Passing on the Blog-love

Thank you to Janet from http://footprintsaustralia.com/blog/ for the Versatile Blogger Award. I've never heard of this award before, but apparently these are the rules for accepting the Versatile Blogger award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it.

Here are the seven things:

1. I've never had jet lag. People generally seem to think that missionaries are well travelled and most Japanese presume that foreigners (no matter where they come from) will have been to the US. I've never been further west than Singapore/Jakarta/Perth and never further east than the east coast of Australia. The furthermost north I've been is a an hour or so north of Sapporo in Hokkaido, Japan and the furthermost south would be Port Arthur in Tasmania.

2. I've worn glasses for my distance vision since I was 17 years old. Not full-time, though, until I was about 22. And I hate wearing them before breakfast. Thankfully my vision isn't so bad that I cannot get around without them in a familiar environment. It was pretty scary, however, when I decided not to wear them to the shower on our camping trip last month. Stumbling through the dimness and lots of little buildings I had a terrible time locating the right place (not having gone there before). The next night I wore my glasses for the journey.

3. In Grade 12 I was part of a team that represented my school at a Team Mathematics Competition. We won, against all expectations. I went to a fairly low-class state school and we beat the posh private boys school (Toowoomba Grammar) whose team were buttoning up their blazers to accept the award. I must say that I was certainly the least competent on the team. I think all the other guys (yes, I was the only girl) went on to get TE scores of 990 (the top possible tertiary entrance score), but not me. 

4. I'm proudly left-handed. Unfortunately I have passed this notable trait onto none of my children. I'm always amused by people who've known me for a while being surprised when they see me write. Usually I get a shocked, "Oh, you're left-handed!!!"

5. I have two scars-of-stupidity. The first one is under my chin. When I was about 10 or 11 I was out swimming with a friend and her mother. I foolishly showed my friend's mother how you shouldn't stand on the edge of a swimming pool (on your toes with your heels hanging over the edge) and I promptly lost my balance. I didn't get stitches. Partly because my friend's mum put a butterfly Bandaid on it and partly because my sister sustained a pretty nasty bee sting on the same day that distracted my mother somewhat from my minor injury.

My second scar is on my knee and happened when I ran down a long wheelchair ramp, in the rain, to catch a train in Perth in 2004. I tripped on the flat bit that they put there so that someone in a manual wheelchair can make it up the ramp. I took out the knee of my jeans and a nice sized portion of skin too. It developed into a painful keloid scar, before settling down with some chemicals recommended by a plastic surgeon.

6. Only once have I managed an all-nighter. That is, stayed up all night. And it wasn't for studying. It was our end-of-year-12 party. When I lived at a women's only residential college at university, in my fourth year I was one of the senior students entrusted with locking-up at midnight (and supposedly chasing the boys out). I don't think I ever made it to lock-up time without going to sleep for a little while (with my trusty alarm on).

7. I've rolled a car . . . and a ride-on mower. The mower happened when I was 15 and we were house-sitting for friends who lived on acreage. I mowed a slightly too steep slope and the mower gently tipped over, leaving the blades flashing around in the sunlight. My father was horrified. Thankfully I managed to jump free.

The car, well, that was harder to jump out of. On Mother's Day in my first year of working after university I was driving "home" to Kingaroy (country town of about 10,000 people) after visiting my folks for the weekend. I'd slept a little in the afternoon and was a little late in leaving (it was only a 1.5 hr drive), but I was a tad drowsy and it was dusk. A little kangaroo or wallaby happened to be sitting on the rural road (no houses in sight) and I swerved in my new-second -hand Mazda 121. After a couple of corrections with my power steering the car slid sideways down the road and rolled. It halted finally on the driver's side and still on the road. The next car that came along (a couple of minutes) were acquaintances from Kingaroy and helped me out of the car (not easy to climb out of a car in that position). They not only called the police, but gave me a lift into town. The car, however, was a write-off. I've not ever been able to live this down with my family, they ribbed me badly for quite a long time.

The recently discovered blogs is a little harder to manage. Looking down my list I realise that a lot of blogs I've looked at in the past aren't being updated regularly, if at all, unfortunately. Plus I've not been looking for new blogs recently. Might be something about trying to catch up after 11 weeks of kids at home on summer holidays! But here are some (not 15) that I love anyway:

• Cath at http://davecath.blogspot.com/ Busy mum of four young ones, and wife to the one-time Dave. Dave's studying for the ministry at Moore in Sydney. Cath has a love of motherhood and homemaking. Her blog is beautiful.

• Karen at http://karen-lifeactually.blogspot.com/ Karen will soon be a busy mum of four. She's an OT who loves to play the piano and ponder life on her blog from an introvert's perspective. Though I've never met her, we've come close and I look forward to doing so one day.

• Ben at http://ben-vanishingpoint.blogspot.com/ Ben's an animator, Christian, dad and lives in Sydney. Great blog.

• Susan at http://memoirsofamissionarymom.blogspot.com/ A colleague here in Japan, also with three boys.

• Simone at http://simone1975.blogspot.com/ A pastor's wife, busy with her own "stuff".

• Jamie Jo at http://inreallifewithjamiejo.blogspot.com/ This really is a blog by and for missionaries, but you might enjoy the insight into different concerns. Jamie's recently talked about missionary dress sense!

• Lego Quest by Sam at http://legoquestkids.blogspot.com/ Now this one is a recent discovery. A blog that puts up a monthly challenge to kids to build something original, send a photo and description in and they publish them. No competition, just the reward of being published on the web.

• Melissa at http://melby2002.blogspot.com/ Melissa is another busy mum of four children (all girls). Her youngest has a rare form of diabetes. Melissa and her family looked after us so well when were we in Australia 09-10. I'm glad to be able to keep up with her in this way.

• J at http://naughtbutgood.blogspot.com/ I've only met this lady once (over a fortnight's workshop). She's a former missionary to Japan, now married and living in farming country in the US. It is fascinating to see her view the US through eyes that have lived for a significant time overseas.

• Mrs Q at http://sinksmummy.blogspot.com/ Another good friend with four kids. What is this with the number four? Love her and her family's quirky sense of humour.
  

• KarenK at http://teachingincambodia-kk.blogspot.com/ Karen is a teacher/missionary in Cambodia. She's got strong connections in my hometown. It is great to hear of her adventures in a land quite different to Japan.

Now I am supposed to tell all these people that I've linked their blogs here? Might take a while.