7 Words + 7 Links

Today has been one of those really lovely days. The weather is perfect - the last taste of summer with the first taste of autumn. I got to study outside with the sunshine and warm breeze all around me and my little brother's laughter in the background. And then I got a great score on an exam I had to take. And, as if the fact that I'm now only 16 credits away from my degree, I got an award! It came all the way from Ireland (which isn't nearly as impressively far away as it sounds since places in the blogsphere are only clicks away not miles and miles), courtesy of Christine Murray. I'm supposed to match/link my own posts with the seven descriptive words given, and then pass it on to seven others. So here we go.

Most Beautiful: This one was easy. Because dreams are beautiful things and I wrote this on a beautiful day

Most Helpful: Oh dear, oh dear. Unlike so many of my fellow writers who blog, I don't post helpful things; unless words count, in which the majority of my posts could be classified as helpful. But I don't classify them that way. When I think "helpful," I think of all the grammar/query/writing-related instructional posts that so many of you have done. So...I'm going to go with this, to help you with insults. Because if we must insult, we ought to do so with wit!

Most Popular: This is actually my second most popular post. I'll tell you about the post that was really the most popular in a minute. But I'm so glad that so many of you liked this as much as I did. It gives me an excuse to post it again. And I'm always ready to post about how stinkin' sweet my little brother is. He'll be half-asleep walking to the bathroom at midnight, see that my light is on, and call me: "CayCay? I want to give you a hug."

Most Controversial: No one actually voiced controversy over this, which surprised me exceedingly. I kept checking for comments, waiting to cringe because I had offended or angered someone. That never happened, but the post certainly has the potential to cause controversy. At least, it's the only post I can find that comes even remotely close to fitting the "most controversial" category.

Most Surprisingly Successful: Technically, this post was the most popular. It had the highest number of page views (assuming the stats button is accurate), but I couldn't believe it. Why? Well, normally my Wednesday posts get at least one comment (Cherie should get a "Faithful Commenter" award for that. Seriously.) Not this time. I really liked the character in it and just assumed that no one else particularly cared for him or that the whole post was too long or, or, or. You can imagine my surprise, then, when it topped the stats listing!

Most Underrated: I'm going to go with my post on the Vikings for this one. I don't spend a lot of time talking about my manuscript or the research that went into it. I do try not to bore you to tears, so I've purposely refrained from telling you absolutely everything I know about Viking culture. I find it fascinating but, like most research, not all of it needs to be shared. That's the difference between great historical fiction (which gives you enough detail) and boring historical fiction (which suffocates you in detail). That said, the Vikings are close to my heart because there's so much more to them than the legend/stereotype/etc. Their non-pillaging qualities are vastly underrated.

Most Prideworthy: I'm proud of myself for actually starting a blog, so this category was easy. See?

I was going to write blurbs on the seven people I'm going to pass this 7X7 award on to but (a) I've spent too long on this post already. I really can't neglect my reading assignments any longer and (b) I can't do them justice in a matter of seconds. SO, know that every single person I link is fantastic and you should go browse their blogs. It's worth it.

Cherie

Anita

Mark

Jen

Ashley

Julie

and Lydia.

More Bloggity Love

I have been bequeathed yet another award! Behold the verdant object:

It was given to me by Anita. She recently signed a book deal for her debut, SPLINTERED. I think all of her followers, myself included, were almost as excited by her news as she was ;) The banner of her blog matches the description of her book: eerie and whimsical. Anita isn't eerie herself, though. She's actually very amusing and friendly and just plain 'ole fun. Click over to her blog and browse if you have a minute :)

So the rules for this award are as follows:

1. Thank and link to the person(s) who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to five blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them.

When Anita was passed this award she shared seven reasons why her main character was cooler than her, because she's creative like that. All the reasons my MC is cooler than me boil down to one thing (and if I go through the un-boiled reasons, I'll get into all the cultural and ideological facets of those reasons and then this post will too long for consumption), so I'll give you the one reason my MC is cooler and then six random facts about myself. But first I have to thank Anita - the thanking rule should never be broken. Thank you, Anita!

