Liebster Award: Sharing the Blogger Love

Along the Heather Lake Trail, Mountain Loop Highway, Washington

While my mission here at Pacific Northwest Seasons is to share adventures and fun things to do in the Pacific Northwest region of the USA, you regular readers know that I occasionally post personal essays or promote causes I feel strongly about. (Yes, I'm a tree hugger, literally and figuratively).

That's the beauty of a blog.

I usually like to stay in the background and reveal just snippets about myself while recounting what I did that you might like to do also. But today I'm responding to a fellow blogger who tagged me for a "Liebster Award."  Thanks to Marie, an incredibly prolific blogger and former co-worker who writes an entertaining, heartfelt, and impassioned blog called Every Day is a Miracle.




What exactly is a Liebster Award?  Well, it's basically a tool for drawing attention to bloggers who are toiling in relative obscurity (like me).  While my Pacific Northwest Seasons FaceBook page is gaining followers weekly,  not as many of you have signed up to follow this blog directly. (But big thanks to those of you who do!)

Draper Girls Farm, Hood River Valley, Oregon

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the blogger who presented you with the Liebster Award, and link back to his or her blog. DONE! Thanks again Marie!

2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself, and create 11 questions for your nominees.

3. Present the Liebster Award to 11 bloggers, who have blogs with 200 followers or less, whom you feel deserve to be noticed. Leave a comment on the blogs letting the owners know they have been chosen. (No tag backs. Shows my blogging ignorance that I'm not sure what these are!)

4. Upload the Liebster Award image to your blog.


SIDEBAR: Because I'm a particularly independent gal, I'm going to bend the rules and ignore some of the rules.

11 Questions from Marie

1. If you could get paid to do anything, what would you do? Go do adventures and write about them!

2. Who are your favorite actors? Oh gosh, depends on the film.  Jeff Bridges, Ryan Gosling, Daniel Day Lewis, Julianne Moore, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett, Tina Fey, Steve Buscemi, Mark Ruffalo.....pretty MOR fare.

3. When you were 10, what did you want to be when you grew up? Um, really don't remember. Recall thinking it would be cool to be a photographer when I was in junior high.

4. What is your guilty pleasure? Occasionally splurging on facials and massages. Have my fav local spa (Habitude at the Locks in Ballard 'hood in Seattle), but also love to indulge when traveling.  One of my most memorable  was an outdoor massage in Belize with the live soundtrack of jungle sounds all around.

5. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Gosh, maybe 20 or so? Mostly just wear my Dankso clogs and light hiking boots (for support because of my twisty ankles.)

Along the Snow Lake Trail, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Washington

6. What made you start blogging? Been in a writing group for years, this makes me write regularly. Thanks to my friend Seanna for planting the seed to get started. Also serves as a counterbalance to the technical writing and editing I do for a living.

7. What is your most popular blog post? Side trip to Mount St. Helens Johnston Visitor Center. This post was tagged in Stumbled Upon by a very popular blogger.

8. What do you order at Starbucks (or whatever coffee/tea place you patronize)? These days it's chamomile tea at my favorite teahouses - Miro in Ballard and the Panama Hotel Teahouse.  (Zen Dog is my other fav teahouse but he doesn't serve chamomile.)

Tea in the pagoda at Zen Dog Studio Teahouse, Crown Hill neighborhood in Seattle, Washington

9. What is your favorite memory of a grandparent? Two died before I was born and the other two died when I was an adolescent.  I loved my Swedish grandmother's wonderful berry pies.

10. If you could change two things in the world, what would you change? The way I see it, everything is constantly changing already! 


11. What is your favorite song? Depends on the day/mood. Right now I'm feeling Bob Dylan, unplugged.

Random Facts About Me:

1.   I love to camp under the stars.
2.  I really enjoy singing, even though I didn't make the cut for choir in sixth grade.
3. I love to draw!  I take my sketch pad with me when traveling. Thinking of scanning some of my sketches and including them here on the blog.
4. I've been in every state of America except....Arkansas.
5.  I was born in a house in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, near Green Lake.


My Questions:

1.  What's your favorite hike or walk in the world?
2. What's the goal of your blog?
3.  Chocolate or vanilla? Beer, wine, or whiskey?
4. Best trip yet?
5. What has been the most effective way to promote your blog? Do you use social media for that purpose, and do you think it has increased traffic?

Other Bloggers I am Bestowing with Liebster Awards:

1.  Ed over at Everyday Living in the Pacific Northwest.  Great energy, relatively new blogger.
2.  Norwegian transplant Ingunn at Trail Snail. She might have more followers than the number here. I aspire to match her beautiful photographs as she and her husband and dog hike all over Washington.
3. Ron at Ron Mitchell's Adventure Blog.  This man has been EVERYWHERE and writes amusingly, with  heart! 


And that's it.  I have other blogger pals, but I can't see them doing something like this on their blogs - nature bloggers, etc.  Not sure that these three will either.  But sorta a fun departure for a change.  More Pacific Northwest adventures and flavors soon!