Like I said the other day, Kate from foodie blog Tea and Tamarind nominated me for the Shine On Award. I wanted to give her a proper thank you and also think about which 10 (?) bloggers I wanted to nominate. And since I took a break from the award nominations (not that I’m not grateful for the love, just wanted others to get it too), I’m a bit rusty. And Kate and I have somewhat similar tastes in blogs so she’s nominated some I would have too (like 365 and Counting for example).

Luckily, there are so many wonderful blogs that I follow that it’s not hard to come up with 10 more. You should check these out sometime—maybe you’ll like them too:

1.  Evil Squirrel’s Nest

2.  Loving Homemade

3. The Dimwit Diary

4. Life on the Farmlet

5. The Kitchens Garden

6.  Cast Light

7. The Culture Monk

8. Pete Armetta

9. The Grammar Belle

10. lifebeam

Accepting this nomination requires me to share some random, interesting facts about myself which makes me laugh a little bit since that’s what sowsosew is all about, isn’t it? If you read this blog with any regularity you know that I have 4 dogs who have names starting with G, that I’m attempting to grow my own produce, that I’m failing miserably in the sewing arena since I haven’t touched the machine since last winter, and I’ve since spewed a bunch of other random factoids over the past 11 months. I mean, really, this blog is about as narcissistic as they come.

But rules are rules, and, while I don’t always play by them, here are some factoids about me that you may find random and/or interesting:

1. Mortroski is an amalgamation of Bruce’s last name and mine. It was created by the Grammar Belle who in her quaint Texas way really doesn’t like that I didn’t take my husband’s last name when we got married nearly 18 years ago. We think it’s a great new name and if the vet’s computer would let us, we’d give it to the Gs.

2.  I love flowers, flower arranging, giving bouquets to friends, but barely grow any except to attract bees to the Urban Farm.

3.  Guilty pleasure: fast reads! I love Sophie Kinsella, the writer of the Shopaholic series (I know, I am ashamed of myself, but I do love her storytelling and the fast read), the Twilight series, Harry Potter. Fast reading pulp is perfect for business trips and airplanes.

4.  My boss nicknamed me “Hollywood” after Bruce and I appeared on a show called Get Color (US)/Colour Confidential (Canada) starring Toronto interior designer Jane Lockhart.

5. I catch bugs that come in the house and I release them outside. Lizards too, if I can get to them before the Gs.

6. I love holidays of all kinds and decorating/doing special things/buying gifts/making special food for them, but I don’t do it nearly enough.

7. I love having so much to be thankful for that I can celebrate Thanksgiving in October (the Canadian one) and November (the American one) and I have done so for 19 years. No, I don’t get tired of turkey.

8.  At my work, we’re having a jello-shot tournament bracket style with two contestants each Friday. I was planning to make tiramisu jello shots and compete next week, but my travel schedule made me bow out.  My coworker nicknamed Plastic is taking over for me.

9.  I try to perform at least one random act of kindness/good deed every day.

10. This is my 200th blog post. (thank you for reading and following)

And now for your gratuitous dog photo of the day:

feet make excellent pillows