I am honored to be one of the first recipients of the first Kathryn Ingrid Creativity Award, awarded to me by Desi from The Valentine 4. This award was given in response to her being honored with both the Liebster Blog Award  and the Versitile Blogger award. GO DESI! The idea is to honor bloggers and spread blog love, and those who are honored choose to honor blogs themselves. And the circle continues.

When Desi was honored with the Versatile Blogger award, her AWARDER, NAME and LINK, posed the following suggestion:

What I would like to suggest to each of you in response to this is that instead of doing the usual, you make a post one day soon that tells us what fed your drive to express yourself in a blog and your personal flexibility and versatility. Was it in your training to try to diversify and strengthen and deepen your skills and interests, were you born curious, or was it serendipitous? Is your family or educational background particularly creative, or were you the unique artistic one in the bunch? I’m interested in our sharing what shapes us as creative beings, and I think this VBA recognition is an appropriate time to take a breath and consider it.  (from Kathryn Ingrid)

Desi asks that we continue to consider these questions, as well as reveal any other fun facts about ourselves, and I am happy to oblige. Here we go!

My drive to express myself in a blog is multi-dimensional. I have always needed to create. I have always been an artist (at least in my head!) and I’ve always been a writer.  All the women in my family are creative with writing, music and art. My mother is a writer who is also about to join me on her own blogging journey. I’m actually trying to get all the women in my family, and my husband, to blog. It’s very therapeutic and makes me feel like I am staying fresh both professionally and personally. I think they would all benefit. But I digress.

As I’ve come out of a dark place in my life, blogging has felt like the natural way to express myself, which has become more important as my life has changed. And I actually CAN do this now – talk about life and such – so I figured I should go for it! I also have a desire to share my life with others, because I know other people have the same experiences and maybe they won’t feel so alone. And maybe I won’t either.

I need to be social, which is hard to do when you work from home. Adding to that mix is the fact that my husband and I share a car, so I can’t always get out and meet people. I really like the camaraderie between bloggers. Blogging communities are great places to “hang out!”

I think I am both personally and professionally flexible and versatile. My ability to relate to people from all walks of life; people who are young and old; men and women and somewhere in between. Maybe because of this, I have a lot of various marketable professional skills. Or maybe it’s because I have had so many different types of jobs and experiences that I can relate to many people. Who knows. Chicken and egg.

Some general things about me. I am an organization junky. I spend a lot of time doing it, and I am never really organized. If anyone wants to give me money for all the things I KNOW I NEED for organizing, I take donations. Along with the organizing is my obsessive list making. It’s not a problem, it’s a solution! I love to cook. I’m a very linear thinker when it comes to most things, and cooking is no exception. So, I’ve been challenging myself to try to create my own fusion-type dishes. I’m still working on that though – I think it’s for the New Year! Another goal I have for the New Year is finally making a creativity journal I’ve been contemplating for the last two years. I think it would make a fine addition to my blogging. I need to get on that! One last thing that I’m very excited to share is I have recently been ordained so I can perform wedding ceremonies. I decided to do this so I can carry on the tradition started by my Gram. As a town justice she performed many ceremonies, which was something she absolutely loved. She married my husband and I as well as many other members of our family and many, many close friends.

Now on to the blog love. I herby bestow the Kathryn Ingrid Creativity Award on the following bloggers, who I enjoy reading regularly:

thisisnotthatblog.com

belleofthecarnival.com

alienbody.blogspot.com

cotewrites.com

tidbitsfortoday.com

So if you see your blog on this list, please pass along the love, and I would love for you to also take part in the “why I blog/a little about me” dialog! And to all you non-bloggers, check out these blogs (and others!) because they ROCK!

Happy blogging!