Mystery Blogger Award: Spring Sparks

Melanie of Sparks From A Combustible Mind has given me a Mystery Blogger Award – Clues…

Thank you very much, Melanie 🙂 it’s a wonderful way to celebrate the Vernal Equinox and start the Spring season off with a Spark of fun!

The Mystery Blogger Award was created by Okoto Oke Enigma – My Greatest Creation Yet: The Mystery Blogger Award

“WHAT IS MYSTERY BLOGGER AWARD?
“Mystery Blogger Award” is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.”

– Okoto Enigma

The Rules:

1. Put the award logo/image on your blog
2. List the rules.
3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
4. Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well
5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself
6. You have to nominate 10 – 20 people
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog
8. Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify)
9. Share a link to your best post(s)

3 things about myself:

1 – Shortly after crossing the official threshold of the Vernal Equinox, my body had a sneezong fit. Yes. That’s a typo. I thought I’d leave it in since it describes the experience better than the non-typo would.

When I sneeze it apparently sounds like I’m being murdered and I’m objecting to it loudly and sharply, using the sneezong self-defense method. My cat runs for cover, and my partner rushes to save me.

2 – Also last night while I was outside looking at the full Moon, a military helicopter flew by, low, just a few feet above the treetops. It was either an Apache or a Wildcat. I always get excited when I see a helicopter – I used to want to be a helicopter rescue pilot.

I live near a military training ground, and they regularly train at night. The helicopters circle around and around, sometimes very slowly. The reverberating sound can get stuck in your head and keep whirring long after they’ve gone as though they’re still there. It can be quite ominous.

3 – I live in the UK, in East Anglia, which is the land of the Iceni and Queen Boudicca, druids, Black Shuck, Seahenge, and many other mysterious people, beings, places and things.

I felt at home here from the very first time I visited.

The locals are incredibly welcoming, accepting, easy going, and there’s a strong live and let live attitude. You can be weird here.

To come here you actually have to want to come here and set it as your destination because it’s off to one side, off the beaten path, and isn’t a thru-way to anywhere else. It’s a bit like a haven of calm in a busy world which luckily not too many people know about – so shhhh!

Go Go Hare

Melanie’s Questions:

What would you say to Him,  if Jesus walked up to you today?

When people walk up to me, I don’t tend to say anything to them. I may smile and greet them briefly. Then I’ll stare at them and wait for them to tell me why they’ve walked up to me.

People don’t tend to walk up to me without having a reason to do so, and they usually share that reason from the get go.

If they don’t say anything I might ask – What do you want? – or – Why are you here? – to prompt them to cut to the chase.

He’s probably lost and needs directions. He’s delivering a package. He’s trying to drum up business – double glazing, scrap collection, or tree-cutting services? He’s trying to get signatures to stop a housing project in the area. He’s collecting jumble for a local fete. He’s trying to find my neighbour.

Where is some place you consider magical?

My house. It’s the first place which has ever felt like a real home. I’d been looking for this place all my life. The moment I crossed the threshold I’d found my place in this world… and wondered why there was a stranger living in it claiming that it was his. Luckily it was for sale and because it’s a mess and made out of the ground upon which it was built (which puts a lot of people off this kind of place) my partner and I could afford it.

The magic here is weird, like me.

It has a way of tapping into the issues I need to deal with, and offering me an opportunity to discover the structure of the issue, and a way of dealing with it bit by bit in my own time and manner.

“He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

― Herman Hesse

How would you prepare cod fish?

What am I preparing the cod fish for? Is it taking a test? Is it going on a journey? Is it about to get married? Has it just died? Am I supposed to be cooking it post death to help it on its way to the afterlife?

My partner was supposed to be cooking dinner last night since he wanted burgers and wanted them to be edible, but his back pain kicked in after his workout and he asked for my help with dinner. Since I’m a very caring and kind person, I told him to rest while I took care of dinner by bunging the burgers in the cooking thing until they’re cooked. His back miraculously got better. I may be a healer too.

That’s how I’d prepare cod fish too. Put in in the cooking thing until its cooked. Add a bit of a lot of butter, lemon, salt, herbs, and maybe some chili wasabi (I added too much of that to my burger. I ate it anyway because of food + hungry… I have now learned that there is such a thing as adding too much chili wasabi sauce).

When was the best time you ever had?

All time best time?

