Not A House, But A Home: Liebster Award

In the last week, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of two Liebster Awards. The award was passed on to me first by Beatrice from The Crafty Bee and secondly by Krista from Nook of Wellington. Thanks ladies! I love when these awards get passed around because I learn about my blogger buddies and I also get the chance to find out about new blogs.

Some background: the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers, who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.
Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.
Share 5 random facts about yourself.

And here are 5 random things about me.

1. I'm a middle child.

My brother, Daniel is 30 years old today(!) and my sister, Michelle will be 26 years old in less than 2 weeks, which makes me a middle child... Some of you may have heard of the dreaded "Middle Child Syndrome". Well let me tell you, it's true! I have noticed that I more closely relate to people who are also middle children, specifically when the middle sibling has one same-sex sibling i.e. Boy-girl-girl (my family), girl-girl-boy, boy-boy-girl, girl-boy-boy OR boy-boy-boy/girl-girl-girl.

I read this on Urban Dictionary (not a credible source, I know!) and burst out laughing! So true!!

Oldest: Hey I just turned 16!
Mom: Lets go pick you out a car!
Oldest: Yay!

-1 1/2 yrs later-

Middle: Hey I just turned 16!
Mom: Oh.. er.. well we're still paying for your sib's car, so you'll have to just borrow from her when you can..
Middle: >.>

-2 yrs later-

Youngest: Hey! I just turned 16!
Mom: Yay! And I just finished paying for the other car! Lets go get you a car!
Middle: Hey! I should be the next one to get a new car!
Youngest: but its MY birthday
middle: Thats stupid
youngest: MOMMY SHE JUST CALLED ME STUPID!!
mom: Be nice to your little sister on her birthday!! Come on, birthday-girl! Lets go get that car!
Youngest: WOO!

2. My favourite show is 1 Girl 5 Gays.

I love love love that show. I could watch it all day. Vish, David Roberts, Dean, JP, Thomas, Michael Yerxa, Dylan, Juan, Jonathan S, Jonathan N., Gerry... those guys are all awesome!

via

3. My Myer-Briggs personality type is ISTJ.

According to Wikipedia:

The MBTI tool consists of multiple choice questions that sort respondents on the basis of the four "dichotomies" (pairs of psychological opposites). Sixteen different outcomes are possible, each identified by its own four-letter code, referred to by initial letters. (N is used for iNtuition, since I is used for Introversion). The MBTI is approximately 75% accurate according to its own manual.

I – Introversion preferred to extraversion: ISTJs tend to be quiet and reserved. They generally prefer interacting with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances, and they expend energy in social situations (whereas extraverts gain energy)
S – Sensing preferred to intuition: ISTJs tend to be more concrete than abstract. They focus their attention on the details rather than the big picture, and on immediate realities rather than future possibilities.
T – Thinking preferred to feeling: ISTJs tend to value objective criteria above personal preference. When making decisions, they generally give more weight to logic than to social considerations.
J – Judgment preferred to perception: ISTJs tend to plan their activities and make decisions early. They derive a sense of control through predictability.

Yup... that's me to a T!

4. I signed up for a half marathon.

On May 27th, I'll be doing the Toronto Women's Run Half Marathon. I did the 5mile/8km in October and I loved the experience. In all honesty, my training has taken a severe nose dive in the last 2 weeks, so I really need to get back to training! The longest distance I've run so far is 6 miles/10km.

5. I once met Mariah Carey.

My friend Sara's mom won second row tickets and backstage passes to Mariah Carey's Charmbracelet concert. Don't judge! Sara and I are both biracial (half-black half-white) like Mariah, so obviously we thought she was awesome lol! When we got to the backstage waiting area, the security people told us that we were not to ask for autographs, even though we told specifically to bring her latest CD so she could sign it. Oh well. They had a "professional" photographer there who took this photo of all of us, then mailed everyone a copy. Right after this shot was taken, everyone was standing around awkwardly.. I guess no one had told Mariah that they'd told us we couldn't ask for autographs, so she turned to me (me!) and said, "Do you want me to sign your CD?" I said, "Yeah ok!" Then I whipped out my CD while frantically motioning for Sara to get hers. Sara got her CD signed then security kicked the whole group out of the backstage room, which conveniently opened up to the road in front of the main entrance to the Air Canada Centre. Once outside Sara and I jumped up and down with joy for about 10 seconds before thinking better of things because everyone was giving us death stares and we were worried someone would try to steal our signed CDs from us. Yes we were geeks. At least I'm not an overweight geek anymore :)