THE EPICALLY AWESOME AWARD OF EPIC AWESOMENESS!

I would like to thank Norman Van Treeck at AstronomyandLaw.com for nominating me for the Epically Awesome Award of Epic Awesomeness.  Norman and I work together, and we started blogging about the same time last year.  He is much more technically advanced than I am, and he has been a great help to me in figuring out this whole blogging thing!

So the Epically Awesome Award means that I have to write ten “awesome” facts about myself and then nominate ten other bloggers I think are awesome in their own right and who deserve this award, then inform them of my nominations.  Here goes!

1.  I have completed two novels and am now working on the ideas for a third.  I sent my first manuscript to Catherine Coulter and she had her senior reader take a look at it.  He didn’t like the story, but he said I have writing talent, so I continue to persevere.

2.  I wrote a newspaper piece in 1997 that ended up on the front page of the Lebanon Daily Record in Lebanon, Missouri.  I nearly fainted when I opened my copy of the paper, sent by one of their editors.  My story was the headline article, above the AP articles!

3.  I spent St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2008, at the White House for the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.  Everyone was there…from Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to then Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (Cecilia’s father), President and Mrs. Bush, and many, many members of Congress and the judiciary.  That evening, I went to dinner at the house of (now retired) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullens, and his wife Deborah.  Really an awesome day!

4.  Thanks to my father and his interest in American history, I have toured most of the 48 states and been to many, many national parks, Civil War battlefields, historical monuments, and historic houses.  MANY, MANY!

5.  I have a varied and eclectic interest and background in music.  One day it’s Italian opera, and the next day it’s heavy metal or Irish sean-nos songs.

6.  I once caused a bus crossing the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland to be stopped because I did not see the sign about not taking photographs of the check point!  The British soldiers got on the bus with their guns and I could only plead being a stupid American tourist!  It’s a long story, but there were indications throughout the remainder of my stay in Ireland and return trip to Los Angeles that I was being “watched”.  I will tell the full details on the blog when I come across the photos.

7.  I write a lot about my Great Aunt Anna L. Faulkner/Tweddell because my mother ended up with so many of her personal belongings.  My mother was named for her, and I got Anne as a middle name in her honor as well.  Apparently Aunt Annie always intended for my mother to inherit her things, and that was the way it worked out even though she had children and grand children of her own.

8.  I really like traveling with my grandson, Conor.  He is nearly 15 now, and it’s beginning to be not so cool to travel and hang with an ancient person like me, but it’s so much fun to go do things without the parents telling us what we can and cannot do!

9.  My current job is really awesome!  Never been happier to go to work each day!  Really lucky to have found this diverse, interesting (sometimes frustrating) group of people at this age and stage of my career.

10.  I am a fairly good cook and a very good baker.  Learned most of what I know about baking from my mother, though my pie crust is better than hers ever was, and I learned the secret of never having lumps in my gravy which she never overcame.  Loved everything she made all the same!

Now for the ten bloggers I am nominating for the Epically Awesome Award of Epic Awesomeness:

1.  Views and Mews by Coffee Kat

2.  Biotech Boardwalk

3.  Conor Cullen

4.  Jorg David Photography

6.  Alina Sighete – Colors of Life

7.  Leanne Cole Photography

8.  Aquarian Times Astrology

9.  Nigel Borrington Photography

10.  Pacific Paratrooper

There are so many AWESOME blogs, it’s hard to name just ten, but the ones above are worth a look, always posting something of interest.

Again, thank you Norman for this award!