Honest Scrap Award

Emily from Benedictions awarded me the Honest Scrap Award well over a week ago. It's taken me a while to collect it because as she said it’s kind of an interesting one. Recipients of the Honest Scrap award must list ten things about themselves that few or no people know.

So let me get this straight. I'm not getting the award because my blog is honest and authentic. I'm getting it because someone out there wants me to be honest and authentic. Okay. I think I can do that. Maybe. (I feel as if I'm receiving an award for something I didn't do. Perhaps I shouldn't accept it after all?)

At the end of this post I'll link to the blogs that I’ve passed the award on to. Really, it should go to every blog I follow but I'll just choose three. Please check out their great blogs.

Here goes:

1. I have finished the Prayer Quilt as of about ten minutes ago (and no one knows because I'm the only one up). I've estimated that this quilt has taken me less than twenty-five hours to complete (a record for me I'm sure) and involved several techniques that I usually choose not to use such as quick piecing (usually whenever I do anything the quick way my points don't match up but this time they didn't go so badly) and machine quilting (I used 'invisible' thread in the top of my machine - try threading your machine with that when your almost 30-year-old machine has no light!). However it's now done and hopefully tomorrow I can give it to my friend.

(I just had to show a picture of the back of the quilt because I think the fabric is quite pretty. The colours haven't photographed well at this time of the night. There is no fabric that pink in the quilt.)

2. I love jewellery. I suspect I love it more than my husband realises. That's because I don't buy it for myself (I feel weird about buying myself jewellery) and don't really have that much that I can wear. But I like classic pieces. Sapphires. Pearls. Opals.

3. As a teenager I did some panning for gold. Got a few specks. Nothing that would make me a fortune (or buy me the jewellery I love). I have a vague recollection that someone tipped those specks out and that they never made it home. I'm not even sure that my family believed that I'd found gold. But I had. Just a speck but it all counts. Right?

4. I am technologically challenged when it comes to remotes. We have I don't know how many remotes just to operate our TV and DVD player. I think it takes another remote to get sound. I can't operate them. I try. Really I do. But if I manage to even turn the TV on with one of those silly remotes I can never find the channel/movie/whatever that I'm after. I suspect it's a ploy by the men in my house to keep the remotes firmly in their hands (and to provide them with an unlimited source of amusement on my behalf).

5. While I'm not against looking after the environment (I think we have a responsibility to care for what God has entrusted to us) it makes me laugh when I buy a natural or organic product and somewhere on the packaging or invoice slip it says thank you for looking after the environment by choosing this particular product. I feel like standing up and shouting that I didn't buy the product first and foremost because it's environmentally friendly but because I'm conscious of limiting my family's exposure to chemicals that are not so human friendly. So if you hear of me using vinegar to clean my bathroom (makes all that chrome really shine) it's not because I'm overly concerned about what is going into our waterways but because I hate touching and breathing all those harsh chemicals that cost more and don't do a better job than the simple products that can be found in my pantry.

6. As a teenager I topped the class two (or was it three years) in a row in Latin. Latin may be a dead language but I loved it. Nor was it the only subject I loved and excelled at. There was also Mathematics and English and some of the Sciences as well. I think the only subject I ever failed was French. I could never get the pronunciation right. I mean, I have trouble with English pronunciation! I can write it - just can't always say it.

7. My favourite novel of all time is Harper Lee's To A Kill a Mockingbird. It's such an incredible book that it's probably just as well Harper never wrote another. It's hard to believe that another book would have been as good (although I would've loved to have read it anyway).

8. I don't do girly very well: waxing, bleaching, buffing, plucking, tinting, highlighting - I don't get any of it. I must hide it very well though because otherwise why would someone give me a gift voucher for a massage and manicure (unless they're trying to give me a gentle hint)? Said gift voucher expires soon and I finally got around to making an appointment - on the very day it expires. Doing something like this is akin to going to the dentist (and I hate going to the dentist).

9. I've climbed a volcano. And not an extinct one either. In fact, it erupted, almost claiming the lives of two people staying in the hut next to the crater lake only a week or so after we sat and ate our lunch next to that very hut. It was a wonderful experience getting to the top of that volcano and seeing the view but my muscles didn't thank me for it afterwards!

10. I have a terrible fear of snakes. Spiders I can handle regardless of how big and scary they are (although I prefer it if they are not dangerous) but snakes fill me with terror. New Zealand doesn't have snakes. Not a one. I'm not complaining!