I am so flattered to have been presented with the One Lovely Blog Award by Caroline of c.w.frosting. 



No worries, I will spare you all the long acceptance speech.  Instead, I will just say a big THANK YOU to Caroline, and to all my readers.  I feel like blogging has become my job, one that I enjoy very much.  Of course, The Mr. would appreciate if I received a paycheck, but an award is just as nice!  (Well, except when I want to go shopping.  I don’t think HomeGoods will accept the One Lovely Blog Award as a form of payment.  But it should be worth a bit of in-store credit, right?)
 
Anyway, accepting the award means I am required to share 7 things about me.  Here’s more than you wanted to know.  You could say I’m a bit wordy.  But if you read my blog, you know that already.  So here goes.

1. I can’t not eat cookie dough.  Most any dough will do, really.  But oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough is my favorite.  Cookies taste better to me raw than baked, so I usually put some extra dough in a container in the fridge rather than baking it all.  But I have to hide it from The (Cookie-Dough-Loving) Teen.  Luckily The Mr. is freaked out by raw eggs, so I don’t have to share my dough with him.
2. My favorite color is probably white, which is actually the absence of color.  I like things fresh and clean looking.  But turquoise is a close second.
3. When I was a preteen, my criteria for a home included that it not be any farther than 10 minutes away from a mall.  As a high school senior, one criterion for choosing a college was that it be small enough that my professors know me by name, but large enough that if I were dating someone and broke up, there would be plenty of other fish in the sea.  I had my priorities straight, obviously.
4. I am horrible at interpreting song lyrics.  For many years I thought Prince was singing “Baby Come Back” rather than “Little Red Corvette.”  Let’s just say I follow along with a song’s beat a bit more than the storyline.
5. Online reviews are my friend.  TripAdvisor is my go-to for restaurants, hotels and things to do when traveling.  Amazon is great for researching products and reading user reviews, even if I don’t actually purchase from their site (although often I do).  Food.com has tons of recipes added by people like us.  You can search by item or category, and sort by user ratings.  My pet peeve about online reviews?  When people write “I just received this product and can’t wait to use it.” or “I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but it looks really good.”  Seriously?  If you haven’t used/eaten/done it yet, you have nothing to review.  So just don’t.
6. I’m usually running late.  Time seems to slip away from me.  If I have somewhere to be at 4pm, I usually procrastinate about getting ready until about 3:05pm when I realize what time it is and freak out.  Even if I’m all dressed and ready to go early, I most certainly will fill all the “extra time” with another activity, which distracts me from watching the clock, and then I have another freakout when I realize it’s later than I thought.  I’m one of those people who is embarrassed by being late, so I always feel bad and apologize.  I’m bothered by people who show up late and don’t seem to care, although at the same time, I admire their free-spiritedness.
7. If I were single, I would totally be a crazy cat lady.  We have four rescues, and it’s so hard for me not to bring home every kitty at the shelter.  Petting or snuggling with a cat calms me when I’m upset or stressed, so I have to admit they help me as much as I’ve helped them.

 

This is Noodles in her "roadkill pose."  Don't you just want to rub that fuzzy belly?

 
Now I have the pleasure of passing along the One Lovely Blog Award to 15 other bloggers.  What a treat!
 

 
Congrats, and thank you for inspiring me!  If you would like to play along, here are are the rules:

1. Tell us 7 things about yourself.
   
2. Pass this award on to 15 bloggers who inspire you.  Share the love!

Thanks again to Caroline for bestowing the One Lovely Blog Award upon me.  It only took me (cough) 15 days to discover her gracious offer, due to vacationing and being very behind on my reading blog subscriptions, and her email to me hiding away in my spam folder.  Yikes!  My acknowledgement may be a bit delayed, but what a way to start the day today.  Cheers!