Sunshine Blogger Award!

I was nominated for another blog award! My friend Claire @ Art and Soul nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award. Reading her reviews and talking to her on here always brings some sunshine to my day, so I am very grateful for her nomination 🙂

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the people/person who nominated you.
2. Write a post featuring the award button and answering the questions from your nominator(s). They will have nominated the same number of people as questions they answered.
3. Nominate the same number of bloggers as the person who nominated you did and come up with the same number of new questions. (I’m breaking this rule; see below)
4. Let your nominees know you’ve nominated them.

Here are my answers to Claire’s questions:

1. If you can’t have both, do you go for a starter or dessert?

   Dessert, for sure!!! I have a serious sweet tooth.

2. What advice would you give to your younger self?

   There is a lot. Among many things, I would tell myself not to settle in terms of friendships or relationships, to try to get out of my comfort zone/introverted shell a little bit more in high school and college, and to eat some more salads and fewer burgers 😉

3. What celebrity would you like to meet and why?

   I don’t know if she counts as a “celebrity”, although she definitely is one to me, but I really want to meet Julia Collins, who had the second-longest winning streak on Jeopardy! after Ken Jennings and was the most successful female winner in the history of the show. I auditioned in June and I’m waiting desperately for the call that I hope I get sometime within the next year or so, and I would like to know about her strategy, what she reads and watches in her spare time, and so on. She has discussed these things in interviews but it would be an honor to meet her. Yes I’m a nerd.

4. Tell us about a personal achievement you’re proud of.

   I guess I would say passing the bar exam in two states (New York and New Jersey) on my first try out. I was REALLY not confident that I would be able to pass on the first try. The next time the test was offered was two weeks before the wedding and I knew if I failed I would never be able to prepare for that re-take, so I really considered it a miracle that it happened when it was supposed to! And now I never have to take that demon test again 😀

5. What was your favorite toy(s) when you were a child?

   I wasn’t super into dolls really; I preferred stuffed animals and have definitely held onto a few of my favorite ones even now. I liked puzzles a lot, and I also learned to read before I turned 3 so honestly I had a LOT of books even when I was very young.

And here are my 5 questions:

1. What is the *worst* book you’ve read so far this year?
2. What is your all time favorite movie and/or TV show?
3. What makes you a good friend / a good person to have around?
4. Do you prefer to read multiple books at a time, or just one after another?
5. Would you rather live in a city, the country, or something in between?

And for the nominations, here is where I’m breaking the rules. I am going to just nominate ALL of my followers. If you haven’t already done this award and are intrigued by the questions I’ve posed I really encourage you to answer them! You can either do it below in the comments or make a post and say I nominated you. I mean it!

Real Neat Blog Award!

I was nominated for the Real Neat Blog Award by Tiffani @ The Book Venom. She was one of the first to find me when I started blogging and I’m very happy about that! Thank you, Tiffani!! 🙂

Award Rules:

• Thank and link the blogger who nominated you
• Answer the 7 questions the nomination has provided
• Nominate 7 other bloggers
• Create 7 questions for your nominees

My answers to Tiffani’s questions:

1. If you could choose your own name, what would it be? I’m actually pretty happy with my name. A lot of people ask me if it is short for Abigail but it’s not. I like that it’s a bit different in that way. I also like my new last name a lot although I’m still getting used to having to spell it for people. My maiden name was very, very easy.
2. What quality do you value most in your friends? Loyalty. My friends know that I will ALWAYS have their back, take their side in any type of disagreement, and just generally do whatever I can to encourage and support them always, and I expect the same in return!
   