And now, why my main character is cooler than me:

He's a Viking. Think this guy only younger:

I think that pretty much sums things up, don't you?

Now for randominity regarding me...

1. I'm half Italian. I have the dark hair and dark eyes to prove it, though I didn't get all of the Mediterranean skin tone.

2. I was obsessed with the Far East when I was younger. To the point where I made myself a kimono and wore chopsticks in my hair.

3. I've never been in an airport by myself. So the idea of flying to and from Italy alone and navigating terminals with no one to make sure I don't get lost or miss my connecting flights? Slightly terrifying.

4. I used to collect hotwheels. My sisters and I would set up hotwheel races with our cousin during holidays. Let me tell you, they don't run very well on carpet.

5. Purple is favorite color, which isn't saying much because everyone in my family loves purple, but still. I maintain my favor.

6. I want to have the entire Prince Valiant comic collection. My brother got a hardcover volume with original illustrations and...well, my love of Prince Valiant was immediately resurrected. Although, I think it may have ruined my brother for life. He keeps talking about how he wanted to be born when he could be a knight. Him and I were born in the wrong time period ;)

Well, that takes care of rules 1 and 2. Rule 3 is giving me problems though. See, within the last few posts (which is a few weeks for me) I've passed the Liebster and the Cute Blogger award on to fellow bloggers. I'm pretty much out of people to give award to that (a) I haven't given one to already or (b) haven't just gotten one themselves. So, if any of you lovely followers would like to pin the verdant square on your blog, take it with my leave and blessing. I'd be happy for any and all of you to have it.

Fair enough?

Oh Me, Oh My

My Merlin-musicals-and-peanut-butter buddy Jen has given me an award and tagged me in a meme. Because she's just that generous :) I'm not a cuddle-with-pets kind of girl, but if I was, I'd cuddle with my award. Look how soft and fluffy and cute it is:

Told ya ;) And now for the meme...


Show us the cutest most adorable picture of your favorite animal.

And just because I'm not sure that "cute" or "adorable" are appropriate adjectives for wolves, here's my other favorite animal:

You have five seconds to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Choose one friend who would save your butt and tell us why you choose them.

Um. My sensei. He's a black belt in ten different martial arts and almost a brown belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I'm pretty sure he could handle the Zombies. Or...my little brother. He's biologically protected by the cuteness factor so I think my chances of survival with him would be really, really good.

Share a quote with us.

Oi. Quotes. You know those people who have all these wonderful, inspiring quotes plastered all over their rooms and in their journals? Yeah, I'm not one of them. I like the idea, I really do. The execution of such an idea, though, has been and is still elusive. But for you, I will find a worthy quote.

"Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." E.B. White

I know you had trouble choosing just one, let's have another.

I'll do better than that. I'll give you two more but you have to guess who says the second one. Okay?

"It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are." e.e. cummings

And:

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."

Using exactly 27 words tell us your life story.

Born. 17 years in Upstate NY. Moved to KY. 18 months renovating home. Writing in between. Goal: English BA in 2 years. Graduate: December. Future: Writing + Jiu-Jitsu.

Please do not throw your hands up in the air. This is not a stick up.

Hands? What hands? I had to scratch my head.

All the dead rock legends live again. You're standing in a fifty mile long line for:

This would involve me knowing at least one rock legend....

Describe yourself using six words that start with the third letter of your middle name.

Sweet (I'm not being conceited, I promise. This is the most common way my friends describe me). Sincere. Scholarly. Steadfast. Sensible. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

What is your middle name? (This is for research purposes only. Your response will not affect your chances of employment)

Rose.

There you have it. I guess the last thing is to pass it one, so I hereby dub the following people Memed:

Tamara

Mark

Huntress

Kate

K.V.

In Which I am Easily Amused

I like laundromats.

