Mystery Blogger Award

Yay! I’ve been nominated for the Mystery Blogger Award. It’s not really about “mystery” writing or anything like that; Mystery is a play on the name of the person who started the award, Okoto Enigma.

In order to participate in the award, I must:

Rule #1

Rule one: Put the award/ logo on my blog. Yep, it’s that way. <—–

Rule two: List the rules. Check.

Rule 3: Thank whoever nominated me and provide a link to their blog. That was the wonderful Janet’s Smiles. Thank you!As you may guess, her mission in life is to make people smile. She does this by talking about life, music, and her wonderful crafts. I’m seriously jealous of her scrapbooks.

Rule 4: Mention the creator of the award and provide a link. I did that above. ^^

Rule 5: Tell my readers 3 things about myself.

1. I love playing board games.
2. I’m known for being quite clumsy. People who don’t want me to die get nervous when I do anything with a potential for injury.
3. I love animals. I have five cats, two dogs, and various squirrels (we consider them our outdoor pets.)

Rule 6: Nominate 10- 20 people. I’ve found most of these blogs through A to Z over the years.

A Texan’s View of Upstate New York

Pen in Her Hand

Life and Faith in Caneyhead

Megan Moran (romance author)

The Cyborg Mom

While I Was Reading

The Lair of the Silver Fox

Read is the New Black

Readers of the Night

Girl Who Reads

Rule 7: Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.

Rule 8: Ask my nominees 5 questions of my choice; with one weird or funny question.

1. What was the last game you played, and with who?
2. What’s your favorite word or quote?
3. What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?
4. What do you like on your pizza?
5. What’s your favorite question to ask other people?

Rule 9: Share a link to my best posts. Some of my favorites:

The Timelessness of Stories

How My Former Bullies are Doing Now

Words Have Power

The five questions I was asked:

1.   Who is your favorite author? Oh, that’s a tough one. If you’d asked me even a few years ago, I would have said Dean Koontz. I don’t really have a single favorite anymore, so I’ll go with my five favorites: Bryn Greenwood, Holly Black, John Green, JD Robb, and as mentioned, Dean Koontz.
2.   How long have you been blogging? 7 years!
3.   Have you ever been nominated for a major award? Nope, this will be the first.
4.   If you could play a musical instrument what would it be? I’ve always wanted to learn to play piano, but anyone who’s ever heard me sing would tell you I’m tone deaf.
5.   Who is Carmen Sandiego and why should I care where in the world he is? Carmen Sandiego is a she! And she taught me all about geography and and about other cultures on my Commodore 64. She was a spy who traveled around the world, and I had to locate her using clues.
6.   Extra credit question, did I make you smile today? Always. 🙂

A to Z Challenge 2017!

April is coming, and with it, the Blogging A to Z Challenge. For one month, minus Sundays, participants blog daily and follow the 26 letters of the alphabet. It’s fun, and all types of bloggers are encouraged to participate.

I started doing the A to Z Challenge back in 2012, and for the first three years, I didn’t do any particular topic… I just wrote about whatever came to mind.

In 2015, I did, “Things I Love,” and last year’s theme was “Books That Influenced Me.” (On a related note, I’m sorry that I don’t have an easy way to access archives, but if you want to look back at any of my posts, you can type “A is for” into the search bar. All my A to Z blogs start with the letter of the day.)

This challenge is a great way to “meet” other bloggers and find other interesting blogs.

On March 20, I’ll be revealing my theme (and hopefully will know what it is and have most of my posts written by then). The theme was much easier for me, and stopped some of the panicked searching for a topic that I did in other years.

Will you be joining?

You Can’t Please Everyone…

I know that you can’t please everyone, but I think that from time to time, it’s good to get a reminder of this.

I recently read an article in which a public school in Rhode Island was banned from having Daddy-daughter dances and Mother-son ballgames because of gender discrimination.  The ACLU filed a suit on behalf of a single mom whose daughter couldn’t go to the dance.

No matter what happened here, someone was going to be unhappy.  Those on the side of these dances and ballgames support them based on tradition and bonding with your child.  Those against these events cite gender discrimination, supporting stereotypes, and exclusionary behavior.  I see both sides; I do.  However, I don’t believe that everything has to be “fair.”  From what I’ve seen (and I have a lot more to see, hopefully), life isn’t fair.  Things don’t fall into easy categories.  Someone is going to be excluded sometime, whether it be by policy, individuals, or accident.  Someone will be excluded.  We can’t legislate fair.  We can try, but I disagree with any type of black and white thinking.  I don’t think that these dances/ ballgames were either good or bad.  If someone was unhappy with them, perhaps they could have tried to come up with a more flexible solution.

It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback something like this and criticize the decisions made by others.  I wasn’t there and don’t know the whole story, so I hesitate to say, “well maybe this” or “maybe that.”  What I can say is that I think that as a society, many of us have forgotten that “fair” does not mean “equal.”  “Fair” means “free from dishonesty, bias, or injustice.”

So, I guess the question comes down to whether or not we should acknowledge gender differences.  They exist.  I know that I talk about different things with my female friends as opposed to my male friends.  Toddler girls and toddler boys interact with toys differently.  Should gender be homogenized?  Should we all just be the same?  Or is it okay to have differences?  I realize that I’m oversimplifying what this issue is really about.  The issue isn’t about differences per se.  The issue is that one mom felt it wasn’t fair that her daughter couldn’t go to the dance without a daddy.

Honestly, when I hear about stuff like this, I’m a little disturbed that everyone has to miss out on something they were probably looking forward to because one person couldn’t go.  Isn’t that a perfect illustration of our “me first” society?  If I can’t do it, neither should you!  I think you can probably tell which side of the issue I come in on.  It’s a live and let live thing.  I can’t walk across a stable surface without tripping over my feet.  Does that mean that other people shouldn’t be allowed to play sports?  I can’t stand up to use the bathroom.  Does my jealousy mean boys should be legislated to sit down?

What do you think?  Tell me in comments.