Sunday 21 February 2016

My very first Liebster award nomination!




So a fellow blogger nominated me for the Liebster award. 

For those of you (like myself a couple of weeks ago) who haven't heard of this before, it is as follows:

It's more of a chain-mail, rather than an actual "award". The point is to find and interact with new blogs, while promoting new blogs in the community. Every chain seems to have different rules, altered slightly, but the ones I received are as follows:
  • Thank your nominator
  • Share the award on your blog
  • Answer 10 questions asked to you
  • Ask 10 questions to 10 new nominees (who have less than 300 followers)
  • Notify them via social media

The whole point is to discover new blogs so the best way to go about this is by posting in groups rather than nominating people you already follow. To find such blogs, I posted in two of my favourite Facebook blogging groups and
took the first five comments from each.


So without further ado, I wish to thank: 




for my very first Liebster nomination!



Here's the answers to the questions I was asked...


1. What is your favourite snack or drink?

At the moment I'm loving: 
Toasted whole wheat pita bread, spread on top egg-free mayo (so it's more like a small pizza base than a pocket pita), sprinkle rock salt, add chopped raw red pepper and rocket. Simple, quick, fresh, yuuuuum. 


2. What is your favourite book?

Going to be really obvious here and say it has to be To Kill A Mocking Bird. Not just because Harper Lee has just died and so on everyone's mind, believe it or not -has always been one of my all time favourites. I also love the movie adaption, I think it's one of the best ever book to movie combos.

Very closely behind that I also adore Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry as well as Stephen King's novella The Body. I also like anything in the crime fiction genre. 

I find it difficult to read "real books" these days as my hands ache and spasm trying to hold the book open, so have to resort to screens, but this is also difficult with lack of broadband in my dumb-ass rural village. 


3. Who is your biggest fan?

I have no idea! Lol... Probably Bicky? My cat also quite adores me.  


4. How do you deal with writers block?

With blogging it generally isn't a problem. This project began really for myself only, so if I have nothing to say or don't feel like posting, I don't. I used to feel like a failure if I hadn't wrote in here in ages but have since realised that's a dumb way to think. I ain't saving the world with my rants, I owe nothing to no one, and I really don't think anyone will be affected if I ceased writing a blog completely. 
In regards to everything else in life, I adore stress. Sounds odd, but I crave the rush of a deadline. I used to write short stories from time to time (and longer ones), and setting deadlines on myself was helpful. Writing short poems also eased me back into things after long breaks.
I recently helped Bicky write a story for a course he's doing and found the deadline, again, really kept me focused. On that note, we really enjoyed teaming up, as well as our story, and received great feedback for it ... We are considering getting it printed into a children's book this year... watch this space!


5. What is the craziest comment you've ever gotten on your blog?

I don't think I have received any crazy comments at all, maybe just some spam. 

I generally love all the comments people leave, especially from people who also suffer from chronic illness and who have enjoyed or felt connected to my post. It really just helps me as a human, ya know? ..I like making that stranger feel, even if for one minute of their day, they aren't going through their illness alone. Sometimes when you spend so much time in bed it can be hard to connect with the real world and realise there are other people out there. If I can make anyone laugh, even better!


6. Who is your favorite blogger that you follow and are inspired by?

I really don't know to be honest! I enjoy all the blogs I follow, for various reasons.

I love Jill's Who's The Boss as we found each other at very similar times during our cancer stories and so obviously feel very connected to that, I enjoy the writings of another illness blogger Lette as she has promoted dysautonomia here in Ireland and helped bring the patient community together through Irish Dysautonomia Awareness.

And then of course I love the photography, style and some what simplistic layouts of such bloggers as: Sweeter Gets The Journey, A Country Life, Táine King 
and The Golden Days. It depends what mood I'm in but I find these generally relaxing and some what soothing to read and look at... I guess I'm so loud and ranty, it's nice to have a balance!

I'll read anything really. I've only recently been stepping outside comfort zones and joining the "blogging community", so to speak. It's been great to read more from chronic illness bloggers in the process too (and I'll probably do a further post on some of these another day soon)... I guess I just enjoy any blog I can find real. There's so many ads out there, so many blogs just like the next, so forgettable (if I'm honest)... I just enjoy reading about real people. 


