The Liebster Award!

   Many thanks to Lori at Journey to Fit & Healthy who recently nominated me for a Liebster Award! I've seen the Liebster Award pop up on the odd page I follow and I always thought it'd be kinda cool to receive one of my own so...many thanks again to Lori! She's also a blogger I consider to be a homey of mine so drop by her blog and take a boo!
    The general idea behind the Liebster Award is to recognize other blogs and bloggers of note and possibly introduce them to new readers. Kind of a fun way of "spreading the love"!
   So here are the rules:

1. You need to link back to the person who nominated you
2. You need to answer the questions they gave you
3. You then get to pick 10 of your favourite bloggers
4. And nominate them for a Liebster! Plus notify them and have them answer ten questions YOU made up!

   Easy enough?? Here are my answers to the ten questions Lori gave us.

1. Why did you start blogging?
     I've pretty well always had this desire to write. A friend of mine started up a very shortlived blog three or four years ago and I thought, "Well...if he can do it..." At that point, I started a blog called "Neanderings", which was and is simply a hodge-podge of random topics. I was in the middle of all that when I got interested in running. Running then became one of the things I found myself blogging about. At that point, I wondered if maybe I could devote a whole blog of its own to running and "Strides" was born!

2. Do you have any "furbabies"? If you do, tell us a little about them.
   Furbabies? Do we EVER! We have four cats--Squeaker, Puffer, Luna and Yoda. We are pretty well constantly surrounded by them and can't imagine life without them. They're constantly underfoot, they tell us when to go to bed and they seem to want to assist with the blogging process, as well. Yoda and Luna are the two "babies" and are still constantly wrestling, chasing, hugging and snuggling with each other. Puffer's the one the other cats don't fool with and Squeaker's my main squeeze (after Doralyn!)

3. Who do you admire the most, and why?
   Tough one! Out of all the people I admire the most, I'd pretty well have to pick Leonard Cohen. He writes, he's musical, he's eclectic, he has a Bohemian air about him, he's both ageless and timeless AND he gets women!

4. What is a habit that you had that you are most proud of breaking?
   Another hard one! I seem to wrestle with a lot of little bad habits that some days I conquer and, other days, I don't. I suspect this is the same for a lot of us. I've never smoked or done drugs or gambled or any of the biggies but I do procrastinate like hell! In retrospect, the closest thing to a bad habit I'm proud of breaking was my habit of not running!

5. What is your favourite holiday?
   Probably Thanksgiving. Still about the family but not so much about the presents.

6. What would be your dream job?
   Living in a little log cabin, writing novels.

7. What is the first website you check when you turn on your phone/computer?
   Usually right straight to Hotmail, then Facebook. Then I check blog stats. Lately have been spending a lot more time on Twitter.

8. What did you study in university/college? Would you do something different if you could go back?
   Right out of high school, I wasted a whole year's worth of tuition attending Western University. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and was just taking general arts courses. I was not only directionless but my mother passed away in the Spring of that school year and I never even bothered to write exams. As an adult, I attended college and took Developmental Service Worker courses and that's the field I've been in for over thirty years. If I had a "do-over", I might have concentrated on literature and writing. To go along with the log cabin...

9. Who is your biggest celebrity crush?
   lol The last time I had an all-consuming celebrity crush was back in the sixties and the object of my affection was Diana Rigg (Emma Peel on "The Avengers"). The closest you get to that these days might be Jennifer Aniston, she just seems to be the epitome of looking better the older you get!

10. If you could do a workout/run with anyone, who would you choose?
   There are a handful of running bloggers I would LOVE to sit down and have coffee with! As far as sharing a run or a workout, I would have to pick Solana Klassen and Nikki Scott (who quite often run together, so that would kill two birds with one stone) as the people I'd likely have the most fun running with. They are a couple of west coast bloggers who were featured in a video a friend of theirs produced not long ago of a group running through the mountain trails in North Vancouver. Everyone on the run just seemed to be having so much sheer joy that it was infectious and hard not to want to be a part of that sometime! That and I have a bit of a "west coast" thing.

   Okay, THAT was fun!
   Now, here are the ten bloggers and their blogs I would like to nominate. I think the idea was to nominate a "small" blog but I have absolutely no idea what a "small" blog is so I am simply going with my faves! So if I nominated you and you thought you were a "big" blog, please don't be offended, I nominated you because I LIKE you! Here we go! (these are in no particular order, believe me and there's WAY more than ten blogs I really like---I suspect somewhere down the road you'll ALL get a turn---whether you want it or not!)

1. Erin @ Running Tall
2. Suzan @ Welcome To The Nuthouse
3. Nikki @ Slow is the New Fast
4. Solana @ Beast Mode On The Run
5. Mike, Michelle and Rhoda @ 3 Cheap Runners
6. Flower @ Up and Humming
7. Stephani @ Running Away From Trouble
8. Krysten @ The Misadventures of a Darwinian Fail
9. Tina @ Fabulosi-T
10. Crystal @ Running With Rhyno

   Oh crap...there ARE way more but apparently I am limited to ten, so there you go!
   Okay, running bloggers, here are your ten questions:

1. Tim's or Starbucks?
2. What's your favourite distance, and why?
3. How many hours a week do you blog?
4. How supportive of your running is your significant other?
5. Run in the rain? Or the treadmill instead?
6. Does your job provide "training" benefits or incentives?
7. Any notable difference between male bloggers and female ones? It just occurred to me I only nominated females....
8. Love numbers or hate numbers? (I hate 'em!)
9. Consider your OWN celebrity crush. Go for drinks with them or go for a run with them?
10. If you had to give up one or the other, would it be blogging or running?

   Well, there you go! Congratulations and I hope you have fun and that you have the time and energy to take part! In any case, thank you all for the enjoyment you've given me in following your running (and "life") adventures. Cheers!