(Is the above really the latest Sunshine Blogger Award logo? Looks kinda messy.)
So, Bookstooge sort-of-nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Thank you, Bookstooge! I am so flattered. I think his exact words were, “If you’re reading this, consider yourself nominated, because it means you have a pulse.”
Rules For The Sunshine Blogger Award:
- Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
- Thank the person who nominated you.
- Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
- Answer your nominators’ questions.
- Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
- Ask your nominees 11 questions.
- Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.
Questions from Bookstooge:
- Why Would Anyone Consider Cereal to be Soup?
It’s because they are trying to categorize things according to algorithmic rules/decision trees instead of the way the human mind normally works, which is by constructing a schema for the thing in question and then eyeballing it.
With schemas, if the thing mostly resembles the schema, it is considered an instance of that thing, even if it misses checking some important boxes. And if it checks all the boxes but manifestly does NOT resemble the schema at all, then it’s not an instance of that thing.
Cereal is in the latter category. It’s an ungodly modern creation of Mr. Kellogg, who believed that eating meat was morally wrong as well as unhealthy, and sought to banish it from the breakfast table. And I say this as someone who very much likes breakfast cereal, particularly as an evening snack, even though I know it has wreaked havoc with my metabolism (see question #10).
2. Why Do You Blog?
I blog to get you interested in my books. Go buy ’em. BUT, warning, don’t buy the Kindle version of The Strange Land until the end of next week, when it will cost 99 cents because of a special promo.
3. How Do You Justify Your Existence? (I got that one from the Tales of the Black Widowers, good isn’t it?)
Yep, it’s a good one.
“So God created man. In the image of God created He him, male and female created He them. And He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, the cattle and the creatures that move along the ground.'”
Edit: By quoting this passage, I am NOT asserting that the only justification for our life is to reproduce … i.e., that your life somehow has no meaning if you are not a parent. I happen to have been given three children, but that’s God’s gift to me, not mine to Him. No, the point of quoting this passage is this: I justify my existence because God made me. He made us. He wanted there to be people. He wanted us to exist as male and female. And, per the latter part of the passage, He wanted there to be a lot of us. If you exist and you are a human, He is happy about that.
4. How Do You Choose Who to Follow?
Unfortunately, I’m a lot like Trump in this way. If you say nice things to me, I like you and then I follow you.
An alternative route is that you posted something that really interested me. This usually means book reviews, discussion about writing, theology, ancient history, and sometimes art.
5. If John McClane and John Wick were tied on a railroad track and you could only set one of them free, which would you choose and why?
O.K., I had to duckduckgo him, but John McClane is the Bruce Willis character in Die Hard. I would save John McClane instead of John Wick for the following reasons:
- John Wick could definitely save himself.
- I only saw the first Die Hard, but in it, John McClane is a family man, whereas John Wick doesn’t even have a dog anymore.
- Once when we were in Indonesia, somebody swore that my husband looked exactly like Bruce Willis and now I can’t unsee it. That makes me think Bruce Willis is even more handsome.
6. In a game of Parcheesi, who would win, Spongebob Squarepants or the Doom Slayer?
I expect Spongebob to win in the same way that Bugs Bunny would.
7. Do you feel guilty about all of my oxygen that you are breathing?
Yes. My gosh, don’t remind me!
8. What is your favorite movie?
It’s a tie between The Princess Bride and a little hidden gem called Undercover Blues.
9. If you were going to be “accidentally but on purpose” killed tomorrow, how would you spend today?
I would write long letters to each of my children. If I had extra time, I’d move on to my husband, then other close family and friends.
I might try to transfer the rights to my books so they don’t go out of print, but I don’t think that could be done in one day. If you snooze, you lose, and I guess I snost and I lost.
10. Are mirrors Friend, or Foe?
Friend, but only in the sense of “faithful are the wounds of.”
11. If you could change ONE THING about your blog, what would it be?
Every single visit to my blog would result in a book purchase and then a breathless review on Amazon GO BUY MY BOOKS PEOPLE!
Ahem. I Nominate:
I nominate seven friends (the number of perfection!) plus Bookstooge cause I want to hear his answers too. And I nominate you, Reader, if you want to do it! After all, you are breathing! Which might provide the answer to my first question!
- Eustacia
- Fran
- Jacqui
- Diana
- Snapdragon
- The Orangutan Librarian
- Chris
- Bookstooge (It’s a boomerang tag!)
To Answer These Questions:
- What is the best gift God has given you?
- Without sharing details you don’t want to share, how did you come out of your darkest hour/day/year?
- What kind of biome would you most prefer to live in (one that can be inhabited by people)?
