my first award

Well, now--what a pleasant surprise!  Who knew there was a Versatile Blogger Award?  There is, and I have very kindly and unexpectedly received it from Kate Coombs of Book Aunt (who received it in her turn from Adriana, an avid teen reader who blogs at She's Got Books on Her Mind.)  While this award is purely subjective--no big long Cybils or ALA process behind it, no big-name newspaper or magazine reviewers lending weight to it--this Versatile Blogger Award is nonetheless precious to me.  This is because what I love most about blogging is that I get to build the box...and more on THAT concept in another post.

For now, here are the rules that guide the Versatile Blogger Award:

•Thank and link to the blogger who bestowed the award.
•Share seven random facts about yourself.
•Spread the love by passing the award to five other bloggers--and be sure to let them know.

So, first:

Thank you, Kate, for thinking of me as versatile and for thinking of me at all, when I manage a measly two posts a week, if I'm lucky.  Please visit Kate at Book Aunt regularly to enjoy wise, insightful  reviews and reflections on children's literature.

Second, seven random facts about me:

*The freshman facebook of my university listed my intended major as philosophy.
*I know how to clog.
*If I had my druthers I'd have dinner at 5, go to bed at 9 each night at get up at 5 every morning.
*I've lived in New York, London, Paris, Munich (everybody talk about popmuzik).
*One of my favorite parts of one of my favorite books is the cake and milk, milk and cake Harriet had after school every day.  How I envied her.
*In 1990 I made an entire wardrobe of earrings out of pasta dyed with food coloring and hydrogen peroxide.
*Stories swallow me whole, so I don't dare read much right now.  Isn't that sad? And not very random?

Third, I'll spread the love and pass the award to five more Versatile Bloggers:

*to Tabatha Yeatts of  The Opposite of Indifference, who weekly amazes with the range and variety of her topics and threads;
*to David Elzey, who quietly gets on with all kinds of ruminations and renderings at fomagrams and at the excelsior file;
*to Diane Mayr, who offers up oodles of haiku and haiga at Random Noodling, and masquerades as Kurious Kitty with both Kurious K's Kwotes and the Kurio Kabinet.  Who can keep up?!
*to Jama Rattigan, who always tantalizes with the most nutritious Alphabet Soup and doesn't leave out the sweets; and
*to Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading, who goes off early each day to teach just one class of 4th graders but keeps her eye on the big wordly world that they're inheriting.

Happy First Poetry Friday for 2012--at Teaching Authors today.  Maybe I'll take up the Comment Challenge posted by Lee Wind et al...certainly I owe a good deal to all the folks I read but don't take time to comment on!