Cooking with Character was given The Liebster Award!

I received an email not long ago from Stephanie at Love, Laughter and Luggage, nominating me for the Liebster Award for new bloggers!  I was extremely excited, because this is a virtual award passed from blogger to blogger as a show of support, and a way to promote other blogs we enjoy reading.

Be sure to stop by Stephanie’s blog, and show her some love on social media. She has a fabulous website!

HERE ARE THE RULES:

1. You must acknowledge who has nominated you and also share their links.
2. Share 11 facts about yourself.
3. Answer all 11 questions asked.
4. Nominate 11 more bloggers whose blog you would recommend.
5. Ask 11 questions that you would like those bloggers to answer.
6. Include an image of the Liebster Award either in your post or in the sidebar of your blog.
7. Let the bloggers you have nominated know that they’ve been nominated.

11 FACTS ABOUT ME

1. I used to be a technology education teacher, and now I’m a high school librarian. I’m also certified to teach high school English.
2. I’m a published Young adult and middle grade author.
3. I have a husband and a cat. I’m pretty sure the cat rules the house.
4. I can wiggle my ears.
5. My minor in college was Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Reading the original King Arthur stories ruined it for me. To this day, I can’t stand King Arthur, mainly because Guinevere really isn’t much of a catch to be fighting over.
6. I love to cook – but only in the last several years have I managed to expand some of my tastes. I didn’t eat shrimp until this year! In my defense, I have weird texture issues.
7. I once accidentally walked into the kitchen in a restaurant in France when I took the wrong door while looking for the bathrooms. Luckily, no one saw me.
8. My aunt and uncle invite friends and family every year (we try to go every year, but we may have to start doing our own version at home if we don’t make it more often!) and make over 500 pounds of cabbage into homemade sauerkraut. It’s amazing stuff. Your arms ache for days afterward. And no matter what anyone says, those inferno pepper slices are not safe to eat alone. Take it from me.
9. Even though I’m a librarian, I almost never have time to read at work. It’s sad.
10. I love writing snail mail letters. I think it’s a lost art, and I want to get high schoolers interested in it again.
11. I think one of the best sandwiches ever is a bologna and ketchup sandwich. If its garlic bologna, even better!

11 LIEBSTER QUESTIONS

1. What’s your middle name? My middle name is Ellen.
2. What is your favorite song right now? Oh, man. Well, I’m going to say that it’s a toss-up between either “Carry Me” by Eurielle, or “Shiny” from Moana.
3. What gives you inspiration for blog post ideas? Lots of times its watching a movie and thinking about what they might eat in that country, or looking through a Disney cookbook, or a book or blog post about Disney. Sometimes it happens when I’m walking through the grocery store and I’m hungry and thinking about what I want to eat.
4. Best and worst parts of blogging? I enjoy this, but I have to say that doing it seriously, and trying to do it well, is a lot of work. More than you’d think it is. I’m trying to learn as I go, but keeping up with social media and a day job and my writing and everything else in life is HARD. But it’s worth it.
5. Your favorite spring trend of this year? I’m about the least likely person to even know what the trends are, but it seems that there’s a lot of tropical prints and pineapples around, and I love a good pineapple/tropical print during the summer.
6. Sun or snow? Can I qualify this and say sun, but not scorching?
7. Future goals for blogging? I would love, LOVE, to be able to do this blog and have it open up opportunities that would allow me to make it a full time job. Most of all, I’d love to have a community of readers who want to see what I post next.
8. Do you have any pets, if so what are they? We have a cat, named Molly, who is a rather lazy fuzzball. I had her before I met my husband, but she’s totally ditched me in favor of him.
9. What is your favorite social media platform and why? I like different platforms for different reasons, but my top two are Twitter and Instagram. I like twitter because I can interact in real time with people, but I like Instagram because it’s just fun to have the visual there.
10. Coffee or tea? Tea all the way!
11. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why? This is tough. I should say something like Walt Disney or Julia Child. But I think I’d like to have dinner with my Grandma Caynor. She died six months after I was born, and I would have loved to have met her.

My Liebster Nominations are:

• Falon at Falon Loves Life
• Mindy at The Mommy Mouse Clubhouse
• Megan at Magically Megan
• Lisa at Lisa in Wonderland
• Kait at Kait Around the Kingdom
• Dan at The Tomorrow Society
•  Sarah at A Food Lover’s Life
•  Angie at Indulge Your Inner Foodie
•  Dylan at Finding the Mouse
• Kate at YoHo YoHo Blogger’s Life For Me
• Stacey at Stacey Homemaker

My Questions To You.

1. What is the one place in the world you want to visit, if money was no option?
2. Who is your favorite Disney character?
3. Do you prefer phone calls or texting?
4. What is your favorite part of being a blogger?
5. What is your ultimate goal for your blog?
6. What is your favorite book (or author)?
7. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?
8. Almond or vanilla?
9. If you could interview one person, dead or alive, for your blog, who would it be and why?
10. What is your favorite thing to do on a warm summer evening?
11. If you were stranded on a desert island and you could have one meal delivered from anywhere in the world, what would it be and why?