Last week Matthew Wright awarded me the Reality Blog Award. I was surprised and, of course, delighted. Thank you, Matthew. His is my favorite, number-one most-read blog so it’s annoying I can’t turn around and nominate him for this award since nominating awesome bloggers is a part of the responsibility of winning it, but there you have it.
The award also requires me to answer several questions:
If you could change something what would you change? Well, I have to say I’m not in love with this whole mortality thing so if we could all live forever, well, that would be great.
If you could relive one day what would it be? This one was a stumper for me. I guess I don’t dwell much in the past. I’ve had wonderful days that I’d happily relive: the day I eloped to Chicago with my now-husband of 22 years, the day I gave birth to my only child, the first time I saw the Bavarian Alps when I was ten…but I guess I would have to choose, over all of them, any day with my Dad, gone now these past 25 years.
The one thing that scares you? A phone call in the middle of any night that my child isn’t sound asleep in his own bed in my house.
One dream you haven’t completed? I’m in the middle of my dream right now—making a living as a novelist.
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be? Myself, twenty years younger.
As for passing the award on, I’ve listed, below, some blogs I regularly read. Some of these are about facts and insights on publishing or writing, some are amazingly spot-on revelations about life (Post Departum Depression—(Karen) who focuses on empty nesting, but the posts are usually true no matter where you are in life and not depressing at all (a lot of the time)), and France because of that whole life-long love affair thing I’ve got going on with it.
Susan Kiernan-Lewis 
Thank you for your kind thoughts! Very much appreciated indeed – and I was pleased to pass this award on to you.
I can relate to most of your answers.
I got a bit sidetracked, though. I love you book cover!
Thanks, Norma!:-)
What would I change? As my father often said “we are to soon old and to late smart” I guess I’d like my smart to catch up with my old. But then I would have been smart enough to not have gone down all those twisting trails chasing all those rainbows, then again maybe it’s those rainbows that make being old so much fun.
relive one day what would it be? there are so many days gone by, but why sit in the sunset of one yesterday when you can dance in the sunrise of a thousand tomorrows?
the one thing that scares you? that my father was right and to soon there won’t be time to follow another trail, just because it’s there.
One Dream I haven’t Completed? The problem is there are so many dreams.
If you could be somebody else who would it be? my father went to work in the vineyards when he was nine years old. he was a box nailer, nailing the lids on boxes of grapes. his personal goal was to some day nail the lids on enough boxes of grapes to fill a railroad car between sun up and sun down. when he was fourteen years old he drove the last nail in the last box that would fit in a box car, every nail in the lid of ever box in that railroad car he drove with his own hand. I would like to have been my father and driven every nail with him on that day.
Great story, Jon, about your dad and the grape boxes.
Thanks, I was borne at the end of the great depression and the beginning of the second world war, my fathers father was an emigrant from Sweden and his mother was a Libby (Libby, Libby, Libby on the Label, Label, Label) who was disowned by her family because she married a swede. He died when my Dad and his twin Sister were nine years old, the oldest of four kid’s, the boys went to work in the vineyards and the girls went to work with their mom (my grandma) in the packing plant. Grandma never so much as dated another man. My Dad left the vineyards and went to work sweeping floors at an agricultural chemical company at nineteen, married my mom and moved into a little brick ranch house built by a pony express rider on the edge of the Garvey Ranch, he died in my mom’s arms fifty years later on new years morning after completing his fiftieth inventory for the same company and that’s just a sip of the amazing story and family I grew up with.
Write it, Jon! If you haven’t already. Really rich treasure trove to dip from!
Thanks for the poke, times a wasting.
The Bavarian Alps are one of those places I need to wander about myself for a few weeks…
Great post!
And congratulations!
Good Evening Susan, Been away for a while and it seems I’ve lost you, or at least the thread that aloud so many of us to talk, answer and hang our freshly washed thoughts on the line, to be ringed out, viewed and discussed. miss the friendly rug beating and comments after. hook me up.
I’m still here! Missed hearing your take, Jon! Where’ve you been,then?