They're a giant black hole that a ridiculous number of quarters disappear into, but I like them. I like that they smell like detergent and clothes hot out of the dryer. I like the background noise of swishing.

When my family first moved to Kentucky, I spent hours and hours at the laundromat with my older sister because we had no plumbing in our house for the first few weeks. And that meant hours of writing while drinking orange sodas (which are both really great things). So I'm kind of biased in favor of laundromats. I have a good history with them.

Anyway, our holiday project of replacing the shower in one of our bathrooms (it was supposed to take two days tops) turned into the bigger project of getting our soil pipe replaced. Plumbers were called. Plumbers did not show. Holes in the floor remain and the washer stands idle while the laundry-that-needs-washing continues to collect. Obviously, with ten people in the house we can't let it collect for too long without some of us running out of clean things to wear. This is another reason why I like laundromats. We pulled out two loads of essentials and headed on over.

By the time our laundry had finished drying, my sister and I were the only ones in the place. We had three quarters left. Everything in the vending machine was 85 cents. Fortunately, I had a dime. So my sister puts the money in and selects D4. Well, having never used a vendor before, she pushes the coin return halfway through the process and the machine stops. Our bag of sour Skittles was just barely hanging on the corner of the wire that had stopped mid-coil.

We kind of looked at each other and started laughing. She banged the front of the machine. No luck.

You know those people you see in the movies/advertisements who go ballistic and start practically attacking the vending machines to get their snacks? Well, I decided that was a good idea. Not quite to that degree, mind you. I was going with the general principle. So I stepped around to the side of the machine and gave it a big 'ole hip-bump.

The Skittles fell.

That was fun. Really, really fun :) Go ahead, you can laugh. I did. My family did. It's silly, I know. But I had the best little moment there in which I bumped a vending machine and the bump was effective. I'm tellin' you, it's the little things ;)

Meme Rhymes with Cream

I was all flattered last weekend when I found out that Ashley Nixon had tagged me in her meme. I still am actually, especially because it meant finding out that she loves my Word for Wednesday posts. Those posts have pretty much been the staple of this blog of late, so knowing that my followers actually enjoy and get something useful out of my posts is a very nice feeling :) Anyway, the first part of this meme is to thank the person who tagged you. Thanks, Ashley! *waves* And I'm going to take this opportunity to gush about her for a few sentences. She's adorable. Really, she is. She's one of those people who make you smile by just existing. Her personality is as open and happy and contagious as her smile (and she has a great smile). She wrote a book about pirates, called Cutlass, which is pretty cool if you ask me. And her writing space is what I would like mine to eventually look like: bulletin boards full of all things inspiring, some related to my writing, some not. If you haven't browsed her blog, head on over there. I dare you not to like her ;)


Do you think you're hot?

No. I'm cold. I'm cold roughly 90% of the time. I keep fleece blankets on my bed, even in the middle of summer. I always wear pants to the theaters no matter how hot it is outside because if I wear shorts, I'll shiver the entire movie. I think woodstoves, blankets, and giant, comfy sweaters are some of the best consumer goods available. I know I'm avoiding the question. I'm doing it on purpose ;) I loathe loaded questions and this is probably one of the worst: If I think I'm hot, then I'm a conceited, arrogant pig. If I don't think I'm hot, then I have self-esteems problems. I'm none of the above, so lets just say that I'm happy with the way God made me, and leave it at that :)

Upload a picture or wallpaper you are using at the moment.

I miss the "Once upon a time..." stories, don't you? They were so relaxed and quiet and settle-down-by-the-fire or curl-up-in-a-blanket kind of stories. And, if it's an oral story, there's so much more atmosphere and anticipation if you start with "Once upon a time" than slamming the listener into the action right at the start.

When was the last time you ate chicken meat?

This has to be one of the most random questions, haha. But, to answer it, I ate chicken yesterday. My Dad made chicken cacciatore. It was amazing.

List the songs you listened to recently.

Ok...um. Let's see.

"Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," from the musical Oklahoma!
"Make 'Em Laugh," from Singin' in the Rain
"Wherever You Will Go," by The Calling
"Light up the Sky," by The Afters
"More Beautiful You," by Johnny Diaz
"Born Again," by The Newsboys
"Can't Go On," by Group1Crew

What were you thinking as you were doing this?
That's its gorgeous outside, that I need to do an Italian lesson today, that I have a lot of studying to do, that I can't wait for Jiu-Jitsu class tonight because Sensei just came back from a weekend of seminars with Professor Sauer, and that I'm really, really thirsty.

Do you have nicknames?

My grandmother calls me Sweetpea. My youngest siblings and the little girl I nanny call me CayCay. People closest to me sometimes call me Cay.

Tag 8 people.

1. Christine
2. Cherie
3. Tamara
4. Huntress
5. Jen
6. Krista
7. Lori
8. BluestockingMum

Who's listed at number 1?

Christine. I found her on one of the discussion forums during Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest. One of the most memorable comments I've received came from her. She wrote a rejection poem/lyric and it was fantastic. I've been following her every since. Oh, and she's Irish :)

Say something about number 5.

Jen is my Merlin and peanut-butter buddy. And she shares my love of musicals. She has excellent taste ;)

How did you get to know number 3?

You know how your friends link their friends who link their friends? Well, that's what happened. I honestly don't remember the link-path I followed to Tamara. But I started following her, she followed me and that's pretty much it. Her and her husband and ridiculously cute together, just so you know.

How about number 4?

She has an awesome screen name. I mean, how can you not follow the Huntress? Seriously, though, we found and mutually followed each other back when the blog awards were making the rounds. If I remember correctly, she actually started the Blog on Fire award...gave it to Cherie, Cherie gave it to me, and that's how I found out about Huntress.

Leave a message for number 6.

Krista, I remember how disappointed you were about the ABNA results and how I wished I could cheer you up and make sure you didn't give up hope. Now look at you! Your manuscript is with an agent who wants to represent you! Looks to me like you found the golden jellybean :)

Leave a lovey-dovey message for number 2.

Cherie, you are a gem. An utter gem. You've been the most encouraging and constant presence on my blog from Day One. I don't know how you manage to be a wife, mother to your little ones, keep your blog so full of all things informative, amusing, and inspiring, and leave so many wonderful comments all over the blogsphere. You're incredibly sweet and one of my favorite parts of awards and memes is the excuse to brag on you. My Dad said to me once, "I think Cherie really likes you." I said, "Well, I really like Cherie." And that pretty much sums it up :)

Do number 7 and number 8 have any similarities?

They're both writers, working and hoping toward publication. Other than that, they don't have any similarities that I know of. Lori is an amazing artist - her anime drawings are just fantastic. BluestockingMum has the most admirable spirit of fortitude and persistence.


OK. I think I got covered everything I was supposed to in this meme. Now I just have to go tell everyone I tagged that they're IT!

I Have Fallen Victim...

...to some sort of malfunction.

I was out of town for the last four and half days with my family. My sister, Frances, had her first vaulting (which is basically gymnastics on horses) competition so we took a twelve hour road trip in our giant 15-seater van to Virginia. Both sets of grandparents met us there and we had a surprise high school graduation for Frances, a blown spark plug and dead battery, a tour of D.C. and other sundry happenings.

I had scheduled the Versatility post since I was working the morning of the day we were leaving (and then I had to pack and try to get some semblance of studying in before we left). Six of you were kind enough to comment. I had a chance to read them but not to respond before we all loaded into the van. Well, when I signed in this morning, they were gone! All of them, along with a few other comments from previous posts. I was so disappointed, because I had been looking forward to replying to all of you.

I have no idea what happened. And there's some weird arrow thingies on my label links. Sometimes, technology is not my friend. At all.

So, to all of you who left such fun and thoughtful comments, (a) I wasn't being rude or ignoring you, (b) I wish I could get them back and stick them back on the posts where they belong, (c) I don't know how so I'm afraid your comments are fated to be lost forever in cyberspace. I'm sorry.

