Hello, Dearest

So being the foreign language-loving nerd that I am, I've attempted in my life to learn French (this did not last long. About one semester of middle school, if I remember correctly), Spanish (two years of high school), German (one year of high school and two of college), and even - prepare for a pocket-protector-wearing fest of nerd-dom - Welsh. For fun. Well, really, because I wanted to know how to pronounce Ioan Gruffudd's name and then was magically sucked in via the power of a "Teach Yourself [insert foreign language here]" CD. This random affiliation for languages that are not my own also means that, thanks to the 3 years of study I've successfully forgotten most of, I know that the German word for "dearest" is "Liebster". Interestingly enough, that's also the name of the lovely chain-letter-style award I just received from the wonderfully witty Rachel over at Make A Long Story Short.

Seriously: go check out her blog, she's hilarious and charming and has quite the way with words. Not to mention any post that talks about and features the adventures of her bouncing baby boy, Henry. Long before I properly knew this girl in real life, I had stalked enjoyed her blog for months, consistently thinking to myself, "I want to write like that."

So in the spirit of passing along a good thing, here are a few of my other favourite and lesser known blogs:

I come from what I feel is a pretty literary family, and my cousin, Jen, is most definitely not the exception to this rule. In fact, I think she's the case that best proves the rule. Her blog - Greybon - is a wonderful collection of well-worded anecdotes about her life, and other random and interesting tid-bits.

Looking for a delicious and easy veggie recipe? Look no further than my awesome friend Alicia over at Real Delicious Food. The dishes she posts about look good enough to make even a carnivore like myself consider adding a few more veggie dishes to my life. (I'm pretty sure even the Husband wouldn't protest.)

Small Girl, Big City is the blog home of Krystle, who has the awesome distinction of being the only person in college who was cool enough to make me want to live with her for two separate years. She's also in the midst of being awesome while living in DC and manages to blog about it with the sort of smiley wit and enthusiasm I have to appreciate, even in my most sarcastic and curmudgeonly moments.

And now for the hard part: five fascinating facts about myself. I can promise five facts, but I make no claims about their ability to capture anyone's interest...

1. I used to live down the street from Sir Derek Jacoby. For realsies. I saw him walking his dog twice and was about thisclose to walking up and asking him about his dog. All the while, of course, I'd be nonchalantly pretending that I didn't care a fig that he was a famous actor, while inside doing the most embarrassing fangirl dance imaginable...complete with flapping hands and squealing noises.
2. When my mom remarried a few years back, my new stepbrother was in England doing missionary work, and spent some of his time partnered with the guy who was later housemates with the guy who would end up - after my own semester in England - becoming my husband and the father of my gorgeous Ethan. They all know each other now and we still laugh about the coincidence.
3. (And this is where we start to lower the tone...) My toes are weirdly short. As a kid I never realised this - I just though other people had freakish monkey toes - but no. Mine are the anomaly, apparently.
4. My mother, once, as a kid was approached from behind by a random adult in her neighbourhood whilst talking to one of her sisters. The grown-up in question asked, "are you Viola's granddaughter?" When my mom said yes, she was told that she sounded just like her grandmother. I now use the transitive property of math to conclude that - allowing for variances in accent (my accent is the bastard child of four regions of two countries, now) - since I sound just like my mom, I also sound just like my great-grandmother. The historian in me finds that sort of heritage of sound pretty awesome.
5. I am - according to family lore - descended from the families of two US presidents: Zachary Taylor and James Madison. Oh, and like any child of a good Virginian family, a Confederate general, too: Ambrose P. Hill. (Sadly, there's a special kind of awkward-looking that runs in the family that leads me to believe from daguerreotypes I've seen that these old family stories are totally legit.)