I received two very kind awards over the past couple weeks.

Tom at firsttimerecords nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Thank you for the compliment, Tom!

Ms. Nine at Nine Writes nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. Thanks for the Almond Joy, Ms. Nine!

The rules for accepting each award are identical:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you with a link.
• Copy and paste the award logo to your blog.
• Share seven things about yourself.
• Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award and notify them.

I am going to combine these two awards and bend the rules a bit—otherwise I wouldn’t get back to my regular writing (which has already been too slow lately).

Seven things about me:

1. I am a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA).
2. My favorite Austen novel is Pride and Prejudice, because it makes me laugh out loud. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
3. But Persuasion is a close second, a much more mature novel. “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” (Ah, be still, my heart!)
4. I started reading Unfinished Desires: A Novel by Gail Godwin, but couldn’t finish it. Snooze fest.
5. Now I am reading Henning Mankell’s The Troubled Man, a Kurt Wallander novel (you may have seen the adaptations on Masterpiece Mystery—looks like a new set coming up in September!). Mankell tends to focus on social issues and can get a bit dense at times, but I find his work pretty intriguing.
6. I studied Swedish in college (very rusty now), so I get into Scandinavian mystery/thrillers like the Wallander series and Stieg Larsson’s books. I think it’s because I feel cool knowing how to pronounce the names.
7. The chicken coop is almost done. 🙂

For the One Lovely Blog Award, I nominate:

1. http://lovernebrown.wordpress.com/  – I want to call out this blog specifically. LoVerne Brown (1912-2000) would be 100 this year. I was not familiar with her poetry until I found this site. I am grateful her work is being shared—it is lovely and thought-provoking.
2. http://awakenedwords.wordpress.com/
3. http://geektohighbrow.wordpress.com/
4. http://charaveti.wordpress.com/
5. http://carolynlane.wordpress.com/

For the Beautiful Blogger Award, I nominate:

1. http://thebeachhousekitchen.wordpress.com/
2. http://jilliankermani.wordpress.com/
3. http://caseykurlander.wordpress.com/
4. http://gessyalvarez.wordpress.com/
5. http://shawnbird.com/blog/

Enjoy their blogs!