I can’t keep the Awards closet completely closed for Jen and Trish

/ April 16, 2015

On March 21, I accepted the Liebster Award from my dear friend Rachel over the other side of the big pond and then decided t close the Awards closet door for a while. With 26 shiny badges in my possession, well, it was time to give others a chance, I declared in that tab up top.

I felt good about it. But then …

On April 8, along came a couple of comments from missjennym at Babbleworthy. She’d nominated me for the Liebster Award. This particular one was for new and unnoticed bloggers.

I’ve liked missjennym from the moment I caught sight of her post about her lifelong love affair. With Diet Coke. That made me send a note about my lifelong love affair. With Diet Pepsi. She responded with good nature. I continued to follow the funny and fine work of this Australian blogger.

So I thanked her for the nomination and told her about my closed award stance and she replied, among other things, “Do it!”

Call me easy Mark.

And then on April 11 came comments from Trish at Ten Years a Single Mom. She’d nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. I thanked Trish, a blogger from the Boston area whose writing is very inspiring indeed as she works as a nurse and raises her family on her own. I thanked her.

Liebster Award

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Thank you one more time for nominating me for the Liebster Award, Jenny, and Very Inspiring Blogger Award, Trish. I am honored by both.

Here are the rules for the Liebster Award.

Link back to the person who nominated you.

Give 11 random facts about yourself.

Answer 11 questions from your nominator.

Nominate 11 new and obscure bloggers.

Come up with 11 questions for them to answer.

Inform your nominees.

Here are the rules for the Very Inspiring Bloggers Award

State three things that have inspired you this week.

Nominate bloggers that inspire you.

Inform your nominees.

For Jen, I shall follow the first two. Revamp that to Not as Easy Mark.

For Trish, I shall go the full route. (I don’t have to judge who is and isn’t a new or unknown blogger with this one.) But as I’d done with the past several, I’ll nominate new folks on my nomination radar. No repeats.

Here we go for two award acceptances in one while my award closet’s door is momentarily cracked open.

11 random facts about myself

1) I love to eat chinese food for lunch.

2) I prefer to start a chinese food meal off with wonton soup.

3) I know it’s less healthy, but I pick a pork egg roll over a spring roll every time.

4) I add duck sauce to my egg rolls and soy sauce to my wonton soup.

5) I think barbecued spare ribs are the most fabulous main dish for this lunch, but they’re too expensive.

6) I think the chicken chow mein with pork fried rice combo is a reasonably priced alternative because the pork egg roll comes with it.

7) I’m walking Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle a little longer every day now that spring has arrived in Syracuse.

8) I was way more at fault than Ellie B when our great next door neighbor Lorraine greeted us on a walk two weeks ago and called my cherished rescue mutt a fat-bottomed girl. (Too many shared chinese food lunches.)

9) I vow to get Ellie B in beach shape before our June week in Cape Cod. Yes, we take Dogamous Pyle with us, and she loves the afternoon we walk through Provincetown and then on its dogs-allowed beach.

10) I have been bitten by the iPhone photography bug and took WordPress Photo 101 in March.

11) My iPad Air now says it holds 7,395 photos, and that’s only because I’ve started to weed out the folders and delete, delete, delete.

Jenny’s Questions

1) Favourite childhood memory? Going to see the New York Mets play baseball at Shea Stadium, each and every time, with my grandfathers, father, whole family, and then with my friends.

2) Would you like to be famous? In what way? Not in a mega-celebrity way. Working as a daily journalist with a column photo published for decades, I had a small bit of local recognition in Syracuse, and that was and is plenty.

3) What makes you laugh? Intelligent jokes, shared clever observational conversations and puns. Well, puns make me smile and sometimes chuckle. I do not like pranks that make other people look foolish.

4) If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Salad with blue cheese and Italian dressing, sirloin steak medium, french fries and no-sugar-added vanilla ice cream for desert. (Thought I was going to say Chinese food, didn’t you?)

5) Do you have a nickname? What is it? I have several nicknames. My latest and most-used is Beels.

6) Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without? My iPad hooked up to WiFi.

