Award-winning author
Unusual times, remarkable places

The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

18 March 2009

Fabulous Blog award



Barbara Martin nominated me for the "Your Blog is Fabulous" award. Thank you, Barbara! I'm glad you've enjoyed my postings.

Part of accepting the award is to point out five things I am obsessed with and cannot live without. I'm also supposed to nominate five other fabulous blogs for the award.

My five obsessions are:

1. Dark chocolate. Truly the food of the gods. My current favorite is Ghiradelli nonpareils.

2. Books. I've been an obsessive reader since I was a child. I love not just the stories in them but the smell of the ink and paper and the feel of the cover. My favorite genres are fantasy, science fiction, mystery, historical fiction, history, and biography.

3. Herbs. One of the first things I do when I move to a new house is to put in an herb garden. I enjoy choosing and using fresh herbs when I cook.

4. Cats. I am currently without one for one of the few times in my life.

5. Creating. Some writers are driven to write. I'm driven to create. Other than writing, my main creative outlets are playing music, cooking, and quilting, but I've toyed with all kinds of crafts.

It's hard to choose only five people from among the many wonderful blogs I read. My choices are five that in the past year have expanded my reading horizons or helped me be a better writer.

Lisa Kenney of Eudaemonia

Charles Gramlich of Razored Zen

Julianne Douglas of Writing the Renaissance

Steve Malley of Full Throttle or F**k It

Carleen Brice of White Readers Meet Black Authors

12 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Congrats on your award! And thanks very much for thinking of me. It's a very neat award and I definitely want to get a post up about this this week. I have a few obssessions to share.

Carleen Brice said...

I'm honored!

Lisa said...

Congratulations on the award and thank you so much for thinking of me. And...I see a cat in your very near future.

Michele said...

Very cool, Shauna! And when I do have chocolate (not often anymore, sadly), I'm definitely with you when it comes to the dark stuff... yum. My first job was working in Belgian chocolate shop where we melted down the bricks of chocolate and made the truffles, turtles, caramels, cakes, solids, ect... right there in the shop. I was literally addicted to dark chocolate. Literally. Not a good thing. LOL

Hope you're well! :)

Rae Ann Parker said...

Congratulations on your blog award, Shauna! Very interesting about your herb garden. I have tried herb gardening in pots, without success, but I would like to have an herb garden. Maybe you can blog about this and give me some tips.

Shauna Roberts said...

CHARLES, given how much horror you write, I'm not surprised you have some obsessions. Looking forward to your post.

CARLEEN, you certainly deserve it.

LISA, you're welcome. Your blog always provides much food for thought.

MICHELE, your job in the chocolate shop sounds incredibly wonderful. Have you read Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light? The author traveled the world in search of the best chocolate.

RAE ANN, thanks. I'll keep in mind your suggestion for a post. This is a good season to start a garden.

Steve Malley said...

Awww, thanks for thinking of me! I'm pretty darn fond of your obsessions, too!!

Lana Gramlich said...

Congratulations! Dark chocolate is certainly da BOMB! Charles & I are about to have some Hershey's Special Dark chocolate syrup on ice creammmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

steve on the slow train said...

Congratulations! I certainly share your passion for dark chocolate, and take advantage of the fact that most Americans don't--buying the 60+ percent cocoa content chocolate at places lke Big Lots. I also share your love of books. And I understand your need to create and your love of herbs. I still haven't figured out cats, though. They seem to have been sacred in ancient Egypt. I don't know about Sumer.

Shauna Roberts said...

STEVE, copycatting is the lazy way out. I expected better of you. :-)

LANA, I'm surprised you can find the Hershey's Special Dark syrup on the North Shore. When I lived in New Orleans, none of the grocery stores I went to carried it. It was one of the first things I bought when I moved to California.

SLOW-TRAIN STEVE, I have not yet come across any mention of cats in Sumer and not seen any in pictures, except for lions and panthers and other predators. You'd think a society that depended so heavily on grain for its nutrition would have plenty of cats.

Barbara Martin said...

I see we have some common interests: dark chocolate and herbs.

Shauna Roberts said...

BARBARA, I'd be interested in hearing more about your herb garden sometime. Because the California climate is so much like the Mediterranean one, most herbs grow great here. But Toronto has such a different climate, and I wonder what things you can grow and what you have to do to grow them.