You Really Like Me

Over the past month or so, I've been very touched when fellow bloggers have contacted me to let me know they've awarded me with blogger awards of one variety of another. Jen of Ellison Lane Quilts was kind enough to nominate me for the Stylish Blogger Award, and Jen of The Quilty Home was nice enough to nominate me for the Versatile Blogger Award. The rules for both awards are pretty similar - 7 things about yourself and then you tag other bloggers you like for the award. Forgive me for lumping these awards together into one post.

So first, 7 things about myself:

1. I love dishes, all varieties, at all places. Whenever I make a Goodwill run to drop off donations, I always take a couple of minutes to peruse the dish selection. When I'm in Target, any department store, Williams-Sonoma, TJ Maxx, pretty much anywhere that might possibly carry dishes, I always peruse the merchandise, just to see what's there. I rarely buy anything. I just like to look.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phlora/3515552154/

2. I used to hoard books the same way that I hoard fabric now. When I was in library school, I had this terrible fear that in order to find a job, I'd have to accept a position in a teeny tiny public library at the corner of Nowhere and Down Yonder, USA that wouldn't have much of a collection or a budget to build one, leaving me with only Charles Dickens and monthly Harlequin novels as my only reading options. (Disclaimer: this was long before e-readers hit the market.) So I hit the local library book sales and thrift store bookshelves HARD. Luckily, this fear has not yet materialized. I've only read a small fraction of the hoarded books, and I'm coming to the realization that I can check out most of them from one of the awesome libraries nearby. So, I'm gradually giving them back to the thrift stores and libraries to sell (again) to some poor paranoid grad student.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccacnorthlib/3554628032/

3. There's something about warm weather that really brings out my self-sufficiency in the kitchen. I'm much more likely to make homemade kitchen staples in the hot months of spring and summer than I am in the winter. In the past month, I've made homemade marinara sauce, focaccia, yogurt, and tortillas for the first time since last summer.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60in3/3167360869/

4. I'm a Freecycle convert. It's the greatest tool I've found to quickly get rid of stuff I don't want and/or that I can't fit in my car to donate off-site. I think it even beats the Goodwill (assuming you don't want tax receipts). You don't have to load the stuff in your car, you can just leave it on your front porch, and the designated person comes to pick it up.  So far, I've gotten rid of an old ceiling fan, smelly fabric from the 1980s and 1990s, an old desk I used as a sewing table, a seatless garden chair, and all the old cabinet pulls from our kitchen cabinets. (Seriously, someone sent out a call for kitchen cabinet knobs.) I look forward to many more happy years of freecycling.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hebe/2217288128/

5. I save almost all of my folded corner triangles. You know the ones I'm talking about, right? The ones that are leftover after you've made a flying geese unit or snowball block, where you cut away the triangles and fold over and press the top fabric? Yeah, I've saved them all in sandwich bags by project, which are then stuffed into an even bigger plastic bag. Hooray for teeny tiny scraps!

6. I don't like mushrooms. The Husbatron doesn't either. It's one of the many reasons we're so compatible.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofstone/168867476/

7. One of my favorite things in the world is to use up stuff. I derive grreeeaaat satisfaction from using all the thread on a spool, all the peanut butter in a jar, and the last of the milk. It's probably because I like closure.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortimer/250349049/

Sorry to take the cheater's way out, but I feel kinda guilty singling out some people for an award and not others. So, if you're reading this and haven't been nominated for one of these awards, consider yourself officially NOMINATED and TAGGED.

If you're here for the food, here's what we're eating this week:

• Spinach and Cheese Quesadillas, Drunken Beans
• Orzo Salad on a bed of arugula
• Twice Baked Potatoes with some fresh corn and roasted red pepper thrown in for added veggies, Green Beans
• Soup Night - I have a quart each of Black Bean Soup and Tomato Soup, along with some bread sticks and corn muffins stocked up in the freezer. We're having a soup buffet that night.
• Pizza? Carrburrito's takeout? Whatever it is, Friday night's dinner will definitely be low-maintenance, since this week is my first full work week in about a month.