Awards and Challenges for the Beginning of Summer

Hi! I know, I know. I’ve been kind of lazy with all my stories lately. I was super busy with school, but now I got all schoolwork done and my graduation is only a matter of some bureaucracy! Yay! And now I have a couple of months before my work starts so I have plenty of time to write and do other creative projects. So for the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing just that, but as it turns out, just settling back home has been more work than I thought. I’ve tried to balance my time between the tons of creative projects I want to do. But I promise I’m back now, and that soon you’ll get some updates. And before this, some awards and a challenge:

I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award! This was the first award I ever got, and it feels somehow extra special to get nominated for it again. This time the nomination came from the awesome Violincat, who is a very dedicated reader of mine, and who also has several stories I recommend checking out. Here’s the blog:

Our Different Paths

Thank you so much! Here is her Liebster-post.

And as a part of this award, I need to:

1. Put the award on my blog.
2. Thank the blogger who nominated me.
3. Nominate 5 to 11 other blogs whom I feel deserve this award and have fewer than or equal to 300 followers (or 3000, or 1000, or something else depending on which rules are used).
4. Answer the 11 questions that were asked.
5. Then ask the people I nominate 11 questions.

This time I won’t be nominating anyone, but check out my first Liebster-post and other award posts:

Animal Award
Sunshine Blogger -Award
The Versatile Blogger -Award
Unique Blogger Award

And here are the questions:

1. What’s the last song you’ve listened to?
   Before by Riverside. Though as I’m writing this my playlist has been playing and I’m now listening to Perfect Life by Steven Wilson.
2. Are you an early bird or a night owl?
   More of a night owl, though I’m trying to fix my sleep schedule so hopefully I’ll become more of an early bird because I’ll need it for when my job starts.
   
3. Name three of your favorite books?
   Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, and The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. Also if graphic novels/comic books don’t count, then I’ll say Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett instead of the Life and Times (but in my mind comics do count :D)
4. How old were you when you had your first crush?
   I’ve never had a crush. I was seventeen when I started dating, though.
5. Every single person you’ve ever had a crush on shows up at your place one day. What do you do?
   I will probably have a calm evening alone. Maybe I’ll draw, play some computer games and/or read. 😀
6. Craziest situation that ever happened to you?
   Uh… I can’t think of any. I feel kinda boring.
7. If you could change one thing about the world right now, what would it be?
   I’d love it if people stopped hurting each other and the environment and found more productive, compassionate ways to deal with the world.
8. What is your favorite thing to do after a stressful day?
   Having a moment for myself, usually by either writing or reading or watching videos on a computer. Also sauna. Sauna is always good.
9. What is your favorite saying?
   Not a saying, probably, but a quote from some Discworld -books by (once again) Terry Pratchett:
   THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US.
   Also if we want actual sayings, then I have a morbidly amused fondness for:
   “Joka vanhoja muistelee, sitä tikulla silmään.” which is Finnish and roughly translates to: “Who thinks about the past should be poked in the eye with a stick”. Which REALLY means that it’s not good to get hung up on the past. Finns have a lot of bizarrely violent and/or vulgar, and often hilarious sayings.
10. What was the best meal you’ve ever had?
    I still remember a vegetarian curry I had in Salzburg very fondly. Though it’s hard to pick an actual favourite, really, since normally any time I go somewhere where people have actually put some effort into making a vegan meal makes me so happy that basically all vegan meals that have been made with care are the best.
11. You’ve won an all-expenses-paid trip for a week for any place in the world. Where would you go?
    Hmm… probably Australia, because I want to go there but it’s expensive. That or Guatemala to look at old Mayan ruins.

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I was also nominated for One Lovely Blog -award by sweetnightingale, with whom I’ve been exchanging letters for the Pen Pal Project, and who is lovely and has epic fairytale-like stories on her blogs! Here is her award post, and here is her blog:

Simming with sweetnightingale – where you can also find links to her other blogs.

Thank you so much for this!

And the rules for this award are:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link.
2. Post about the award
3. 7 facts about yourself
4. Nominate bloggers and notify them
5. Give your readers good news.

So again, check out my previous award posts for many awesome nominees. As for seven facts… oooh, boy. I’m not interesting enough for seven facts, but I’ll try:

1. My favourite music genres are progressive rock and progressive metal – which is probably not surprising considering the songs I just listed in the previous answers.
2. I get very uncomfortable if I hear my writing read out loud, and I find it extremely difficult to read my own writing out loud to people. Luckily this hasn’t been required often.
3. Despite the previous fact, I volunteered to be in our university’s theatre group’s script-writing team every year when I was a part of the theatre and had no problem with it. Maybe because it wasn’t just my writing, as there were others involved in it too. It was a lot of fun.
4. Like many, many other Finns, I’ve been a huge Moomin -fan ever since I was little. My favourite character was Little My (and still is, though my favourites from the Moomins also include Snufkin and the Groke) and I was such a fan that at some point (when I was like… I don’t know, five or something) I always wanted to look angry in photos taken of me, since Little My always looks angry or angrily happy. Yes, I was a dork even back then.
5. I know the basics of bookbinding. It’s a skill I’ve rarely needed, but one that I’m pretty proud of.
6. I don’t like coffee as a drink, but I do like the smell and taste of coffee beans.
7. I collect stones, though lately I haven’t been a very active collector. I like both natural stones and polished semiprecious stones.

The good news:

I’m back to writing more actively, as I said! Yayyyy! Also I’m getting married. ❤

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And then we have the Handwriting Challenge, for which I was tagged by Thymeless and sweetnightingale.

Here are the rules:

1. Write your name
2. Write your blog’s name
3. Write your favorite word and its definition
4. Write something nice
5. Write the name of your favorite song right now
6. What are you writing with?
7. Write a fun fact about yourself
8. Write/draw your favorite emoticon
9. Write a silly message
10. Write who you’re tagging

And here are my scribbles:

(the word that gets cut off at the edge is luultavasti)

And there we go! I’m now working on the last edits to the next Fey -chapter, so I should get it done soon. Maybe even today! Or then tomorrow. Until then, have a nice day!