Last week I received a lovely message from Spewing Mummy to tell me that she had nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.
I was overjoyed at this for two reasons:
1) Since I first spoke to her at the beginning of last year when I found out about Pregnancy Sickness Support I have been astounded by just how much she has achieved for the charity despite having three kids and running a farm! The fact that she had such sweet words to say about my blog/writing made me remember why I put so many hours into what I do.
2) I remember when I first started blogging way back in 2006 (wow, that's a long time ago!) and these blogging awards were far more common than they seem to be today. I seem to be inundated with messages asking me to nominate blogs/bloggers for big awards such as the MADS and BiBs which only ever go to the most popular/biggest blogs, but these heartfelt awards between one blogger and the next seem to have almost vanished. So to see one making the rounds made me feel like returning to the "good old days".
Anyway, to claim the award there are two "rules" (for want of a better word): tell every 7 facts about yourself and nominate 15 other blogs/bloggers.
I enjoyed learning more about Spewing Mummy and clicking through the blogs that she nominated, so I hope that you might find some new blogs to check out through my nominations too.
But first, I have to think about 7 facts about me that you don't already know (which is quite hard seeing as though I am so very open and honest on the blog!)
7 facts about me
1. I am chronically impatient. As my dad says, I want "everything to be done yesterday". This isn't a very positive trait as it means I spend a lot of my time frustrated when tackling big, complicated projects such as the HG book and crochet blankets. It also means I want an answer to the question "what does the future hold for us in terms of family size" right now. That isn't going to happen, and it shouldn't either as it is an answer we will only find out in time. So gradually I am learning more patience, even if it is terribly frustrating still!
2. I love to sing, and Little Man has been sung to every single day of his life so far. I even sang to him in the waiting room at the doctor's surgery the other day. I haven't always been so comfortable singing though, and I even spent several months miming in a church choir (ha) because I was so nervous and scared about how I would get it wrong and sound awful. This started to change when I worked in a care home in Germany and led the music groups on a Tuesday - if I didn't sing, nobody sang and as I had never heard the German folk songs before I had to wing it in a very big way. I didn't have time to worry about how it sounded. This continued when I moved into childcare and now I don't really mind much at all, though I do still sometimes get self-conscious if certain people are around.
3. My recent/current reading list has contained the titles, "What God Wants", "What the Bible Really Teaches", "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion" and "The God Delusion". Quite a selection - a "new age" book, a Christian challenge to fundamentalists, a philiosophical/theological book, and one written by a staunch atheist! However, more and more I am realising that if I truly want Little Man to grow up and make his own decisions about faith and "God" then I need to be able to encourage and support him in his own exploration as and when he is able and wants to do so. This includes being able to present to him as many different sides of the story as possible, so he can explore each and decide what feels right to him. I could (and probably will) devote a whole blog post to this, but basically I've made my own mind up about what I believe and continue to let it evolve through my own constant search and I want him to have that same choice. I'd rather he chose to be firmly religious or a passionate atheist (neither of which I am) or even someone who couldn't care less either way, than follow in my footsteps and choose to believe something just because I do. If I can raise him to have his own mind, I'll be one happy mama.
4. I have hypermobility, which makes me incredibly "clumsy". You would not believe the sheer number of times I ended up at A&E as a child and my poor parents lived in fear of receiving a knock on the door from social services regarding how common my accidents were. Within two school years alone I had suffered from concussion from a chair falling off the table at the end of the day and landing on my head, and then knocked myself out by tripping and colliding head-first (at speed) with a brick wall. I'm not quite so "accident prone" these days, perhaps because I don't generally tear around like an energetic child any more, but I do still have my moments. My favourite of these has to be the time when we went to visit my parents and within half an hour of being there I had fallen straight down the stairs, hitting each step with the heel of my foot on the way down and making TJ, my mum and my sister all come running from different directions to find out what on earth I had done! Surprisingly, though, I have never broken a bone or needed stitches. I guess I just bounce well.
