An Award for me

Richard from At the Water was kind enough to nominate me for the award above in appreciation for letting him use some of my photos for his own blog. I strongly suggest you check out his blog as he has wonderful photos and very creative one liners for some of his pictures. Plus he gets birds that we don't here so it's always a treat for the eyes.

Anyhow, here are the rules:

Here are the 7 STEPS of this award:
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.

6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the seven blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

In the past I have not followed the rules and decided to nominate just one person for the award because I can often think of 20 bloggers I would like to give an award too so I get really bad analysis paralysis which makes me sit on the awards like I have been doing with this one for a week now. To make it easier on myself I decided again to nominate only one blogger I think best describes the award which to me is a creative blogger. All of the blogs I read are creative, but I want to give a special mention to one in particular that I enjoy reading whenever I have the time (which has been not as often as before sadly due to my hectic schedule)

That person is:

Ratty from The Everyday Adventurer . Ratty's blog caught my attention when I first started blogging because if focused on hiking and the daily adventures he encountered while on the trails. He has the wonderful ability to take the ordinary everyday and turn it into an adventure that is always fun to read. Plus he has wit and a sense of humor which makes his blog a real treat to go to.

Now 7 things about myself as in compliance with the rules:

1. I have a hard time relaxing but do enjoy it on occasion. If they had tested for Attention Deficit Disorder when I was a young child, I would have probably been medicated. HA. I do know how to relax but it has to be something I enjoy as I can't sit around the house all day because it drives me crazy. The one thing I have realized is that birding has calmed me down considerably compared to how I was in my 20s and 30s. I think its being able to get out there and be active and watch the birds. I love to learn because it gets my brain in the zone which forces you to stop and think and I learn something new every day when I am birding.

2. I taught myself how to cook at the age of 12. I would come home every day after school and run to the TV to watch Julia Child's French Chef program that was on WGBH every afternoon at 3PM. My first meal that I made was spaghetti where I proceeded to put in too much red pepper! I have gotten better since obviously.

3. I am a compulsive number counter. This is ironic because I hated math a a child but now it is a big part of my job and love to crunch numbers. I do this at the grocery store and calculate the price of everything that goes into my cart. While putting it on the belt for checkout, I re-add it in my head and will usually be off around $5 to $10 which is what I want because I round the numbers and it makes me feel good to know I saved some money. I am also a data geek. I love looking at a ton of data and putting it all together through queries to get information. I now do it with bird data and have created my own mini-databases on birds that I update regularly and have just recently learned to export my ebird data into my own database for further analysis!! So cool!

4. I was a tom boy when I was younger. I never wanted to hang out with the girls because all they wanted to do was play with dolls which was sooooo boring. I used to venture out with a boy that everyone thought was odd because he used to like to collect garter snakes and put them in empty milk jugs (he released them afterwards of course at his mothers insistence!). I used to venture out with him and help. We used to get all excited when we found a green snake!

5. I have never liked jewelry. Most women adore the stuff but I find it gets in the way and makes me uncomfortable to have it on. I would rather spend my $$ on other things like saving up for a new camera and bird guides!

6. My former career was community/public relations. I was responsible coordinating all of the volunteer events of our bank as well as reviewing grant applications that would come into our charitable trust foundation. I am hoping I can utilize some of that experience in the future for land conservation issues which is my biggest pet cause. I DETEST DEVELOPMENT and think humans have destroyed enough land over the centuries, it's time to give some of it back! Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing a habitat that birds once thrived in being destroyed for another Home Depot or worse condos that all look alike!! Grrrrrrrrrrr. I am also passionate about my causes as you can see. ;o)

7. I am not the crying type of person and don't burst out into tears too often, except for movies where an animal gets hurt of killed. In fact, it is so embarrassing that I tend to avoid movies like that because the outcome for me is certain. Even Disney movies do it to me! I get this from my mother who is even worse than I am.

So that's it!! Thanks for the award Richard!