I’m Honoured!

I have been quite touched to be nominated for the Liebster Award, by a blogger I’ve been following for a couple of months: Mended Wheels. What a lovely thought! I immediately googled what a Liebster Award is, because I’ve not come across it before, and now … I’m conflicted!

The Liebster Award is basically a chain letter that is designed to encourage new bloggers, and introduce them into the blogging community. Which is a worthy aim! But it’s a chain letter, which is bad. But it made me feel briefly pretty excited, which is good! But if I accept, I have to do a bunch of work! Which is bad. But it’s blogging, and I like to do this: so that’s good. But I don’t want to pass it on … which is bad.

I hope you are getting the whole cursed frogurt reference here.

The award (if accepted) comes with a neat little task of answering some questions from the nominee. I like this part, as blogging is all about sharing and participating with a community, and if you guys want to ask me questions, by all means do so! It also means I should nominate five more blogs to receive the award.

Since I would feel like a bit of a jerk to *not* accept this award, I will do so under the condition that I will accept this exactly once!

Update: In a twist of fate, I have been nominated a second time for this award by Sarah of Life In the Orchard, before I had time to accept the first! I feel so honoured that you both have chosen to nominate me. I don’t want to ignore Sarah’s nomination, especially since I would have nominated her own blog, had she not recently accepted the award herself! So I will answer the questions posed by Jill, and simply acknowledge Sarah and her great blog here as a way of appreciation. Thank you!

Here are my answers to the questions posed by Jill. There are some great questions here!

1.  What makes your blog different?

Hmm, perhaps that I’m writing about a fairly diverse range of topics (sewing, frugal living, gardening, quilting) but under the umbrella of “Living Simply”. I was worried that people who enjoyed some topics would be irritated by seeing posts on such different areas. So far, though, I think this has worked well.

2.  What do you want to accomplish by blogging?

Really, I was hoping to document tips and information for myself, my children (once they grow up and start running their own households) and for people in my community who ask me how and why I do what I do. I want people to be inspired to live greener, save their money for things that will make them happy, and to live healthy happy lives. Not asking much, huh?

3.  Dogs or cats?

Chickens! Oh, cheeky. No, I’m a cat person, though we don’t keep one here. There are too many native birds and wildlife here to introduce a cat into the mix. Feral cats are a real problem in the Australian bush. So I commune with neighbourhood cats instead. 🙂

4.  What is your favorite TV show?

Ooh, tricky. We don’t watch commercial TV so the shows we choose to watch are always hand-picked. We are watching Elementary, Sherlock, Miss Fisher’s Detectice Agency, Midsomer Murders. Agents of Shield. Doctor Who. Of all these shows, Doctor Who comes on free-to-air but we choose to buy it on iTunes because we get the best quality that way. So: Doctor Who!

5.  What is a weird talent you have?

I can wiggle my left ear lobe up and down. 🙂

6.  Is your blog a secret from family and friends or do you share?

I think many of my subscribers are family members. Mum and Dad and Isobel get the posts in their email inboxes. Stephen reads via feedly 🙂

7.  What household chore do you hate the most?

Without a doubt: cleaning the shower cubicle. Absolutely hate this. So much grout to clean! Urgh, subway tile is a pain. And the floor is federation tile (lots of small pieces, but laid in out dodgy with … lots of grout).

8.  What kind of future posts can we expect to see from you?

Much of the same kind of thing. 🙂 My categories are fairly indicative of what I intend to post. Occasional tips for reducing debt or saving money, or ideas for upcycling, or galleries of the garden. Something I haven’t yet done a post on is my medieval re-enactment hobby. I have a big yearly event coming up that I’m starting to sew for, so expect something different in the Handmade department in the next month or so. 🙂

9.  If you had to move to another country RIGHT NOW what country would you pick and why?

The UK – I think it would be my favourite climate type (temperate) and I would have a wonderful time exploring an area that has a lot of medieval history. Or France. Or Germany. 🙂

10.  Do you have a passport?  If so, what stamps are in it?

I did have a passport, but it’s expired now. Most recently I travelled to San Jose and New Jersey on business, but that was ten years ago now! Before that I’ve seen Bali and New Caledonia, and back in High School I travelled to Japan. These days I aspire to travel within my own country to see some wonders that may not be around for much longer (the Great Barrier Reef and Tasmania are on my actual list for “one day”).

Nominations

The next part of the award conditions are to nominate five small blogs. I’m having trouble with this part, because a lot of the blogs I would nominate have already received the award, and I don’t want to tag you back again! It turns out I also mostly follow blogs with large followings.

So in the spirit of the award, I’m going to list some blogs that I think worthy of encouragement, or that I think would be great for you to add to your reading list / community. These bloggers are under absolutely no obligation to accept the award! Basically, this is a shout out that you are doing a lovely job, not an obligation. 🙂

In no particular order, I give you:

• The Siren’s Tale
• Mindfully Making
• The Birds in the Bush
• Stitch and Sow
• Little Green Village

You guys are doing great work, I hope you keep it up! If you choose to accept the award (and again: do say “thanks, but no thanks!” if you want! I really won’t be offended!) then I have only a couple of questions to pose:

1. Where do you see yourself in 6 months time? What are you dreaming of doing?
2. Do you have any wisdom that has been passed down to you from a previous generation that you’d like to share?
3. What superpower would you choose?

Thank you for the honour, Jill of Mended Wheels, and Sarah of Life in the Orchard. I’m touched that you would think of me in your list of nominees. 🙂