7) What are some of your pet peeves? I’m tired of people who prefer to be angry and confrontational and terminally pessimistic. That should count for three right there. People that talk during the movie in theaters are self-centered, rude and boorish. The same goes for concerts. Singing with the crowd, OK. Dancing with the crowd, OK. Talking with your friends and ignoring the performer on stage, not OK. It’s not your private living room.

8) How many pillows do you sleep with? One pillow when I’m sleeping. A second for propping comfort during any TV-watching or reading time beforehand.

9) Did you own a care bear? If not – favourite toy? No care bear. My favorite toy was an electric football game. VRRRRRRR. The shaking motor made the little men go.

10) What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love? My dear wife Karen and I eloped and got married in City Hall in Niagara Falls, N.Y., 2 1/2 hours from Syracuse, without telling anybody.

11) Do you collect anything? I collected vinyl record albums. I still have more than 1,000 but don’t buy new ones. I have thousands of music CDs after 21 years as a music critic, but now most are boxed up tight and secure and put down the hole with the record albums. (That’s what we call our basement crawl space.)

Three things that inspired me this week

1. Having brunch with my 25-year-old daughter Elisabeth and her terrific boyfriend George Three to celebrate her birthday inspired MDW Karen and I that she’s doing well at this stage in her life.

2. Karen got through this week again in her own way, as she thought about the time she had with her daughter Danielle, who we lost unexpectedly at this time seven years ago. Karen celebrates the 27 years she had with her daughter and grieves the years that were taken away. My wife inspires me every day, but particularly every April 14.

3. I interviewed a hard-working, intelligent woman for an upcoming Mark It Up community blog column for Syracuse public media site waer.org who was inspiring for her good outlook on life. I think she’ll inspire readers when I post my story in two weeks, two.

Bloggers that Inspire Me

My nominations:

missjennym of Babbleworthy. Oh, yes I did, Jenny! Anybody who can twist my arm like you did and make me feel good about it … Your vast knowledge about popular TV shows of our time is very inspiring as well, my friend. Keep writing. Your blog will not be unknown for long.

Me Who Am I. I met Me Who through November’s Nano Poblano blog writing month, and she’s inspired me since with her consistently sharp observations about life. She’s a mother who wonders about the future of not just her son and his challenge, but all the young people of the world.

When Women Inspire. Christy Birmingham tackles issues that are vital to women, inspecting history and our times and thinking about her future. She writes in such an accessible style that men should read to keep up, too. I also am a fan of her site for her inspiring poetry, Poetic Parfait.

priorhouse Y handles her beautiful site as a canvas for her striking photography, her observations about many cities throughout the States, and her wise writing. She’s become an inspiring friend who’s always ready with advice and encouragement.

Nurse Kelly Knows. Kelly delivers modern day parables, poems, a little fiction and a lot of life wisdom in her own easy way. Kelly inspires me with her depth of conviction in life’s good side.

Joeyfully Stated. Joey carries a wise wit through pain and happy times. It’s an inspiring touch every day.

I hope you accept my nomination as a tribute, a nod toward all of your good and hard work here in BloggyVille, and a sign of my appreciation of how you inspire me.

And I hope you all who haven’t had the chance to read their blogs click over now to say hello. Tell ’em Mark sent you.

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46 thoughts on “I can’t keep the Awards closet completely closed for Jen and Trish”

  3. I think someone was definitely craving Chinese food when he wrote this, wasn’t he, Beels, er, uh, I mean Long Island Kid! 😉 I always knew you were a cool dude, but this just proved it yet again. 🙂 Big hugs to Karen this week especially! ❤

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  5. first of all – thanks so much marly mark (um, I mean beels) – and I liked the different feel to each of your answers categories – and just want to send a hug to your wife who lost her daughter on 4-14 ❤
    also – our dogs have lost almost ten pounds each since last fall – mainly just watching the "extra snacks" which were adding on the calories – but glad Ellie B will be beach ready.

    I like how you nominated bloggers and gave a nice meaty reason why- I am going to bookmark this post in a folder I have for summer reading – and hopefully I will get back here and check out some of the others you nominated. and thanks again for the nice words about my blog – it really made my day and I respect your opinion a lot and so sending a high five and blog bro hug to say much as gracias.

