Saturday, February 27, 2010

Beautiful Blogger Award

Kate over at A Year With Horses kindly bestowed this Beautiful Blogger Award to me and my blog. Kate makes blogging look easy. She is a talented writer and often conveys difficult ideas about horses with detail and well-thought out logic. I am very honored to receive this award from Kate. Thanks Kate!
The rules of this award are:
Link back to the person who gave you the award.
Tell 7 things about yourself.
Pass the award to 15 other bloggers.
Please don't feel you have to participate if I choose you. You may have already won this award a zillion times!
Here are my 7 things:
1. I gave up eating meat in January of 1979. I was 11 years old and in 6th grade. I have never had meat since. At that time, vegetarianism in Pennsylvania (Pennsyltucky) was a little difficult. I remember ordering a Single Cheese with Everything except the meat at our local Wendy's. They would charge me 50 cents and had a special "Miscellaneous" button for me. I wish I had given up sugar at the same time (the yin and yang). I spent too many years with too much sugar coursing through my veins and not enough protein to balance it all out. Luckily, I have it all sorted now.
2. I spent my college and graduate school summers, and 9 years after that riding in the truck with a large animal veterinarian. My adventures with "Doc" were amazing, hysterical, horrific, sad, and educational all rolled into one. We treated cows, pigs, horses, goats, sheep, cats, dogs, buffalo, birds...it shaped me more than anything else in my entire life. As a large animal assistant, I learned how to clear my mind and slow my breathing so that I could calm terrified horses. We didn't use tranquilizers as much as equine vets do today. Doc would often stay out of sight and send me into stalls to inoculate difficult horses. I draw on that experience daily.
3. I am married to a Renaissance Man. Brian painted tromp l'oeil paintings throughout our house. He plays the guitar, the piano, the sitar, the banjo, and the harmonica. If I hear a song that I like I will ask him to figure it out and he can just start playing it. He reads quantum mechanics books for fun. He listens to audio tapes of the writings of Proust. He is extremely intelligent, which I think is most evident by how humble he is. (For example, I just asked him what instruments he can play and he said, "none".) I am crazy in love with him and grateful to have found him.
4. I love fonts. I drool over the House Industries website. One of my favorite movies is Helvetica.
5. My mother always called me the "Absent-Minded Professor" when I was growing up. Now, I really am a professor and I don't think I am absent-minded in the least!
6. In the early 1990's, I had Room with a View and Howards End put on audio tape. I listened to those tapes so much that I still inadvertently use lines from the movies in everyday speech. Now, my Maizie and her friends have fell hard for A&E's Pride and Prejudice. They are running around quoting and imitating Mrs. Bennet or Mr. Collins!
7. I am bursting with exciting news about a new project that I will be launching sometime next week. I have been working (with the kind help of some fellow bloggers) on this idea since January. I am determined to have all the kinks sorted before I post about it...so stay tuned! It will combine my love of horses, and graphic design, and FONTS, and art. Oh...I just can't wait!
Thanks again, Kate, for choosing me for the Beautiful Blogger Award.
Here are the Beautiful Blogs I selected. All are lovely and worth a visit!
1. Noodles and Noodles - (This is a blog by my daughter, Maizie. At 11 years of age, she amazes us at every turn. She does this blog completely on her own!)
15. Bay State Brumby - I know you already won this! I just had to include you!

13 comments:

  1. Random: Your pony Pie (I think it's Pie) looks SO MUCH like my girl (Aside from the fact that they're black bays.) :) Do you know his pedigree?

    www.wildponybeast.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi Denali! Thanks for visiting my blog. You are right - my Pie does look like your girl. We do share a Terlingua but dear Pie doesn't have the Slew or anything else much. Secretariat is back there - way back and he is way back on everybody!!lol!
    That is an amazing story about how you got her. I will start following you!
    I totally LOVE your image on your sidebar below "the early years". That is so great.

    Here is Pie's pedigree -
    www.pedigreequery.com/sly+pioneer/

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  3. Juliette: I fell for A&E's Pride and Prejudice when it came out - I was a teenager. I quote it all the time, too. :)Maizie couldn't have fell for anything better!
    Though I am not 100% vegetarian, I admire your commitment to it! I am trying to commit to 100% organic, locally grown foods, and rid my diet of chemicals, preservatives, fake stuff, etc. As well as a lot of the sugar I consume. It is hard - really hard.

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  4. I'm pretty good at picking out a "slew" horse, and I failed! Lol. They also have Storm Cat in there, but that's it (and much like Secretariat a lot of them do!) Thanks for joining my blog!

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  5. Fonts are cool - I even have some books about them.

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  6. I can't wait to hear your exciting news!! I have been gone so long, I feel like I have missed so much!
    Thank you so much for the award!!

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  7. WOW...loved all the wonderful things I learned about you today! We spout many movie lines in this family..mostly my husbands stuff...but I will revisit those movies as i am a romantic too.
    Can't wait to SEE your revisions and beauty of what is to come.
    Thanks for the award!

    I wanted to say that Washashe mare has some in common with your bloodlines too!
    Never Bend/Nasrullah on her sire's line.
    She has Prince John/Princequillo/ War Admiral on her Dams.

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  8. hi, thanks for the nice award.

    i have read a lot a lot of your blog today and enjoyed it - you are not afraid to photograph muddy horses, therefore you keep it real: )

    i wanted to ask you if you have taken the arial helvetica test? i failed it, but maybe you wouldn't.

    my favorite is and will always be courier, cuz that's how i learned how to type (on a typewriter).

    my least favorite is comic sans, it makes me want to hit someone when i see it: ) (wow, i just found out that there was a movement against comic sans!! that explains it, it was all subconscious for me, my disgust at its misuse.)

    ~lytha

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  9. Fun, fun! I loved reading more about you! I think it's great that you are a vegetarian. I sort of consider myself a pseudo wannabe one, since I don't buy/prepare raw meat (only ground beef at times for tacos.) I will eat meat if I'm eating out and it's been prepared. I don't really like steak, I'm more of a seafood and chicken and turkey girl.
    Your husband sounds amazing!!
    I love fonts, too. I like the courier for the same reason Lytha said.
    Thanks for the award, it was very sweet of you. I will certainly work on compiling my list. I'm not going to be posting for a while so I'm not sure when I'll get it out, but look for it in the future! :) Hope you had a great weekend!

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  10. Oh I am so HONORED that you think I am worthy of getting the same award two times!! I really am so flattered! By both you and Kate! I do have one thing to say: Proust AND a SITAR!????!!! YOWZA, that makes my head spin! How does he do it? Maybe you should name your next horse Swann(???)
    PS I like fonts too. I want to make my own font that looks just like my handwriting!

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  11. lytha - I haven't taken the arial helvetica test. I am going to try to find it and take it! That is so funny about comic sans. I will not name the font I hate because I am so sure I will offend someone, but it (the font) is ubiquitous in the art world and I am looking forward to the day when it isn't so popular!
    Yes, there are muddy horses on our farm and on my blog!

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  12. Thanks for including me Juliette..what an honor! Im afraid my info is not as cool as yours, lol! But I look forward to doing and responding to this, this week! FUN!!!
    Gotham is my new fave font, fyi ;)
    xo

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  13. Thank you for the award juliette. I'm honored and will start working on a post and hope to have it out in a week or two (busy, busy these days).

    I enjoyed reading more about you. You and your family are very talented. Maizie's blog is A-maizie-ing! Can't wait to see your new project when you unveil it.

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