In other news: I'm terrible at chess. My computer beats me on Level 2.

Versatility

I have received yet another bloggity award. This one comes from the cheerful Ashley Nixon. She has a boyfriend who looks like Aladdin and she's written a book about pirates (which sounds like a boatload of fun and adventure). Check her out.

So, this award comes with rules. You probably know them by heart now ;)

- Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
- Share seven random facts about yourself.

- Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
- Contact those buddies to congratulate them

(I will do my best to follow the rules but that's all I can promise)

1. I look significantly younger than I am. I'm almost 22 but most people guess that I'm somewhere between 12 and 15. And they think that my sister (who actually is 15) is around 18. I don't understand it.

2. I use a giant coffee mug for a pen-holder.

3. I've hiked Mount Algonquin - the second highest peak in the Adirondacks.

4. I love peanut butter. I'll eat it straight out of the jar. Or with apples. Or chocolate chips.

5. I have a typewriter. It doesn't work. I just like having it.

6. I can remember actors' names and what they've been in without trying. Even if I only see them in a trailer, I can name a bunch of movies they're in if asked. It sounds like I spend hours looking up actors/actresses and memorizing what they've been in even though I don't. At my house, it's always "Hey, Caitlin, what has So-and-So acted in?" 90% of the time I can answer.

7. A Sonic Mocha-Caramel Java Chiller is my favorite thing to buy whenever I want a treat to celebrate a small accomplishment. They're amazing.


I'm passing this on to:

Courtney
Jennie
Anita
Bluestocking Mum

Enjoy, ladies!

Berry Goodness

Look at all that yumminess! (Actually, if you're hungry right now like I am, looking at a strawberry desert is a really, really bad idea...) I was given this award by the ever-sweet Cherie. If you aren't following her blog already, you should be. She's highly amusing and intelligent and writerly.

These are the rules that go along with that strawberry goodness:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me.
2. Share seven random facts about myself.
3. Pass the award to 15 blogging friends.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to break two of them. And Cherie is nice enough that I'm sure she'll forgive me. You see, I don't have 15 blogging friends to award this too. See those 28 lovely followers on the right? Not all of them have blogs...some of them don't even have profiles I can view. And I've already given several awards to my favorite bloggers, and my new followers (*waves hello*) just got the same award or a similar one. So I'm about 15 people short of being able to fulfill rule number 3. Instead, I'm going to use this award to celebrate all the writers in the blog community who are sharing their admiration and enthusiasm for each other. I raise my strawberry pastry to you.


And now for seven more random facts about me:

1. Lucky Charms is my favorite cereal. If I kept that stuff in the house, I would turn into a marshmellow from eating so much of it.

2. I don't make my bed (except on rare occasions). It's much more comfortable to sleep in a messy bed with all the covers heaped up on top of you than a nicely made one where the sheets are tucked in just so.

3. I love doing laundry. Odd, I know, but I really do like it. I find it very therapeutic to turn piles of dirty laundry into stacks of neatly folded clothes that smell like lavender dryer sheets.

4. I can't eat eggs for breakfast. I can eat them for lunch. I can eat them for dinner. But if I try to eat them for breakfast, I get nauseous. So I avoid eggs in the morning.

5. I'm frighteningly bad at frisbee. If my life depended on my ability to throw a frisbee accurately, I would die. Within seconds.

6. I have a monogrammed wax seal that I use on my letters. I love it. You can look here to get an idea of what it looks like.

7. This makes me laugh. Every single time:

I Feel Accomplished

I used iTunes successfully for the first time ever today.

(Stop laughing at me.)

The download actually worked. And then creating an account worked and I was able to sign in without some irritating little pop-up box telling me that something was wrong. And then I was able to redeem gift cards a good friend sent me and buy music.

It's amazing. I have a little iTunes icon on my computer and, if I click on it, it works! Music actually starts coming out of my speakers when I push that triangle play button.