- In real life, how are your social skills (and do you have any tips for me haha)?
- What is your favorite genre of fiction?
- Do you ever read nonfiction and what makes you pick it up?
- Tell me one nice thing about your grandparents.
- If you could speak any language, ancient or modern, fluently besides your native one, which one would you choose?
- What are your feelings on the Harry Potter series?
- Do you have a favorite YouTuber/podcaster? What do they talk about? Now’s your chance to promote them!
- When did you first seriously consider the claims of Jesus of Nazareth? If you never have, would you do me a solid and consider doing so?
Out of Babel Books 
I have to respectfully disagree with John McClane being called a family man… if I remember correctly, he didn’t support his wife’s career, he wasn’t present in his daughter’s life and ended up divorced. Whereas John Wick left the career he was exceptional at in order to be with his wife (a good thing he left it), he put in the effort to change his ways for her, and was present throughout his wife’s illness, cherishing her until the bitter end and beyond. His wife was his family.
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O.K., fair. I only saw the first movie in each franchise, so I didn’t know about the divorce and the daughter thing.
However, when I say “family man,” I meant it less about whether he is a perfect husband and father in the abstract, and more about whether he currently has dependents. At least in the first movie, JM has a wife and two small children, and JW is alone (through no fault of his own).
As for supporting her career … if I remember rightly, Mrs. McClane had a husband who was a NYC cop and two small children. She gets a job offer, and when she can’t convince her husband to move for her, she moves her two small children to California, away from their daddy, and puts them with a nanny while she goes to work the high-powered job. Something is very wrong there, with her priorities.
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I see your point. We were using different, both valid, definitions of “family man”. I understood it as a man devoted to his family and home (not a perfect man! There wouldn’t be any family men if that were so). With this definition, John W is a family man without a family.
I was just focused on John M and how he spoke of his wife and chose to respond to her decisions. I’m not saying I agree with her choice to move, etc.
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Nice!
and don’t worry, I absolve you of your guiltiness of breathing my air.
*waves fingers
I, Bearpope the First do absolve thee of thy heinous crime. Now say 10,000 Winnie the Pooh’s.
Man, isn’t the Princess Bride a great movie?
I’ll come back at another time and answer your questions…
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The Bearpope! This just keeps getting better.
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Ever since I created the Bearpope, thanks to drinking Ghost energy drinks, he’s been a recurring thing around my blog. Seemed like it’s time to export him 😉
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We are a pro-bear blog over here.
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A) No, that is not the latest SBA logo. But it’s not sickeningly saccharine, so it’s the one I used. Plus, it was already in my media library so by reusing it I didn’t take up more precious storage space.
1) Mrs B
2) I prayed in my car every morning until the situation was resolved.
3) I would like one that is sunny and cloudy 90% of the time and never gets above 75 or below 35.
4) I am the wrong person to ask on this subject!
5) Used to be SFF, but the thriller/mystery genre is slowly creeping up
6) Yes, but only on specific subjects, usually theological, that I am interested in.
7) they’re dead? one was dead before I was born, another died when I was in my single digits and the other pair I saw like 5 times in my entire life.
8) Russian. So I could read Dostoyevsky & Tolstoy in their native tongue
9) Loved the first 3, then hated each successive book more until exploding after the final book.
10) None. too many books to read and blog about to spend time listening to somebody else’s opinion on something.
11) I was saved at 6 and then baptized when 10. But 16 was when I decided, rationally and consciously that this Christianity thing was going to be my own.
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Very interesting! Thank you!
7) They must have had pretty good genetics, though! 😉
8) That is a brilliant idea.
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Thanks for tagging me! I’ll work on my answers over the next few days.
You’re definitely right to save John McClane, and I love the Princess Bride too!
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Those are very interesting questions!! I’m in a peak season now but will try to remember to come back to this!
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Thanks! No rush or pressure
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I’ve had kind of a crazy week and I might not have time to make a post this weekend, so I’m just going to post my answers here:
1. What is the best gift God has given you?
I am lucky enough to have an amazing family that is loving and supportive without fail. They are the people that I truly know that I can count on at all times.
2. Without sharing details you don’t want to share, how did you come out of your darkest hour/day/year?
A few years ago, I lost someone very close to me. I have a friend who really stepped up at that time, and probably saved my sanity a little.
3. What kind of biome would you most prefer to live in (one that can be inhabited by people)?
Does this have to resemble a biome that actually exists on Earth? Regardless, I think I would definitely get lonely in a biome without any people! In general, I think I’d like something resembling a temperate forest, with some kind of water source, and friendly animals.