The one which springs to mind is when I first met my partner while we were both on holiday, and he invited me to go to Disney World with him. It wasn’t a cheesy pick-up line. We’d known each other for about a week and he meant exactly that – he was going there and thought it would be more fun if he went with a friend.

The other people he’d asked couldn’t go. I almost said ‘No’, but then I took a leap into the unknown, and landed in Wonderland. We both liked and disliked the same rides = we’re soulmates, let’s get married!

Could you do something against one of your core principles for one hundred million dollars?

No. I’ve tried and failed repeatedly to get myself to go against my core values because they’re a bit weird, offbeat, and often clash with the values of society, especially when it comes to being successful in business, thus they can make and have made my life in the human world harder.

During the era of Greed is Good, I stubbornly didn’t agree with that when I knew it would have made my life easier if I had.

However, I’ve never been offered one hundred million dollars to do something that I don’t want to do.

I doubt if I’d ever get an offer like that, so I can safely say ‘No’ without my answer being tested.

If it did happen, knowing me and going by past experience of the offers I’ve had which were similar in format, even if I really couldn’t afford to turn it down and was desperate… I’d say ‘No’.

I don’t like those kinds of offers, the psychology of them bugs the crap out of my core provoking it to say ‘No’.

I definitely don’t trust the sort of people who make those sort of offers. Once you say ‘Yes’ to those kinds of people and those kinds of offers… you’ll end up wishing you hadn’t. I’d rather wish that I had, and deal with that regret instead because that regret usually comes with a laugh and a shrug about it at some point.

“He is very rich, has no relations, and has a passion for power.”

“Then he’ll be hung,” said the Chief, rising.

“I doubt it,” said the other, “people with lots of money seldom get hung. You only get hung for wanting money.”

― Edgar Wallace, The Clue of the Twisted Candle

My Best Post:

There’s a term of which I’ve only recently become aware for blog posts which do well, get a lot of views, get shared on social media, etc, and continue to do well, keeping your blog stats humming, long after they’ve been posted – evergreen posts.

These are my top 5 evergreen posts:

How To Play The Narcissist’s Game – posted in October 2013 with 410,000+ views

What Planet Dominates You? – posted in August 2013 with 280,000+ views

Are You a Magnet for Narcissists? – posted in July 2013 with 220,000+ views

What is the best Revenge against a Narcissist? – posted in January 2015 with 180,000+ views

Do you have relationship problems with a Capricorn? – posted in September 2014 with 160,000+ views

Out of those, I think Magnet for Narcs is the best since I learned a lot from the experience of writing it, posting it, receiving feedback on it, reading and answering the comments. I also learned a lot from the palaver which led to adding the disclaimer on The Narc Game post.

Every post teaches me something… that’s why I keep blogging. There’s a weird magic to this cyber place too.

My Nominees:

I’m going to pick bloggers whose posts I’ve recently liked, link to the post I liked and tag them in the process.

Dear bloggers whom I’ve nominated, you’re free spirits and a blog award nomination is simply a way to say thank you for sharing yourselves. What you do with the blog award nomination is up to you. Enjoy!

Lynette of In The Net!

Sarah C of This N That With Me

The Reverist of Riddles & Reveries

Mara Waka of Visitor in a Strange Land

Scherezade of Scherezade’s Labyrinth

BlackSheep of Not Sheep Minded

Kalliope of Modern Mystic Mother

Nelkumi of What Does Nelkumi Think?

John of Willing Yourself to Win

Mel of Crushed Caramel

Bereaved Single Dad

My Questions:

For my nominees and anyone else who would like to answer them…

1 – If you could spend a weekend as your adult self with your child self, what would you do together?

2 – When you look at yourself, either in a mirror, a photo, or in your mind’s eye, what do you notice the most about yourself, what part of you do you focus your attention upon the most?

3 – If you were given the power to stop time which would freeze everyone in the moment for however long you wanted, and you could move around during that frozen time – what would you do?

4 – If you woke up tomorrow to find that one of your blog posts had gone viral, had accumulated thousands of views overnight, hundreds of comments, likes, shares, and was very much loved by everyone – how would you react?

5 – What mistake do you keep making? What lesson do you keep learning?

I’m not sure which of those questions is the weird/funny one since I’m a weird/funny one and pretty much anything I ask sounds weird/funny to others… and to me too.

That’s it…

Over to you!

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions