One Lovely Blog Award (True confessions::The care and maintenance of A Lovely Blog )

My blog is not quite as lovely as I would like it to be.  It is like my yard.  It suffers from inexcusable neglect. And that is a tough confession to make, because I love my blog. I just never seem to get around to writing it.  Being invited by two distinguished authors Judith Arnopp and Anna Belfrage to share the designation of being tagged the author of 'A Lovely Blog'  has clearly shown me the error in my thinking.  If I love my blog, I should be kind to it, instead of treating it as if it were an elderly relative in a rest home and visiting it occasionally, but not often enough. Nevertheless, I am absolutely delighted to have been twice nominated for The Lovely Blog Award!  Thank you from the top of my hoary head to the tips of my gnarly toes, Judith Arnopp and Anna Belfrage.

The One Lovely Blog award has rules.  The first is to thank the person or persons who conferred it and link to their blog or website. That was not much of a challenge. Blogspot has a button for it.

The second  rule, adding the One Lovely Blog Award badge to my layout,  required a modicum of basic blogger skills. After much cursing myself for not staying current on technique, I finally sorted it.  As evidenced on my sidebar,although it took me about ten tries to get it right,  I am a disciple of Sir Winston Churchill when he declared:  Never, never, never give up. And thus, Eureka.

Third, we are asked to nominate others deserving of the award and link to their sites.  Forgive me for the duplications on my list, but that is the only honest way to respond.  I have tried to add a few news names  which will hopefully add diversity to our reading and blogging pleasure, and I am omitting some of my favorites because they have been selected more than once. I have tried to select sites that are not entirely devoted to selling the bloggers books.  That is a fine and noble motive, but for this list, I was looking for a bit of news, humor, inspiration and mentoring. The list comes last so if you to not want to share my secrets,scroll on down..

The Fourth Rule, and a true Monday morning challenge, asks us to reveal seven things about ourselves that others might find interesting. Those who know me well will not be surprised to hear that being twice nominated, I am tempted to list fourteen.

Here is my list.

1.  Although I have been around for three-quarters of a century I swim in a bikini.  By way of explanation, I only swim in the exercise pool in my garage with the garage door down.

Note closed garage door- a humanitarian gesture.

Note two men reacting to 75 year old woman about to enter ipool in Michael Kors bikini

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2. This is a real shocker I usually do not share unless I have a couple of double-Jameson's under the  belt, but I share an honor with Queen Katherine Parr.  Bear in mind that I have been happily married to the same husband for going on 35 years, but neither of us were 'first timers.'.  Yes, friends, I am Chris's #6.

 Katherine should be smiling like I am in the photo below.  We are a very exclusive pair of survivors in the Sixth Wife's Club.  She should be thankful not to have shared the fate of wives 2 and 5.  And as an aside, Chris and I were introduced by this third wife on the day they signed their divorce papers. We were friends for the next eight years before we got it right, but when we did, we did!

Smiling  Member of Sixth Wife's Club

3. I went to high school with Dennis Hopper and college with Kris Kristofferson and neither one of them asked me out. (As an aside, Dennis Hopper always wore a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the sleeves and Kristofferson, who was the smartest person on the Pomona campus and possibly, the planet,kept his hair cropped short, was clean shaven and favored conservative dark colored turtlenecks).  I would post pictures but my year books burned up in a garage fire in 2008 along with my IRS records, my beloved PT Cruiser and my LHS with the heated seats.

4. There are three fast growing Partridge Penedesenca chicks and one small Silkie living in our guest bedroom. Our former human guests have decided they prefer the Hyatt in Indian Wells. So what's this about an Empty Nest Syndrome?

Below are photos of my human chicks, granddaughters included.

Son Michael and grandkids Elise & Gen

Jolie the First Born and granddaughter Gen

'Cio, Russ, John and Chelsy

5.  In spite of my reputation for knowing a lot about 16th and 17th century Scotland, I have never been there.  The Ferniehirst from the Green Woman series, the Cockie House in Canongate and the Maitland mansion near the Meal Market are constructs of an overactive imagination and a lot of research.  I have, however, been to Westminster.

6. I lie about having always (almost) been a blonde. I would have lied about being tall like Diana Rigg, but that is a much harder stunt to pull off (Note: Young, Fabulous and Broke is just the trade-name  for a brand of clothes I like. I am neither young nor broke.)

7. My first writing award was a national Quill and Scroll first place in Biography in 1956.  I wrote about my friend Nancy Lindberg from my high school class who was an acknowledged  music prodigy at age 4. She is an internationally known Bay Area pianist and composer,shown here with the conductor of the Galeburg Symphony. And if you are one of my friends from Helix High School in La Mesa, she and I wrote the La Mesa Junior High School song. I doubt they still sing it, but I do.

Nancy Lindberg Ohlbach

8. My eighth confession is controversial. It is my bonus fact: Ever since I was seven and they would not let me into Cub Scouts, I have been puzzled why people chose their friends based on such things as sex and race and age and politics instead of how sincere they are and how much fun they add to life. Which leads me to the list, because each of the bloggers listed has contributed to mine.  I have neglected some of my favorites because they have already posted and/or been tagged more than twice.

Each of you have been tagged. If you have been tagged more than once, respond at will. Or not. In that case you will already know the rules.  For the Marie Stuart Society Group, I suspect it will find responding outside of its guidelines, but I list it because it is an exception source that should at least receive honorable mention.  It is a Stuart historian's mother-lode of information.

1. Kim Rendfeld, 2.The Marie Stuart Society. 3.Debra Brown 4,Gingernut Books,D.Michelle Gent - 5. InMemorium - M.m.Bennets http://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/6.Judith Arnopp 7.Paula Lofting
8.http://wendyjdunn.com/ 9.http://layeredpages.com/ (Stephanie Moore Hopkins' incredible site)
10. https://www.facebook.com/louise.rule 11.http://elisabethmarrion.yolasite.com/ 12Maria Grace-Random Bits of Fascination 13 http://stuartslaing.blogspot.com/ 14.Tara Chevrett, the Book Babe
15. C,W, Gortner/16.Marie Macpherson 17.Jayne Smith Scottish History

Cheers to all and happy blogging.