5. I hate flying. It's not that I am scared of it, it's just that it screws with my inner ear and I spend the entire flight feeling woozy and sick. There is a part of me that really hates being cooped up in a cabin full of people, because I hate being around people (especially in public) when I feel sick. We spent an awful flight coming back from Florida when I was a teenager and I threw up the entire flight and car journey back from the airport. The next flight we took to Mallorca had me in a panic as it just brought back horrible memories. I have flown several times since (it was a necessity when I studied German and Russian at university and also decided to throw in a trip to Switzerland and one to Italy as well), however I really, really hate the flying part and wish there was another way to get everywhere. I'd love to take Little Man to the US and Canada when he's older, so I'm going to have to work on this one!
6. My favourite book of all time has to be "The Brothers Lionheart". My aunt gave it to me to read when I was in my early twenties and though it is a children's book I fell instantly in love with it. It is just so beautiful that when I finished it I didn't dare read another book for weeks as it felt like nothing could ever live up to the story I had just read. From the incredibly sad first chapter in which both brothers die, through their adventures in Nagiyala and right up to the next step along their path, you cannot help but love and appreciate the characters. The two brothers love each other, even when love doesn't come from anywhere else. And the fact that the story teaches that bravery is not about a lack of fear, but doing things in spite of fear is one of the reasons I love it so much. I cannot wait to share it with Little Man when he is older.
7. I have a real thirst for knowledge and will soak up any tidbit of information I can. This used to include watching all the documentaries I could find when we still had TV, now it revolves around reading books from the library (when I get chance) and buying copies of magazines such as New Scientist (when I have the spare change - which isn't every month admittedly). I just love to know more about the world, although I am definitely someone who prefers to learn about humans and society than wildlife and the animal kingdom. TJ thinks it's crazy that I can adore walking out in nature so much myself but dislike watching things by David Attenborough or Springwatch, but I am very much a person who likes to be out in nature, not watching it on a screen. Give me a documentary on religion, folklore, changes in society etc though and I'm all yours.
Phew, that was hard!
Now comes the easier part - nominating 15 blogs/bloggers for the award :)
My nominations
1. Attic24 - I absolutely adore Lucy's blog. It is so full of colour and it makes me wish to fill my own home with the same kind of loveliness. Her crochet tutorials are so simple to follow, her "ta-da" moments are always a pleasure, and she is so down to earth it is lovely to read along.
2. BioGirl - Sarah has been a great blogging friend for several years now. I have followed her blog since she was pregnant with Henry and watching him grow is so wonderful. She was a fantastic source of support throughout my pregnancy and the awful realisation that we couldn't expand our family through another pregnancy, as she knows that heartache so well herself. She recently lost her younger sister to cancer and my heart breaks for her as she is so much more than "a blogger I know". I consider her a true friend, even though we haven't met in person. Her blog is open and honest, always, and I have to include her in this post for that very reason.
3. That Spencer Bloke - I found Spencer's blog sometime last year in the lead up to BritMums Live 2012, and I have to say that his blog is always a pleasure to read even when he is writing about something deep and serious. He is so honest and I absolutely love the way he expresses himself, it's one of the few blogs that I regularly read out to TJ! Seriously, go check his blog out...
4. Life with Katie: Our Adoption Story - I met Gem, who writes Life with Katie, at BritMums Live last year. It was a totally random meeting (I just happened to sit down at the same table as her) but I had a little chat with her, and came away with a link to her blog and have been following it ever since. As you know, TJ and I are currently in the process of deciding whether to look into adoption or fostering and so it is great to read a blog from someone who has both previously adopted one child and has just been approved to adopt a second (yippee!) But I don't just like this blog because of the adoption focus; I also love it because it is so down-to-earth.
5. Lynsey The Mother Duck - Lynsey is another blogger I met at BritMums Live last year (are you detecting a theme here?) I enjoy reading Lynsey's blog because again she is very down-to-earth and talks about what I like to call "the real stuff" (i.e. life's ups and downs, not just the pretty, happy stuff) and yet she always remains so positive. Her recent series of guest posts on Motherhood in the lead up to Mother's Day is a clear example of why I love this blog so much.
