Have you been Liebstering?

Cheryl Rennels at We Bless Your Heart nominated me for the Liebster Award at the beginning of April--thanks, Cheryl!--and I'm so sorry I couldn't get around to it until now. 

For the award, Cheryl has asked me to answer a few questions:

1.  Who or what is Liebster?

No clue where the name comes from. Sorta-educated guess? Liebchen in German is "sweetie" or "dear", so maybe the Lieb- in Liebster comes from that same root? The Sweet Person Award?

2.  How long have you been blogging?

Since June of 2011. Happy anniversary to meeeee... 

3.  Do you have animals?

That's kind of like asking the Smithsonian if they happen to have a book lying around.

Kreativ Blogger Award--Reloaded

Ermie over at Just Ermie was kind enough to award me the Kreativ Blogger. I did this a few months ago, so I'll play a bit with the rules. The first part is, of course, thanking my awarder, so

THANK YOU, ERMIE!

Then I need to answer seven questions, which I already answered here. I also need to provide ten random facts about myself, so even though I did name a few before, I'm including ten new ones:

1   I smoke a pack a day. Yeah. Ooops.

2   No, I'm not planning to quit.

3   For a long long time, my favorite book ever was Sidney Sheldon's If Tomorrow Comes. Eventually I grew to realize the error of my ways. Sort of.

4   Major drawback of living in a Caribbean island: the lack of intelligent conversation. Guess angst doesn't thrive in 35C weather and sunny beaches.

An award, an award--for ME!

Yes, people--two awesome blogger friends have passed on the Kreativ Blogger award to me, and I'm deeply honored. Touched. Moved beyond tears. Thank you, J.W. Alden and Vero Sicoe, for thinking of Quiet Laughter.

And, by the way, both these bloggers are awesome, so if you're not following them, you're totally missing out.

Awesome Awardee--Me!

Jennifer Burke, over at Jen's Bookshelf, gave me an award--the Kreativ Blogger! See how cool it is?

Innit totally awesome? I get to share 10 things about myself, and pass the award on to another 6 bloggers. The ten things aren't that hard, but the bloggers--man, everyone's so creative! Can't I just award it to everyone?

No.

FINE. I'll pick. Lemme see... Okay, how's this? I'll pick six new blogs I've found recently. Will that work?

Whatever. Just get on with it.

More Awards!

Brilliant blogger and darkish author E.R. King of Get Busy Writing passed me the Liebster Blog award, the Versatile Blogger Award and the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award (a month ago... I'm nothing if not a procrastinator, dammit).

This entails, of course, profusely thanking Emily:

Then I need to share seven things about myself--I'll share seven more, since I'd already shared some when Stuart Nager of Tale Spinning passed the Versatile Blogger Award to me in September:

The Versatile Blogger Award -- Part II

Yes, Part II is here.  So yesterday I made good on the first two of three commitments I accepted by accepting this award from Stuart Nager at Tale Spinning.  Today is the day I pass this on to 15 blogs I've recently discovered -- if they'll accept.  Regardless of whether they accept or not, please do take a stroll around these marvelous places:

The Versatile Blogger Award -- Part I

Stuart Nager, whose outstanding blog is at Tale Spinning, has kindly shared the Versatile Blogger Award with Quiet Laughter.  By accepting, I've committed to:

- Thank the awarder and link back to them (done; see link above),
- Share 7 things about myself, and
- Pass this award to 15 blogs I've recently discovered.

We all suffer from lack of time, yes.  I've procrastinated enough with this, so I'm going to cut it in two: today I'll THANK STUART FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART for sharing this with me, provide the link to his page, and share 7 things about myself.  Tomorrow, I promise, I'll pass this along to another 15 bloggers that may, or may not, accept.

Seven Things About Quiet Laughter

Clarity of Night

I just realized I completely forgot to link the Clarity of Night contest to this blog...  I cannot believe I did that.  I was overwhelmed, true; first by the sheer raw talent of the 102 entries -- seriously, these people can write!  And second, by the fact that my own entry received an honorable mention (an HONORABLE mention... MY entry!  Un-freakin-believable), and I was apparently inducted into the Forties club (for high punctuation in the readers' choice voting).  So, yes, I was flabbergasted and in shock for a whole five days, until today I suddenly thought, "wait a minute...".

Please forgive this incredibly careless oversight, and take a jump-click over to Jason's Clarity of Night blog.  If you want to read my very humble and undeserving entry, click here (or find entry #97 in the index of the Elemental contest post), and please check out some of the other entries.  For those ADD'ers out there, know that the word limit on this contest was 250 words.  That's, like... not even a page.  You can read a page, right?  Believe me, these are worth it:

Here are some of my favorites:

No One Would Catch Fire, by D. Biswas
The True Story of How Casey Tillson Became A Vegan, by Wendy Russ
Your Mother, by Francis Tan
The Answer, by Kilian Conor (this one has a line that I love... "I am bone and meat interlaced for breath to speak your name..."  How unearthily beautifl is that!)
Bait, by Richard Levangie (an awesome awesome awesome story!)
The Wall, by Peter Davidson (3rd-place winner!)
Golem, by Loren Eaton (2nd-place winner AND Readers' Choice!)
RIF, by Darby Krenshaw (1st-place winner - wonderful story!)

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!