   Rory and Lorelai know what I am talking about, as always

3. What is your most unusual nighttime or morning ritual? I generally can’t go to sleep without watching at least one or two episodes of Friends… but I don’t think that is SO unusual. In the morning when I leave for work I have to put a traffic cone in the spot where I park my car so that it isn’t taken by people who rent the boat slips behind our house or eat in the restaurant nearby. So that’s a pretty odd morning ritual. Yeah… we really need to move.
4. How far would you go to save your books if one day books are ordered to be destroyed? This question gives me heart palpitations :p I would probably do whatever I needed to do to preserve them. I’m not going to say that I’d die for my books… but I do have hundreds of them and they are precious to me… hopefully I won’t ever need to develop a real plan of action on this one.
5. Share the most important thing you have learned in life so far! I have a few. Most of them are clichés but I believe that they’re clichés for a reason: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all (this one is from my mom, who told me this all the time when I was younger and occasionally still needs to remind me); something great will happen to you when you least expect it; trust your intuition about people and their characters (and trust your friends’ opinions, too, even if you don’t want to believe them); don’t expect love and/or respect from anyone until you first love and respect yourself; a bad situation can always be made better with tea, a nap, a good book, and a dog.
6. Would you clone yourself if you could? I don’t think so. I think that one of me is enough in this world :p I also wouldn’t want my husband and friends to ditch real me for clone me. Although I guess I could send my clone to work and stay home and read… hmmmmmm
7. How do you think books will look in 100 years? I think that (unfortunately) paper books will continue to decline and ebooks will continue to rise. However I am also picturing situations in which books are still paper, but have tech elements to them, like moving illustrations (something like in Harry Potter) or a pop up computer like in Iron Man with word definitions and other things. That would be pretty sweet.

Now we are up to nominations. I think that I am going to bend the rules a little bit right now. Instead of just choosing 7 of the bloggers that I follow, I want everyone who is reading this to answer the questions, either in your own blog post or in the comments below, if you are so inclined. I think that all of you have great blogs!

Here are my questions for you all:

1. What is one of your favorite quotes? It can be from a book, movie, TV show…
2. What is your favorite thing to shop for *besides books*?
3. You have a day to do whatever you want, no matter the location or cost. What do you do?
4. Who would you choose to write your biography?
5. Where is your ideal reading spot?
6. What makes your home special to you?
7. What is your favorite word in any language?

Liebster Award!

I got some cool news that my little blog was nominated for the Liebster Award. In order to accept the nomination there are some rules:

1. Acknowledge the blog who nominated you and display the award
2. Answer eleven questions that the blogger gives you
3. Give eleven random facts about yourself
4. Nominate eleven bloggers that you think are deserving of the award (with less than 200 followers)
5. Let the bloggers know you have nominated them
6. Give them eleven questions to answer

I was nominated by Leslie at Books, in Other Words. Thank you, Leslie!!! 🙂

Here are the questions she gave me, with my answers:

1. What is the first book you remember really enjoying? I think that my life as a reader probably started with the Goosebumps books, I guess I was around 7 or 8 when I first began to read those. I think that there are still at least 50 of them in my parents’ basement. The new movie that’s coming out looks silly but is making me feel quite nostalgic!
2. Cats or dogs? (You must chose one!) DOGS. Always dogs. No question 🙂 (I don’t dislike cats, though, I just love doggies so much more)
3. Have you ever been out of the country? If so, where is your favorite place to travel? I have been to eight other countries outside of the US. My favorites so far have been Spain, the UK, and Norway. I hope to visit each of these again and do some more exploring too.
4. What’s your favorite season? Definitely autumn. I actually don’t mind winter either, but fall is better. In spring the temperature is fine, but I get allergies, and I am NOT a summer girl at all. It finally got super hot here and I’m not happy about it :p
5. Do you think that kids should still be taught how to write in cursive? Honestly, I don’t really think that it’s necessary anymore, and probably wasn’t even necessary when I learned it, but I loved learning it and thought it was fun, so I see nothing wrong with continuing to each it and would be happy for my future kids to learn. I don’t think it’s a controversial topic 😉
6. Do you speak any language besides English? Any amount of knowledge counts. I was a Spanish major in college and at the height of my studies I was near fluent, but I am so out of practice now. I really want to get back into it and get all of the way there. I can also fully read and write Hebrew, though I don’t have a very strong vocabulary, AND my husband made up his very own language called Uzateno which I am slowly learning.
7. Who is your favorite author? Neil Gaiman 🙂 I love that man. I need to find out when he’s going to be in my area next for a signing so I can meet him.
8. Do you have a favorite genre that you read? I don’t think that I do. I read from so many different genres and it is more about the individual book. I do LOVE historical fiction when it’s really good and transports me into the time and place when I’m reading.
9. Do you like to cook or bake, and are you good at it? I love to do both! I think I’m better at baking than cooking at this point, but I’m not a bad cook either and I’m always collecting cookbooks and trying new recipes. Our kitchen right now is small so it can be hard to work in there but I am hoping that once we move I will be able to cook much more. In law school I did a lot of “stress baking” and made lots of friends in my classes by plying them with extra cookies and cupcakes.
10. Have you ever sent something back in a restaurant when your food was wrong or not good? I’m sure that I have, but I can’t think of a specific time. I always get nervous that if I complain they will spit in my food or something…
11. How do you feel about pop music? Not my favorite genre but nothing at all against it!