I've fought with iTunes before (and lost) but this time I won. Oh yes. I conquered the software. I harnessed it to my computer and now I can use it whenever I want.

It's a pleasant feeling :)

Look, it's Sparkly ;)

Christine has bequeathed this shiny new award to me:

Isn't that classy? I'd like to thank Christine and encourage you all to check out her blog. Oh, did I mention that she's from Dublin? Yes, she's Irish - which I think adds to her cool-and-classy-chick factor :) So go pay her a virtual visit.

This award comes with rules. And they are the following:

1. Thank and link the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.


Seven Totally Random and Unimportant Things About Me

1. My ears are asymmetrical. My right ear sticks out more and is higher on my head than my left ear.

2. I have a pair of fingerless purple zebra-striped gloves that I wear when I write. Not the jotting down ideas kind of writing, but the kind where I'm actually sitting down and in-putting words onto the blank screen. I found them in some random store I don't even remember the name of for a couple dollars and I've worn them ever since. It's weird, but I feel more creative and writerly when I have them on.

3. I was named after a character in a movie that I have never seen.

4. I have my own mini museum. All through middle school and part of high school I collected just about everything: stamps, foreign currency, insects, rocks, shells, etc. Everything that hasn't disintegrated is in an old type-case my grandfather gave me and my family calls it "the museum," even though we hardly ever look at any of it. I still like to collect rocks and minerals (especially geodes) but I've lost interest in most of the others as collectibles.

5. I over use parentheses (can you tell?). It's a really bad habit that I can't seem to break myself of. Somehow, I managed to keep them out of my manuscript and I hope to keep (most) of them out of future novels as well. Apparently all that restraint has spilled out into my blogging and letter-writing. My pen-pals will attest to the fact that my parenthetical statements tend to turn into whole paragraphs about bunny-trail topics.

6. I am almost always cold. My dad calls me a cold-blooded vertebrate because 99.99999999% of the time I am wearing layers. I even wear sweaters in the summer (though, in my defense, I only wear them in the air conditioned house after I come in from being out in the sunshine).

7. I want to have a pet dolphin someday.


And now I'd like to give this award to...

Cherie
Huntress
Katie
Angelica
Jessie

Enjoy! :)

I Would Rather Run a Marathon

Back in mid-March, I joined a string ensemble group. There are seven of us: four violins, two violas, and one cello. We had our first performance together last Sunday. We were live background music for a reception at one of the churches downtown. We had to play for about an hour and, all in all, I thought we sounded pretty good. Except for my instructor, none of us are professional musicians so our performance was hardly perfect. But, it was good enough to add "a touch of class" to the reception - or so we were told.

Yesterday, we met at our normal time and were getting ready to start learning some new music. As we're all getting our sheet music in order, the lady who I play second violin with says, "I would rather run a marathon than do that reception again." After talking about it, she decided it hadn't been that bad but I think it had more to do with how long it would take to run 26.2 miles than the difficulty of performing.

Anyway, her comment got me thinking, and I thought it would be fun to do a get-to-know-you/fill-in-the-blank here on my blog. So, here's the prompt: "I would rather run a marathon than..."

I'll go first: I would rather run a marathon than sky-dive, bungee-jump, or do any other activity that involves launching oneself off a stable object from a ridiculous height.

Your turn :)

From a 6-year-old Boy

I was giving my three youngest siblings a bath last night, in preparation for a weekend at the Center for Courageous Kids. The oldest of them, James (who is perfectly capable of taking a shower, but prefers the bath because it means playing in water for a half an hour) kept passing gas while they were in the tub. All three of them thought that was the funniest thing on the planet. So I'm sitting there, shaking my head a little and half-laughing, thinking Oh my word, when the perceptive and randomly hilarious James says:

"You're a girl. Girls don't like farting."

Me: "Yeah, well, why do you like farting?"

James: "'Cause they're STINK BOMBS!"