An award? Check it, I might have nominated you!

Through the various chains of blogs out there, I discovered that L. Williams over at Viva Carlos nominated me for the Liebster award.   Super cool -- thank you, L!  This will be fun!   If you don't already read Viva Carlos, you should hop over there.  Read about the amazing horse that was Carlos, how much L loved him and still does, and the strong and caring woman L is.

HOW TO ACCEPT THE AWARD: The Liebster Blog Award is a way to recognize blogs who have less than 200 followers.  Liebster is a German word that means beloved and valued.  Here are the rules for accepting the award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
2. List 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions given to you.
4. Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
5. Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or fewer followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
6. Go to each blogger's page and let them know you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts About Me

1. I'm very short: five feet nothing.  And I have a long torso and short legs.  I really could have picked a better sport for my body type than riding, but ... well, we don't need to discuss the "why horses?" thing.

2. I am a big, big, big geek.  I love comics, science fiction, and fantasy.  I play Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games, I watch geeky TV and movies, and I've been to many, many fandom conventions.   I fly my freak flag high.

3. To quote MT, I never met a word I didn't like.  I have a vocabulary of over 20,000 words and I'm not afraid to use it!!  I think this goes hand in hand with being a geek who likes to read.

4. I've never been married, though I think I'd like to get married someday, and I have no kids.  The kids, though, I am sure I don't want.  I do a good "crazy aunt Rinsie."  :)  And even though I don't want kids, I would love to have the time, space, and money to have more animals. 

5. Speaking of animals: I'm allergic to anything that has fur, basically.  Cats (I have 2), dogs (I have 2), horses (just one), hamsters (don't have them any more), rabbits (would have them if I could), et cetera.   

6. And speaking of allergies, I'm allergic to most pain medication, including Aleve.  The older I get, the more things I'm allergic to.  And the older I get, the less I bounce when I fall off horses!  I don't like this combination of circumstances much at all.

7. If I could, I would live in a TinyHouse.  I would want to be able to hook it up to water and improve the water heater, because long hot showers are a vice of mine, but ... yeah.  That'd be just neat.  I'd hate to get rid of all my books, but again.  Neat.

8. My favorite musical artists are Stan Rogers, the Dropkick Murphys, Leonard Cohen, Faith and the Muse, and one slot reserved for the rotating favorite of the moment.  Currently the rotating slot contains Tim Barry.

9. I have two tattoos, one that's big and very visible.  I plan on at least two more, one of them also big and visible.  Punk rawk spiritual eventing, that's me.

10. I wish I could go back to school for a degree in fire science/forestry/environmental science and go to work for the BLM or Forest Service.

11. Learning languages is incredibly easy for me.  I speak Spanish well, and I'm dabbling in Hungarian, German, and French. I have some Latin and I have a few words in Japanese and Basque.   I'd love to learn Russian and Finnish and Arabic, too.  I could do it; I'd just have to sit down and, well, do it.

11 Questions L. Williams Asks Her Nominees

1. Favorite type of Jump?   Hmm.  Showjumps?  I like walls, or oxers.  Cross-country jumps?  Coops.

2. Favorite Professional Rider/Horse Team?  One favorite, not several?  Hmmm.  Sara Mittleider and Harry Houdini (or El Primero, her 4-time Rolex ride!)

3. Favorite Riding Exercise?  Gymnastics.

4. Least favorite Riding exercise?  I'll go with Karley (again!) and say working without stirrups.

5. Where do you see yourself in the next years (horse/career/life)?  Horse: With Apollo, keeping on learning and jumping, and with any luck, competing successfully in recognized events.  Career: I can't even begin to speculate.  Life:  Still happy with my animals, working, riding, and maybe married?  

6. Advice you would give yourself 5 years ago?  "Don't assume you know anything; this is going to hurt in a lot of ways before it gets better, but you'll be better for it in the end.  Oh, and don't lease that horse.  That ends in tears."

7. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?  I wouldn't.

8. If you could train with anyone who would it be and why?  I'm really happy with my teachers now, honestly, but if I could take a month-long clinic with Jane Savoie, I'd do it.

9. I'm giving you $5k what would you buy?  Two used County saddles and two County Logic girths.

10. Give me the recipe for your favorite dish you can make.  One favorite dish?  Just one?!  Okay, Vietnamese grilled pork.   * 1 lb pork loin, sliced.  * 5 T fish sauce  * 1 T + a teaspoon or two caramel sauce (made by dissolving 1 c brown sugar in 1 c water and boiling until sticky)  (Oh hell, just blop some in there until it tastes right) * Red pepper flakes or fresh Thai pepper, to taste.   

Make one batch of marinade and set it aside for basting (you can omit the pepper if you want to dial the spice back).   Make another batch of the marinade and add about 1/4 cup of water or coconut juice, not much but enough to kind of round out the marinade so it covers the meat, then put the pork into the marinade and let it sit at least 1 hour, 24 hours at most.  Get your charcoal grill going; have a medium-cool heat zone and a hot zone.   Take the pork out of the marinade and pat it good and dry; dry meat grills better than wet.   Grill it over the medium-cool heat until it's just shy of done, and then finish it with a good hot char over the hot zone, with lots of baste to caramelize.   Slice and serve over rice noodles garnished with thin cucumber matchsticks, fresh lettuce, a bit of cilantro, fresh jalapeno slices, and fresh ground black pepper.   You can also serve with the Vietnamese dipping sauce called nuoc mam.

11. Dream vacation destination?  Anyplace where I don't have to do anything, just relax and read, swim, snooze, etc.  Mountains, beach, etc.   Alternatively, Disney World: the outside world just falls away there, and you don't have to worry about anything but having fun.   I wouldn't want to go to a city or anything that required, yknow, work to enjoy.  ;)

The 11 Questions I Ask My Nominees:

What is your favorite thing about your horse?

When things don't go well during a ride, what do you do and how do you handle it to move forward?

What do you do to treat or pamper yourself?

What's your favorite childhood memory?

What's your general barn routine?

If you could have as many horses as you wanted, how many and what would you do with them (if anything)?

What's your favorite meal?

What's your mindset like during a typical ride?

Favorite tack brand and why?

Favorite breeches and why?

Tell me about your first riding experience.

My 11 9 10 Nominees:

Redheadlins at My Mojito

SprinklerBandit at SprinklerBandits

Amanda at A Fat Girl & A Fat Horse

Gingham at Pia's (And Prairie's!) Parade

Katie at Young, Dreams, and Eventing (though I challenge her to do this via vlog!)

Ashley at Equestrienne Esquire

SheMovedToTexas at She Moved to Texas

Pony at Silly Red Mare

Roxie at I Is Roxie!, because I'd love to hear this from a horse's perspective. Roxie, you can replace any human-type words with Roxie-type words, like foalhood and if you could have as many humans as you wanted.
Genie at Genie Needs A Blog.  The world needs you, Genie.  Write about ponying, Happy who isn't, clipping, etc!

*: Only nine actual blogs because everyone else I read is either over 200 readers or already tagged!  The last one ... get on it, girl!