One Lovely Blog, and More

Thanks to my two blogging friends, Katrin at Puppilalla and Lisa J. at Sunlight in Winter, for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Blogging has led to so many wonderful things; making new friends, inspiration - there's no end of it in the blogging community; learning - not just new skills but even technical things like how to put a button on a blog or how to use html! The thing I love almost about blogging is the support that people give each other. I've always said that quilters are such a lovely bunch of people - generous, fun, creative, and most of all encouraging. Quilters put a lot of good karma out in the world, of that I am certain. And the Lovely Blog Award is just another example of it. So back at you, Lisa and Katrin, and here's to spreading the love...

So, seven facts about me...and do they have to be interesting? That's a rather tall order, methinks. But I'll give it a stab, anyway:

Seven - I am the fifth generation in my family to live on our ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas ( Believe me, I never thought I would come back and live here when I was young, but here I am and I love my little patch of grass - I feel so grateful to be out here in the middle of all this nature - lucky me!)

Six -I sometimes sing and play music to our cows. Why? I'm not sure but sometimes when I'm driving by and they are all hanging out and a particularly good song happens to be playing, I will stop and turn up the stereo and sing to them. I'm pretty sure they enjoy it - I mean, they don't run away, and some of them even stop chewing their cud for a few moments and look at me (in what I take to be a grateful way). and appear to be listening. They particularly seem to enjoy Sheryl Crow songs. But sometimes I play classical stuff for them. I think they like that, too. [This is a true fact. I'm not making it up. In fact, if my dad were a little more open to it, I would try to play music when we are working the cattle, just to see if they are a little more cooperative, calmer, etc. I hypothesize that they would be.]

Five - I know how to herd many different animals, drive a tractor, castrate farm animals, butcher chickens, build a barb-wire fence, and I'm really, really good at chopping weeds in the pasture. Now, these are not things that I do for fun (because they are definitely not what I would call leisure time activities). They are skills I picked up growing up on a ranch that are, shall we say, somewhat esoteric?

Four - When I got married, I wanted to keep my maiden name as my middle name, but it took a while for me to embrace my new initials, which now (to my father's infinite hilarity) spelled COW . (That's why there is a cow on the front page of my website, btw.)

Three - I have been friends with two of my besties, Judy and Theresa, since kindergarten - that's 46 years! ( I'm really not sure how that is possible since we are only 33, but somehow this math totally works for me!)

Two - For most of my life (since about age nine) I have wanted to join the Peace Corps and go to Africa. This hasn't happened....yet.

One - I never ever imagined that I would A) learn to sew and 2) become an obsessed, excited, joyful, unabashed and unrepentant quilter. I self taught myself to sew (rather poorly, I might add) after I got married and didn't start quilting until I moved back to Texas in 2002. My excellent mother was a quilter and got me to try it and then (dun dun duhhhhhhn) the madness began. Thank goodness.

With the nomination for One Lovely Blog, one has to do the following:

*Thank the person who nominated you, and give a link to his/her blog.

*List the rules.

*Display the image of the award on your post.

*List seven facts about yourself.

*Nominate (up to) 15 bloggers for this award, and notify them to let them know you have nominated them.

My nominations are going out to: (I know some, many, or all of them may have already received this but they can choose to participate again if they like)

Miranda at I Have Purple Hair

Tish at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Sarah at 123 Quilts

Hillary at Entropy Always Wins

Marianne at The Quilting Edge

Jayne at Twiggy and Opal

Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts

I'm sure I'm going to kick myself for not adding more people - there are so many others by whom I am so inspired all the time and there are many others I didn't nominate because I happen to have already recently read their one lovely blog posts...again i will say it - quilters are simply lovely people. So glad to be a part of this (very large) group of #makersgonnamake!

Thanks again, Lisa J. and Katrin. You two have lovely, lovely blogs as well! Until next time - Namaste quilting world, namaste.