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    • As I recall, Y, you were the one to advise me to keep my dang Awards door open back then. Smart woman. I closed it again after this. We shall see for how long. I think I enjoy and therefore am good at spreading the spotlight and sharing random facts in BloggyVille, but 28 is such a number that others really do need their chance.

      We have Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle on a much stricter limited people-food diet. This will do it, we think.

      Shifting gears, thank you for your kind words to Karen. Very much. It will always be a tough day here.

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      • well mark as much as some people think awards are cheesy or they “need” to move on – after I read your post Iw as reminded again as to why I like the posts for them so much – they allow us to hear “shares” from a blogger that sometimes do not fit anywhere else. And you do a pretty great job at sharing fun stuff – but some bloggers really need a post like this as a catalyst – but even here for you – the different sections were just so personable – and so glad you opened them for a combined post. worked well…

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  6. congrats – hey, if you’re a winner, you’re a winner, there’s no denying it. always good to learn more facts about you through these awards, too. hugs to karen –

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  8. COngrats Easy Mark. 😉 And I use to be a Diet Pepsi Devotee, turned to Diet Coke Devotee. But have been Diet Pop FREE for over two months. And the pain in my chest has decreased 95% . Well worth the sacrifice!!!

    I’m sorry for your DW Karen’s loss Mark. I can’t imagine that. I’m glad she has the support of her DH during this time. I always love how you write about DW Karen, it’s so wonderful to see love and relationships spoken of so strongly and respectfully.

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      • That kind of support is always needed. There’s never an end to it is there? My husband’s family lives it now, and will forever more.

        And thank you, I will gladly live without it to live healthier.

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  9. A double congrats to you! This is a cause for celebration *pops open the champagne*

    And I agree, Chinese food is the best. I, too, like a wonton soup…. but the best bit is the fortune cookie at the end 😀

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  10. Congratulations on your awards! You deserve them. I get the feeling that you were craving chinese food when you wrote this. 🙂 Sounds delicious right now! We share many of the same pet peeves, and I love the way that you and your wife got married. What a great memory of starting your life together.

    Also, thank you so much for the nomination. Your summary of my blog proves that you really pay attention to and care about your fellow bloggers. Thank you!

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    • Thank you for your kind words, Me Who. Yes, I was craving Chinese food when I wrote my post. 🙂

      You are very deserving of your nomination because of the way you approach life and your blog. Bravely, my friend.

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  12. Oh Mark, you are so sweet. Thank you kindly for the award and for the kind words you say about the blog. I am so proud of that space and all of the discussions that come from readers’ comments. Having readers such as yourself humbles me. Congratulations to you too on the award. You have me wanting chinese food now too! Also, hugs to you and Karen for what must be such a difficult day on the 14th, and your words are so touching. I am thankful to know you, Mark.

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  13. The one thing I like about these awards is learning more about the person as they answer the questions asked. That you love Chinese food, are also knows as Beels, and love your Mrs. B so much is awesome! 🙂 🙂

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  15. Congrats!
    I am so glad someone gets to go to Provincetown this summer! lol You know the other day, I mentioned how I have these fond eating memories? Well, in Provincetown, it was a blue house on the water with a fairly shady parking area. I wish I could remember the name!
    I love that y’all eloped. We sure wish we had — but instead we have terrible stories to entertain people with, lol!
    I’m on a stir-fry/jasmine rice kick you would not believe, so I relate to your love of Chinese lunch!
    Have a happy Thursday! 🙂

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    • Provincetown is a wonder for our eyes, and the eating sure is good, too, Joey. Now that we’ve decided to bring Ellie B instead of leaving her behind in the rental cottage mid-Cape in her crate, we have to be more selective in where we dine for lunch. I think I know the blue house you are talking about, though!

      We have eloped stories, too, such as both of us calling our kids at the same time on our cells immediately afterward and getting the same exact answer almost in unison: “It’s about time!” Or me gushing to the border guard as we crossed to honeymoon for one day and night in the much nicer Niagara Falls, Ontario, “We just got married!” And how about finding a restaurant called The Love Boat to eat our wedding day dinner? Can’t make that up, Joey. 🙂

      I’m leaving the house in a minute for golf round No. 1 of the season, with a free coupon from the winter golf show, so, yes, I plan a sunny and happy Thursday. Thank You! You have a great Thursday, too. 🙂

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