7. What is the hardest article or post that you've ever written?

I find every post difficult to write, if I'm being honest. The ones about illness, anyway. Even with my (sometimes inappropriate) humor added in.

When I had cancer it was a good way to keep friends and families informed, to show people who I didn't get a chance to see often that I was doing ok. It gave them comfort and so in turn gave me comfort. But of course, there's always times with chronic illness that are dark, relentless and no matter how much I might add a big dollop of creamy, ranting sarcasm to it, it's still sucky... I suppose the hardest posts to write are the ones in which you think may upset friends and family members. This generally doesn't appear to happen, but the fear before submitting each post is still there.


8. What is your goal for your blog in 2016?

Try to become a bigger part of the blogging community, find more interesting blogs to read, maybe even look into nominating myself (yep, myself -whatever, suck it!) for a couple of awards for the fun of it! ...I don't see adverting in my future as I've been really tuned off by the idea lately (another post for that at a later date) but I do want to take things more seriously (as when i started off a couple years ago, I didn't thing I would still be at it now).

This year I have already began writing like people are actually reading my words -and I'm not simply venting into my pre-teen unicorn diary during detention. That's probably a good start. 



9. What do your family and friends think about your blog?

I think the like 5 of em that read it, enjoy it. As I said, especially during the era of cancer, it was helpful for them to keep informed. 


10. What is your favorite thing to blog about?

Things that piss me off, of course. I'm Irish -we love to moan! I really do use this as free therapy. Besides, there is no law that says I must be one of those happy, inspiring disabled people. I ain't climbing Everest any time soon or saving the world, and that's just who I am. It's always a bonus though if the subject matter can bring a smile to another sick person's face... I like to blog about something really crappy and negative to begin with, that actually ends with a happy note and a little smirk on the readers pretty face (yes, I'm talking to you!) -It's like an episode of Clarissa Explains It All up in here. A resolution at the end of every episode.

I also like photography and dogs. Photography of dogs is also good.


Sooooooo.... Here are my 10 nominations for the Liebster award:

1. Butterflies Blog 
2. Candycane Marketing
3. Stella's FMS eNewsletters 
4. Beauty Blogging Box
5.Chloe Leonard Makeup
6. Jess' ME/ CFS Blog
7. Encountering Art
8. Make It Up Megan
9. And Then You're At Jax
10. Saharcasm


And here's the questions for my nominees:

1. Do you own any pets?

2. Where is your favorite place in the world to be?

3. How did you choose the design and style of your blog?

4. How do you feel about paid promotions in blog posts?

5. What has been your greatest achievement to date? (either blog related, or in life in general)

6. Apart from your blog, do you enjoy other forms of writing?

7. How many times do you think you have been in love?

8. Where did you grow up?

9. What was your very first blog post about? 

10. What are your future plans for your blog?


...So my pretty little nominees, copy and paste these questions into your own blog post, and don't forget to thank the nominator (me -Contact me on Twitter if you like @kittypotpie85 or just comment with link under this post), choose your own ten bloggers and write up your own ten questions. Then even add the pretty Liebster badge to your profile if you wish (Google for more images, I just picked a random one)... And so the cycle continues!


...More "creamy" rants (see Q. 7... where did I pull that one out of?) from little ol' moi next week.
♡ XoXo

5 comments:

  1. Thank you Catherine for nominating me. I'm working on all the requirements and this is the first one DONE! All I need now are 10 others to nominate. Did you have more than you could use? If so can you pass them on to me? Thanks
    Stella

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    Replies
    1. Hi Stella :) I find the easiest way to ask people is to either ask in groups or if you are on blogger do a search on there -either using the "next blog" option at the top of any blog or even by looking in any blog you already follow as you might find links to blogs they follow on their sidebar. Or you could even try searching for particular ones via Google. A blog can be nominated several times so don't worry if you find one that has already done it. As the questions are different each time, it's always a bit different anyway :)

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    2. You can also just look through Facebook groups and randomly pick a couple too. I did this with some of mine, and tgen contacted them once the post was up. Most see it as a nice surprise and free advertising of theor blog to new people, and if they don't wish to take part they don't have to :)

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  2. Did you already nominate 10 bloggers? If not, I'd love to be a part of this.

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  3. You can find my blog here: http://writing-mombie.livejournal.com/

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