Here are my eleven (very) random facts:

1. I drive a big, obnoxiously red SUV. His name is Clifford (after the Big Red Dog) and he is my baby. He is not a new car, but has considerably low mileage for his age, and I plan on driving him until there is nothing left of him to drive :p
2. I love all things Disney and especially Disney World. It’s honestly been more fun going there as a (technical) adult than as a kid. One of the best things is the food. We are always planning our next trip! Hopefully we can go again for our first wedding anniversary. My best best friend also lives in Orlando so when we go down there it’s an added bonus because I get to finally spend time with her.
3. In addition to my love of puppies, corgis most of all, I love baby farm animals, especially cows and goats! Soooo cute. My family has no idea where I get this from, considering that I grew up and live in the NYC suburbs…
4. I am lactose intolerant (among several other digestive issues) and in all likelihood have been so all of my life, but only found out when I was in middle school. The enzyme pills work for the most part but I still can’t really have regular milk or ice cream or too much cheese without getting very sick. It’s a sad life.
5. I have a brother who is 4 years younger than me. When he was born I was miserable and hated him. Now we are very close. He’s the smartest and nicest guy that I know.
6. I love having breakfast foods for dinner. More so pancakes or French toast than eggs.
7. I don’t really drink much alcohol and don’t see the appeal in getting really drunk. I never have and never will. I like how most alcohol tastes but will only have a few drinks at a time and stop before any considerable level of intoxication. It’s just how I am, and I really hate being pressured or feeling judged because of it.
8. Some of my favorite smells are gasoline and chlorine. Just typing that out sounds gross but it’s true…
9. I don’t really like talking on the phone. There are only a handful of people that I feel comfortable enough to have a long phone talk with. If you’re one of them, you know who you are and you’re special 🙂 Everyone else can just text me :p
10. In our current house search, one of the most important things for me is finding a room or at least part of a room that can serve as my library and reading area!! We have hundreds of books and they need to be displayed nicely and accessibly.
11. I completely understand (well, I don’t actually understand, but I respect the opinion) when people say that they don’t enjoy reading and would prefer to watch TV or another activity, but I dislike when people think that this is something to brag about (being like “LOL I HAVEN’T READ A BOOK IN YEARS”). In my opinion it makes you sound really unintelligent. I know that might come off as snobby but……. come on.

Okay. I am apparently a very boring person because it took me forever to come up with those 11 facts. Now for the bloggers that I nominate:

1. Fifteen Thousand Pages
2. Art and Soul
3. The Book Jar Blog
4. Little Pink Crayon Reviews
5. Book Poisoning
6. Christiana Reads
7. The Book Boulevard
8. The Book Venom
9. Holly, Every Day
10. That Weird Brown Girl
11. Every Book You Need to Read and More

Now to somehow come up with 11 questions for you that were as good as the ones I got:

1. Why did you start blogging?
2. Who would you want to play you in the movie version of your life?
3. Likewise, if you could play anyone in a movie, who would it be?
4. Who is your favorite musical artist?
5. Do you have any weird talents or habits?
6. What is a book that you always seem to recommend to people?
7. Do you collect anything interesting (besides books)?
8. What is one thing you hope to accomplish soon?
9. Are you a coffee drinker?
10. Do you have any pet peeves?
11. Do you prefer paper books, e-books, or audiobooks?

I will let everyone know that I nominated them but if you have already done this then please don’t feel obligated to do it again, just know that you are TWICE as awesome :p