Awards!

Katrina DeLallo of The World Crafter’s Inkspot recently gave me this cheery award. (Even though last week was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. Injecting a healthy dose of optimism now!) Thanks, Katrina! To claim it, I have to tell you seven things about myself. Here goes:

1. I got braces when I was nine and had them for two and a half years. (Yeah, my teeth were that bad.) I also did the whole headgear thing--at night, thank goodness--and wore a retainer until college.

2. Top Chef is the only TV show I watch regularly.

3. When I was four or five, I wanted to be a teacher. At six or seven, I switched to paleontologist. By the time I was twelve, I wanted to be a marine biologist. After Volcano and Dante’s Peak came out, I switched to geologist. By high school, I wanted to be a lawyer. But my freshman year of college, I switched back to teacher:)

4. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon (although I’ve heard that if you take a four-wheeler over the mountains just southeast of my house, you can get to the North Rim in an hour or two).

5. Honey Bear and I will celebrate our seventh anniversary this Saturday.

6. I have an unnatural fear of choking. I couldn’t swallow an Advil until I was, like, fourteen. I still can’t really swallow pregnancy vitamins. (It only takes about three months for me to give in and order the more expensive chewable variety. This is usually after I’ve gagged on those big pills and made myself throw up a few times.)

7. My middle name is Marie, as is my daughter's, my mother's, my grandmother's, and my great-grandmother's (I think). We're also the oldest daughters in our families, which explains the name-chain.

I’m passing this award on to the following six bloggers:

Amy Sonnichsen of The Green Bathtub
Jenilyn Tolley of Jenilyn M. Tolley
Kayeleen Hamblin of Kayeleen’s Creation Corner
Liesl of Writer Ropes and Hopes
Mary Frame of It’s all fun and games until someone gets an agent (don’t you love that blog title?)
Marybk of Not an Editor

Furthermore, the effervescent Anita Grace Howard of A Still and Quiet Madness gave me the Instrumental Blog Award as part of her first biannual Wonderland Bloggy Awards. She created the badge herself, and it features the White Rabbit because her latest manuscript is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Anita signed with Jenny Bent a couple of weeks ago, so if you’re interested in getting an up-and-coming author, definitely give her blog a look-see.

Well, I think that about covers it. Any random facts you'd like to share with the rest of us?