty pleasure?
7. What is your favorite movie and why should we see it?
8. What are 3 things you always pack in your suitcase?
9. What is one food you could never get sick of?
10. What would be the first thing you’d buy if you won the jackpot?