The Leibster Award

I have been nominated/tagged for the Liebster Award.   These can be a bit like a chain letter.  You pass it along to others after performing the duties of the award.  It's fun!   I've not done one like this before and I jumped at it, being relatively bored of late.

The blogster who nominated me is Joan Somers Design.  Thank you Joan!

She is an enthusiastic person who posts about colorful design possibilities with links to where you can purchase items to jazz up your home or patio and beyond.  She also posts some delicious looking recipes that can make me drool!  She too participated in the A to Z challenge, which I totally loved!

The award is meant to introduce readers to new and interesting blogs--a get to know you type of award.  Ok, so if you get nominated for the Liebster Award, you have to do these things, if you choose to accept:



1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.

2. Give readers 11 random facts about yourself.

3. Answer 11 questions from the blog of the person who nominated you.

5. Nominate 5-11 bloggers for this award.

6. Come up with 11 questions for your nominees.

So, to begin, here are 11 random facts about me.

1.  I LOVE water.  I like to swim in water, paddle on it, jump into it.  I am drawn to water like metal to a magnet.  However, I can't tolerate chlorine, so my water enjoyment is limited to a few short summer months here and a few trips to  distant lakes.

2.  I have seasonal allergies, particularly to dust and grasses.

3.  I want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, at least through Oregon, before death.

4.  I LOVE music.  I would love to go to concerts of my favorite bands but I do not like most country music at all.  I was born in the rock and roll era and that's what I love, along with jazz, blues, blue grass and classical.

5. I love to lay on my back outside on black nights and stare up into the stars.

6.  I love camp fires.

7.  I love my two brothers and wish I could see them sometimes.

8.  I still think about one of my boyfriends from way back.

9.  I enjoy Sudoku puzzles.

10.  I like to clean.

11.  When I go to dirty messy stuffed with stuff houses, it drives me kind of nuts and I want to clean up and organize their house.  (lots of people live like hoarders around here)

Here are my answers to Joan's questions:

1.  Screened porch or deck?  I have neither here, but I'd go for a deck for sure.

2.  Library or bookstore?  Probably bookstore, better yet, a creepy,  over-crowded piled high used bookstore.

3. Movies or happy hour?  Movies, definitely.  I love watching movies.

4.  Grass or sand?  Sand!!  I love the beach, would love a warm beach (Oregon beaches are ok, but the water temps are in the 50's).  I want a tropical island!

5.  Pizza or Tacos?  Tacos all the way!

6.  Fiction or non Fiction?  Fiction!  Reality is bad enough.  I want my fantasy world!  I NEED my fantasy world.

7.  Sunrise or sunset?  Not a big fan of either.

8.  Classic rock or classical?   I love classic rock, but I'm classical fan too.  Both!

9.  Coffee, black or white?  I do coffee brown.  One cup in the morning, with an added tablespoon of hot chocolate powder, and a few drops peppermint extract.

10.  Neutral or bright colors?  I like my colors bright, mostly.

11.  Flip flops or cowboy boots?  Flip flops of course.  Barefoot better.  Cowboy boots are so pointed and pinchy and uncomfortable and confining.

Here are my blog nominations (the chain letter recipients, lucky you):

1.   Live and Learn

2.  Darla Sands

3.  Elephants Child

4.  High Riser

5.  Lighten Up

6.  The Feral Life Cat Blog

7.  Thoughts and Happenings

My questions to those I nominated.

1.  Cats or dogs?

2.  Your favorite book?

3.  Your favorite movie?

4.  Mass transport commute or your own car?

5.  Eat out or eat in?

6.  Noise or silence?

7.  Crowds or Alone?

8.  Have you ever been to a county fair?

9.  Jet ski or kayak?

10.  TV or book?

11.   City or country?

Thanks for branching out, as I have, with these sorts of blog challenges.  Forces me out of my tiny little hole.

This post has taken longer than almost any other post I've written.  And I still need to notify those I nominated!  Whine whine.

I did trap a cat last night, out at the Lebanon colony where I already trapped 34 cats.  They'd had this orange and white male show up about a month ago, badly injured.  He stuck around, to eat and sleep and try to recover from whatever got him.  He is better they say, but my gosh, does he ever have a neck wound.

He is in the garage right now and Monday goes to the vet.

I hope he'll be ok.  The couple will take him back.


Also, this was posted around facebook, with a mention online, in the column of the local papers and about the local papers who just did some extreme lay offs and staff reduction.



FROM A READER:

"Lee Enterprises had already whittled down its Mid-Valley Newspapers in Oregon to a skeletal crew over the years, but yesterday it laid off even more people. They cut editorial staff from dailies Albany Democrat-Herald (sports editor) and Corvallis Gazette-Times (entertainment editor, city editor, a photographer and reduced hours of the news editor to 29/week), cut two positions from the weekly Lebanon Express, and cut an unknown number of ad and circulation positions. That means there is one part-time entertainment employee between the two dailies, the two dailies share a sports editor and a city editor, and the weekly Lebanon Express is now a one-person show. I heard that Mike McInally, the shared general manager/editor between the two dailies, was tasked with cutting the budget by $300,000.


I have no idea how they are expected to put out the news. We all figured they would eventually merge the two dailies but we had no idea they would do it this way... there is still a facade of two newspapers."

We have two papers, one published for Corvallis, the ultra liberal upscale university town across the river, where I lived most of my life until extreme lack of affordable housing ended me up over here, in Albany, where there is another paper put out by the same publisher, for the ultra conservative poverty stricken population of this area. They are virtually the same paper, put out by the same staff.

But they have downsized and downsized the papers, until now they have cut so deep, there may be no saving them. Among the losses, one of my cat loving friends, who worked there for as long as I remember. She worked extreme hours many of those in reality unpaid because she was on salary. She also is a cat lover and feeds neighborhood strays.

If anyone would like to donate bags of cat food, to help her continue to feed the strays, after this loss of her job, let me know.