Sunshine Awards!

Aw!  Meredith over at Mom of the Year nominated me for the Sunshine Award.  I'm so flattered.   :)  The award's purpose is to "positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere."  Meredith definitely does this for me.  She vents about the realities of having children in a no holds bar type of way.  And offers suggestions on how to make it easier!  She cracks me up on a daily basis.

So here are the requirements of the award:

• Thank and link back to the blogger who nominated you.
• Post the award on your own blog.
• Answer 10 questions.
• Pass the award on to ten other bloggers.

Before I start ranting about how awesome all of you are, let me say that I think ten is a limiting number!  There's so many amazing bloggers out there, and I love more than ten of you.  Also, I'm sure many of you have been nominated before so I apologize for any redundancy.

1.  Corinne at Everyday Gyaan.  Corinne's motivational blog inspires me to be the best me I can be and opens my eyes to new spiritual experiences almost every time I read.  On top of great content, she's a great bloggy friend to have.  She's constantly helping those she's networked with, even if they're in a completely different niche!  (E.g. personal finance :p)

2.  Jeremy at Modest Money. A great PF blogger with always interesting and useful content, Jeremy is also a great bloggy friend.  When I was trying to get under 200k with my Alexa rating, he went way out of his way to use his social network to help me out.  It was successful!  At the time of writing, you may notice that it's back up again, but that's because I went on vacation and was off the grid for a while.  Jeremy showed me the power of networking and selfless giving.  :)

3.  Daisy at When Life Gives You Lemons.  Daisy is another amazing PF blogger who is a great friend to have.  Her content is always fun to read; never dry.  And she's always there to answer my blogging business questions, which is so much appreciated.

4.  Mr. CBB at Canadian Budget Binder.  Mr. CBB has a great mix of his own posts and guest posts.  I love it; he uses his blog to encourage and promote other bloggers in the personal finance realm and is always so positive towards them.  His content is specifically geared towards Canadian readers.  He also has awesome recipe posts!

5.  Shannyn at Frugal Beautiful.  A real-life fashion blog that shows you how to be gorgeous on a budget...even breaking down the numbers for you.  She has tons of other content aside from just fashion, as well.  She's also awesome as she, like some of my other Sunshine nominees, always takes time to help me out if I have a question.

6.  Miss T at Prairie Eco-Thrifter.  I'm still a smaller blog.  But even when I was just starting out and minuscule, the powerhouse that is Miss T was never to big to return my comments.  That has truly meant a lot to me.  Her blog has amazing content about living frugally, living green, and just plain living.  I absolutely love it.

7.  Caitlin at Candyfloss and Persie.  I honestly can't think of anyone more sunshine-y than Caitlin!  Her posts aren't always on happy subjects, but she seems to be able to find the cuteness and positive in any situation.  Or at least suggests a way we could change things so they are happier.  I don't really know which niche to put her in.  Maybe fashion.  Maybe lifestyle.  Or maybe just AWESOME.  (My a-word ban has been lifted!)

8.  Michelle at See Debt Run.  Michelle is so cool.  She always has positive words for her blogosphere friends.  And I love her tweets.  It helps that See Debt Run is about saving/earning while having kids.  We have a lot in common.  

9.  Average Joe at The Free Financial Advisor.  Average Joe, you seriously crack me up.  Always funny with real, big, knowledgeable money advice.  

10.  Nicole and Maggie at Grumpy Rumblings of the Half-Tenured.  These ladies are amazing.  Their writing is intelligent and hilarious, covering subjects like finances, child-rearing, and academia.  They're very thoughtful commenters, so I got mad at blogger when for a while it started marking their comments on my blog as spam.  Not cool, blogger, not cool.

I think these are the ten questions I'm supposed to answer....

1.  If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

Right now I'm pretty happy with the whole Pittsburgh thing.  It's good to be close to family, especially when you have your own family.  If it weren't for the whole family thing, though, I'd probably move somewhere with milder winters.  I really like the triangle area in NC.

2.  If you could go on vacation anywhere, where would you go?

Somewhere in the Bahamas or something.  My mind changes every other week, but right now my criteria are:  clear water, white sand.

3.  What's your favorite part of blogging?

I think I'm going to have to go with Meredith and say the writing.  Though I do love the relationships I've been building with fellow bloggers, as well.

4.  Coffee or hot chocolate?

Hot chocolate.

5.  How do you take your coffee?

I don't.  

6.  What do you do to relax?

Hang out with the boyfriend.

7.  How do you keep calm in stressful situations?

I talk it out with someone that will tell me how silly it is that I'm being so high-strung.  (Usually my sibling.)

8.  Beautiful skies or clear with stars?

I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'll say clear with stars.  Because that is beautiful.

9.  Dogs, cats, or fish?

Cats.  I'm learning to love dogs, too, though.  They scared me for the longest time.

10.  Which name do you like better--maiden or married?

I went back to my maiden name after a divorce.  I was thinking about changing it to something cool like Rocks.  Because then my name would be Femme Rocks.  Haha.  But I just went back to maiden.  Neither one is incredibly good or bad.  I don't like the whole idea that my name changes based on the men in my life, though.