Wow! Was I ever surprised yesterday afternoon when I logged onto my blog. A huge thank you to Fran Ellsworth at Branching Out Through the Years for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award.

The Rules for the One Lovely Blog Award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to that blog.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Nominate 15 bloggers you admire (or as many as you can think of!)
4. Contact your bloggers to let them know that you have tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award.

Seven things about me:

1. I was born in Passaic, NJ, but moved to California in 1978 and then to Arizona in 2010, so I consider myself a Westerner.

2. Genealogy is my obsession; I started researching the family roots in 1979.

3. Although my genealogical expertise level is advanced, my husband Dave can vouch for the fact that my technological skills are not (more like advanced beginner). He is amazed that I have been able to get my blog up and running pretty much on my own with minimal help from him.

4. I am a retired special education language arts teacher. I love books, reading and writing and am very much enjoying my venture into blog writing.

5. Another love is traveling. We often take cruises and London is my favorite city in the world because of its history.

6. Quilting is another hobby. I love mixing the colors and patterns. Although I began quilting about 1985, I am only what I consider to be an advanced beginner here, too. That is because when my son was born in 1988, I was teaching full time, taking care of him, working on the family tree and quilting. All were becoming full time jobs. Since money is always useful, the job and baby stayed. Between quilting and genealogy, quilting took up more space and time and seemed to take a lot longer to finish a quality project so quilting went on the back burner until I retired in 2010. Did I already mention that genealogy is my obsession. . .

7. I am a typical “melting pot” American. My father’s family is Slovak with both sets of great grandparents immigrating in the 1880’s. On my mother’s side, my roots are all colonial New England with British Isles origins with the exception of two great grandparents who emigrated in 1883 from Denmark. One of their parents was Swedish, so I have a bit of Scandinavian mix there.

I am definitely a newbie when it comes to blogging and more than several bloggers who I look forward to reading have already been nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award. However, there are others who I would like to nominate for this award (in ABC order) because they not only tell great stories, they also teach me something new:

1. A Family Tapestry – Jacqi Stevens

2. A Sense of Family – Shelley Bishop

3. Are My Roots Showing? – Jenny Lanctot

4. Diggin’ for Family – Christopher Shaw

5. Granite in My Blood – Midge Frazel

6. My Ancestors and Me – Nancy Messier

I will be contacting each to tell them of their nominations.