6. The Mom Diggity - Kara-Kae (or KK as she is often known) is somewhat of an inspiration to me... she has recently just given birth to her third child (all girls) in 3 years - her eldest has just turned 3, a few weeks after the birth of her youngest! I don't know how she does it, but she still manages to blog about all the wonderful things they do as a family (and all the challenges they face along the way). She didn't have the easiest pregnancies either, suffering from severe sickness herself, which makes her even more of a marvel to me!!
7. Mixed Bag of Allsorts - Ruth is actually someone I knew (briefly) at University. I say briefly because, like me, Ruth studied languages and being the year above me we only really saw each other during my first year and her second year (as one or other of us was abroad for the next two years). Ruth was a great source of support during my early weeks of motherhood when struggling with breastfeeding and she writes about this sometimes on her blog. However her blog is about everything and anything that happens in their life, and it is always a great place to read about family life as it happens :)
8. Diary of a First Child - Luschka is another blogger I met at BritMums Live (it really is a great place to meet bloggers you'll love to follow once you get home!) Her blog is full of wonderful posts about attachment parenting, activity ideas for kids, food and recipes and so much more. It is also the home of "Mamatography", which I failed at so magnificently last year and am really trying hard to keep up with this year... yet as Luschka reminds us all, there is no failure!! Her life has been thrown upside down with a trip oversees to be with her mother who has terminal cancer, yet she still manages to blog about this and so many other things. Again, she gets my vote because her blog is "real".
9. Knocked Up Knocked Over - this blog gets my vote because had I not found it around the 5th month of my pregnancy I don't think I'd have ever found the guts and the information I needed to go and finally demand my GP take my sickness seriously and start prescribing something to get it under control. I have followed the blog ever since and love the passion behind every single blog post.
10. Forest Poppy - I can't even remember how I first found Julie's blog, but it is one of those wonderfully friendly blogs that you can happily visit time and again and come away feeling enthused for doing things in your own life. Julie blogs about many of the things she sews, and I love admiring them (and wishing I had half the skill she does with a sewing machine). She also has a great passion for nature, as her background is in forestry and ecology, and that makes her thoughts on these things hugely valuable to me!
11. Creative Jewish Mom - I absolutely adore the updates that come into my blog reader from this blog. There are always fantastic crafting ideas, the majority of which centre around doing things with or for the kids, and the Craft Schooling Sundays are always so much fun to read with all the additions from other bloggers.
12. I'm Counting UFOs - this is a blogger that I wish I had actually met at BritMums Live (I saw her around several times but never actually got around to saying "hi"). It's another blog that is all about life (they are my favourite kind - no pretences, just life!) The weekly juice posts make me wish we still owned a juicer, and I am in awe of the fact that she recently climbed Mount Snowdon to raise money for Comic Relief.
13. Julia Crossland - Julia's blog is so full of colour and inspiration for artists and crafters or anyone who wants to add a bit more brightness to their homes. The blog hasn't been updated for a while, but there are plenty of older posts that will offer a great introduction to Julia's world.
14. Just For Fun - Jen is my crochet hero and guru... it was her amazing crochet creations that inspired me to pick up a crochet hook and teach myself the basic stitches. And it has been her knowledge and enthusiasm that has helped me develop my skills, even though this has all been via email or FB (Jen and I did meet in person once when she was visiting the UK, but I had only just started trying my hand at crochet at that point). If you thought crochet was just granny square blankets, think again!
15. Mother Eartha's Blog - this is written by a wonderful lady I met through twitter initially, who suffered greatly during her second pregnancy. Her experience is truly haunting and she is so open and honest about the reality of a traumatic pregnancy and just how deeply and for how long the effects can wreck havoc on your life. She is one of the bravest women I know and I cannot wait to see her again at this year's Pregnancy Sickness Support Annual Conference.
That's it... those are my 15 highlights to the blogging world, in no particular order other than the way my folders are organised on Google Reader (which I now have to find the best alternative for). I hope you enjoy visiting them - do let me know if you find one you love!