4. In real life, how are your social skills (and do you have any tips for me haha)?
I’m not totally sure how to answer that because I’m not able to see myself through other people’s eyes. Based on my own perception, I think that my social instincts aren’t bad: I don’t do anything that I perceive as inappropriate, though I suppose it’s possible that others might think differently. However, I often feel a little awkward and unsure of how I come off.
5. What is your favorite genre of fiction?
Is it cheating to say that I like hybrid genres? I love a historical mystery, or a sci-fi romance or a coming-of-age fantasy. I think that my reading tastes are very diverse, so that’s as close as I can get to a single answer.
6. Do you ever read nonfiction and what makes you pick it up?
Yes. While I still read significantly more fiction, I have started reading nonfiction more in recent years. In terms of what makes me pick it up, all I can really say is that I’ll read it if it strikes my interest. I like reading about the arts and literature, history, biography/memoir, and essays.
8. If you could speak any language, ancient or modern, fluently besides your native one, which one would you choose?
I speak some French, so I’ll be practical and say Spanish. There are definitely times I’ve wished I spoke it already. I would also like to learn sign language.
7. Tell me one nice thing about your grandparents.
Are we talking about one grandparent or one thing about each grandparent?
-Maternal grandmother: Took me to the flea market (her favorite place!) and watched movies with me over and over.
-Paternal grandmother: Any ability I have to do anything resembling cooking is thanks to her. She also let me play with her make-up when I was little.
-Maternal grandfather: He was quick to laugh, and loved to make others laugh.
-Paternal grandfather: Due to circumstances beyond his control he wasn’t able to complete his education, but he was one of the most well-read, self-educated people I’ve ever met.
9. What are your feelings on the Harry Potter series?
At the moment, conflicted. I’ll always love the characters, and the world and the stories, but JK Rowling’s behavior over the past few years has me struggling to separate the art from the artist. Right now my way of doing that is to keep my books around and my positive memories of the series intact, without continuing to support Rowling by following the new books/tv shows/films, or talking about the books too much on my blog.
10. Do you have a favorite YouTuber/podcaster? What do they talk about? Now’s your chance to promote them!
I usually listen to podcasts to help myself fall asleep. There are two I go for the most. One is Erik at Listen to Sleep, (https://www.listentosleep.com/) who does bedtime stories and meditations. These may be original stories or public domain stories, that include some nonfiction, fiction, fairy-tale. He also has sleep meditations and mindfulness meditations. I also love The Sleepy Bookshelf (https://sleepybookshelf.com/), where Elizabeth Grace reads public domain audiobooks in their entirety over a number of episodes. If you falls asleep mid-episode (which happens often, given the soothing voice!) the next episode always has a detailed summary.
11. When did you first seriously consider the claims of Jesus of Nazareth? If you never have, would you do me a solid and consider doing so?
I’m not offended by this question, but I’m also not really comfortable answering it here.
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Thanks, you have satisfied my curiosity!
I have a busy weekend/week coming up too, so I’ll reply to any of these as needed, later.
Appreciate you!
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3. I didn’t mean you would have to live there all by yourself! You could live in a homestead or a commune. 🙂 I like temperate forests too. They are in my top four.
8. Ooo sign language is a good idea! It’s a really hard one, too.
7. I just meant any grandparent that you could say something nice about, but you found something to say about each of them! That’s sweet!
9. Oh, honey. I am so sorry. Please consider the possibility that you may be under the influence of toxic empathy, and unnecessarily misjudging a favorite author.
10. Good idea! TBH, I often fall asleep to podcasts that aren’t intended to put us to sleep …
11.That’s fair. It’s a very personal question.
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I one hundred percent am with you that cereal is NOT a breakfast food- it’s an evening snack for sure!! Actually I’ve recently changed my diet, because I was never able to eat breakfast, but always felt like I had to force myself, because it’s pretty bad to go to work and not eat anything till 10 or 11 (now I don’t get a break till midday, it’s mad) sooo long story short, I’ve started eating hard boiled eggs for breakfast… and problem solved! Turns out protein for breakfast is the best thing you can have!
I love your breakdown of that Bible quote. Life is a blessing ❤
Thanks for the nomination! ❤
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Nice to see this post bearing fruit after many months! Thanks for the visit and the comment.
Yeah, eating just cereal in the a.m. is a recipe for a midmorning crash. And you are right that protein is the way to go. They lied to us, but that’s a rant for another time.
If I try to eat breakfast before leaving for my teaching job, I become late, so I’ve taken to packing plain yogurt and eating it in the 10 minutes before school starts. Luckily, there is a coffee machine in the break room.
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