I want to say a big thank you to Shannon at Simply Shan for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger Award. I’m really honoured, thank you! Shannon lives in the UK (can’t wait to go back there next year) and posts on a variety of topics. She calls herself boring, but I find her quite interesting! Her posts always seem well thought out, and she has a way of writing that comes across as bubbly and friendly, inviting you to join her in whatever she has planned for the day.
The name of the game here is to nominate fifteen bloggers who I think produce quality content, and share them with you. That gives you the opportunity to explore some new content that you might find worthy of following. Then I share seven fun or interesting facts about myself, and give you a glimpse at the girl behind the screen. Or something like that. Ha ha! Right, here we go! In no particular order…
1. Amy at The Life of Amy N – a very versatile blogger, with DIY crafts, uplifting motivational posts, recipes, product reviews, travel, etc. There’s surely something for everyone! I know I’m biased, but I think you should check out her post NEW ZEALAND TRAVEL ROUTE.
2. The Feisty Pauper – a seemingly random collection of posts, that are often fascinating. You have to check out her post Don’t Fear the Reaper Or How a total coincidence made my kid think I’m insane. So funny.
3. KalifornicationX – self-described as ‘words of an unadulterated cesspool nature of disgust and sometimes amusing truths and observations’. I say irreverent and hilarious. If you’re wondering if you can call yourself a writer or not, the answer is in A Hooker’s Ambition & Depressed Millennials.
4. Rowena at made things – beautiful, poetic (but not always poems) observations of life. My favourite post is imaginary dramas because it speaks to a truth I know all too well, but you should also check out my xmas revelation for an insight to the way Rowena perceives the world and why her observations are so powerful and intriguing.
5. Rachel at The Writer In Me… – poetry, short stories, music and personal reflections. Some are humorous, some are heartbreaking. A recent poem of hers that I love is Reflections From A Coffee Shop.
6. Jess from Jess of Earth – her blog is full of positivity and encouragement. I guess you’d call it a lifestyle blog, with fashion, exercise, meditation, etc. She’s mad for yoga. Her New Year, New You: Vision Board Tour will give you insight into who she is and what she’s working on in her life.
7. Nic Starr – music, books and guest posts. Nic is a published author, so definitely keen an eye out for her publications. For an insight into one of Nic’s books, check out this post about Patrick’s Savior.
8. Abbey from An anonymous escape from life – she writes prose, poetry and personal blog entries. She provides a great intro to herself and her blog in this post – Opening up about my blogging journey.
9. Tiny Rubies – personal posts, poetry, photographs and … are there any other p words I’ve missed? I love this post about anonymous blogging.
10. Parichita Singh – she writes about writing and books, and her personal journey with both. In 2017 she did a series where she wrote an alphabet’s worth of posts about writing, then she rounded it off with this post about what she learned by doing the challenge.
11. Thompson Crowley – music, poetry, and musings… Dammit, I needed another m word for poetry! I enjoyed gaining some insight into Thompson when he discussed his influences.
12. Books and Opinions – obviously there are book reviews, but also personal posts, guest posts, and a general love of books that overflows on this blog. The books vary enormously, and I even stumbled across this review of a poetry book – Magic Realized: and Other Poems on the Human Spirit – Louis Alan Swartz.
13. R A Douglas – poetry and personal posts. I particularly love this entry about bullying – What would you do, when your kids are bullied?
14. Sionna from Books In Her Eyes. Honest book reviews, reading challenges, and other book or reading related posts. Lots of variety in reading material, with a lean toward sci fi/fantasy/paranormal. If you check out her Monthly Wrap-Up: January, that’ll show you the kind of books she’s reading.
15. Lia from Lost In A Story. What makes her blog different from other blogs about books is that she shares a lot of guidance for other bloggers, in addition to the book reviews, tags and other content you’d expect. She’s got a great series on ARCs which starts with Emailing publishers, and I thought her discussion on negative reviews, authors, bloggers, and the book community was a really interesting post. See what you think.
Okay, so I think we’re up to seven facts about me. Hmmm….
- I have a pretty decent cookbook collection and I enjoy watching cooking shows. My favourite chef is Gordon Ramsay. I also love Nigella Lawson (who is not a chef). I’ll watch anything with either of them in it. I have several cookbooks by each. I’ve met Gordon Ramsay once, and ate at one of his restaurants in London, but have not had the pleasure of meeting Nigella yet. On the flip side, I can’t stand Jamie Oliver, although we do use a few of his recipes.
- Speaking of collecting, I can’t help myself. As soon as I have a few of anything, it becomes a collection.
My oldest collection is my bookmarks. I added substantially to this collection when we went to the UK in 2014, as I collected a souvenir leather bookmark from every historical place we visited.
- I don’t watch much TV or go to the movies often. I find that I tend to miss details on the screen, and therefore I am often turning to my husband and saying ‘Wait, what did I miss? Why is that happening?’
It’s frustrating for both of us. I prefer books, because if I do happen to miss something (and it’s pretty rare), I can just go back and re-read the pertinent section, then keep going. My husband is the opposite and prefers to watch something on the screen rather than read it, although he does both.
- I played netball in primary school, then cricket and soccer in high school. I continued to play soccer until I was pregnant with my son. My favourite forms of exercise though are swimming and bush walking.
- I’m not a fan of American muscle cars. I prefer sleek European cars. In truth though, although I am comfortable driving (and yes, I can drive a stick-shift or a manual as they’re called here), I’d rather be the passenger. So long as a car is reasonably comfortable to sit in, and it gets me from A to B, that’s all I really care about. If it’s easy to park, even better. Oh, and I can’t parallel park. Never learned how.
- I gave up caffeine a few years ago. I used to drink a LOT of Coke Zero, and I always said that the caffeine never affected me. I could have a glass before I went to bed, or not, it didn’t make any difference to me. But my husband had some health issues related to stress and anxiety, and he was told to give up caffeine by the doctor. He did, and so I did too. I’ve never been a tea or coffee drinker, so Coke Zero was my one big weakness. I haven’t had more than a mouthful or two in the last three or so years. My sleeping habits changed considerably, to my surprise. And interestingly, I went from never dreaming (or remembering my dreams at least) to dreaming often. Weird. I tried to switch to water, but I don’t find it as satisfying. Now though, I drink water during my work day, five days a week, whereas I didn’t drink any water at all before. When I’m at home, I now drink Sprite Zero. My drink of choice if I’m out is a lemon, lime and bitters, which is a non-alcoholic cocktail that originated in Australia I think. It’s lime cordial, lemonade and Angostura bitters. Has to be freshly made though, not bottled.
- For years, my favourite chocolate was Cadbury Dairy Milk. But Cadbury have changed the recipe for their Dairy Milk chocolate, I think, and I don’t like it anymore. They have recently brought back Caramilk though (not a caramel filled chocolate like the bar of the same name in other parts of the world, but a caramelised white chocolate) and I really love that. Which is weird, because I don’t like white chocolate. I don’t like dark chocolate either. Just milk chocolate.
Anyway, I hope this has been somewhat interesting. I know that these little blog awards are more just for us small-time bloggers, and not the hardcore bloggers with thousands of followers. I guess that’s partly because the point of them is to network and interact, and that’s something that’s crucial when you’re still a small fry. For that reason, I tried not to nominate anyone with thousands of followers, but I think at least one has more than 1,000. I tried to keep it to smaller blogs that showed variety in what they posted.
Okay, that’s all from me today. Did you check out any of the blogs? Find a new favourite blogger to follow? Did any of my facts about myself interest you? Let me know!
I started my family recipe book in 2010. That was 8 years ago!! 
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