Mixing up the “Mix-It-Up Day: Sunshine Blog Award” nomination with lazy, sunny, take it easy weather….

Having just returned from a thoroughly delightful trip to Canada to visit my best of friends there, I was kicking back in the 90 degree Farenheit weather (plus air conditioning and fans for the worst of it), when I received a nomination for the “Mix-It-Up Day:  Sunshine Blog Award” from the talented Australian writer D. James Fortescue, who is in the midst of an Australian winter right now.  Feeling thoroughly lazy and still resting up from the long train trip, I decided to take it easy and do as much as I could of the post on the award, and hope D. J. forgives me for not putting all my recuperative energies behind the effort (after all, just as half a loaf is better than no bread, so half-assed is sometimes at least better than not at all).

Here’s how it goes:  The first step is to use the award logo in one’s blog and/or in a post.  Since I am a regular computer dufus who doesn’t manage links well and who doesn’t know how to grab an award logo picture from another site and use it, I’ll just remark that the large zinnia or daisy-family flower that announces the award is bright and cheerful, and matches up with summer in the U.S. just fine (excluding the tornados and flash floods and other natural disasters that we’ve been having and that are continuing to be predicted).

The next step is to link back to D. J.’s site, which I do know how to do, so be it!  Click on the link and enter a wondrous world of fantasy, historical, and science fiction published at regular intervals.

Next are ten pieces of random info about myself (here’s hoping it’s random enough to be individual and interesting):

1.  I have never travelled west of the Mississippi in the U. S. in my life, though I have been to a few countries in Europe, and to Ireland and Canada.

2.  My favorite nuts are cashews, pistachios, and peanuts.

3.  My favorite vegetable is eggplant.

4.  I floss my teeth (gross!) once, sometimes twice, a day.

5.  I’m currently reading Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna, am finding the pace a bit slow, but may do a post on it someday soon.

6.  I had 9 items on this list, then accidentally hit the wrong button and erased several (I can’t remember what they were!).

7.  I am only going to nominate 5 other bloggers, partly because about 10 of the bloggers I used to follow no longer publish regularly and about 5 have told me that they would rather not receive awards.

8.  One of the funniest, most ironic writers I have come to respect and admire is Stanley Fish.

9.  Friday night is the night I usually have a drink or two, though right now I’m finishing up a six-pack of hard pear cider (it’s got a taste of too-sweet white wine that’s gone flat–I don’t recommend it).

10.  Just recently, my brother got me a copy of the book Sh*t My Dad Says, and I happen to find it very funny; not everyone does.  But we’ve all had relatives who like to coin phrases, I think.

Next step:  Name five bloggers who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere”:

Thinking in Fragments, Several, Four, Many, Book to the Future, Stephen Kelly Creative, Miss Royal Disaster.

Last step:  Tell your nominees about their nomination.  I will shortly be doing that.  For now, it’s g’day to you all (to borrow an Australian expression in honor of my nominator, D.J.).