Liebster Award Nomination!

What an awesome start to my day to find out that I had been nominated by Paige, who blogs at fitnotfad.blogspot.com, for a Liebster Award!  Thank you, Paige!

Like many new bloggers, I had not heard of this.  Liebster is a German word for "favorite", and the award is given to bloggers who may be new and up-and-coming, have less than 200 followers, and who deserve a little attention - so thank you, Paige, for nominating me!

So now, I need to give you 11 random facts about myself, answer 11 questions that Paige posed for her nominees, and then nominate 11 other bloggers and give them 11 questions... whew!  I'm tired already!  Here goes:

11 random facts about me

1.  I'd rather have vanilla over chocolate, but it has to be REAL vanilla.  No fake stuff.  And don't you dare put shortening in vanilla "buttercream" and then call it buttercream.

2.  When I go to a race, I'm always checking out other runners' legs.

3.  I hate football and will never like it.  EVER.  I'm sorry Chris and in-laws and to the one family member who told me that I would "learn to love it" 3 years ago, still no.  But you guys, you keep loving it.  Teach James about it and let him love it. I'll enjoy my time in the kitchen while you watch.

4.  I went to school with a dream of being a criminal psychologist.  I want to fix the "un-fixable".  And now I'm a group-ex instructor.  My goodness, how things can change!

5.  I hate, hate, HATE scary movies!  I can't even watch the previews.  I make Chris mute them.  I'm pretty ridiculous.  Those "Saw" movies really messed me up.

6.  I could eat spaghetti at nearly every meal and be perfectly happy.

7.  I only joined Facebook/Twitter/social media in general this year.

8.  Now that I have a son, I'm REALLY terrified of having girls.  I only know how to take care of a boy.  What do you do with girls?

9.  I was so, so, SO shy in high school.... which makes it extra ironic that now I teach.  One of my best friends from high school was also shy, and before we were friends, we each equated shyness with being snobby - good thing we actually talked to each other one day and learned that we liked each other!

10.  I'm a dog person all the way.  Sorry, kitties.  And reptiles.  There will only ever be room in our house for a dog.

11.  I'm not a camper.  At all.  My idea of camping is staying at the Econo Lodge and "roughing it."  Yep, I can be that much of a princess.

Question's Paige asked:

1. If you could live anywhere other than where you are right now, where would you live?  Probably back in DC.  I miss it terribly.  But unfortunately, DC is MUCH further from all of our family, not to mention MUCH more expensive.

2. What's your guilty pleasure?  Eating freshly made peanut butter out of the food processor bowl.

3. What is one goal you have for your future?  Okay, don't laugh... I really want to be in a fitness competition - not necessarily a figure competition, but more like physical competing, like a crossfit competition.

4. What is your favorite recipe that you have posted on your blog?  Vegan brownies.  They're amazing!  Though, these protein bars are a close second.

5. What is your favorite vacation spot?  A cruise ship and anywhere it can take me.

6. What is one of your favorite hobbies?  Baking for sure, tied with practicing PiYo Strength.  Love them both!

7. What is your greatest accomplishment to date?  Getting my group-ex certification.  I worked really hard for that and it made me believe that if you really want something and will work for it, you can achieve it.

8. What made you want to start a blog?  I wanted to share my love of all things baking, but it has really evolved to a focus on fitness.  It's still some of both, but more like an 80/20 split these days.

9. Chocolate or vanilla?  Vanilla all the way!

10. What is your favorite book (or magazine, or blog to read, if you don't read many books)?  Anything fitness.  No way do I have chances to read a lot for "fun", though when I was younger, I read the book "Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade" and I read it countless times!  It was indeed a great book.

11. How did you become interested in aspects of healthy living (fitness, healthy foods, running, etc)?  To be honest, I got really sick of starving myself and feeling like garbage.  I started trying to be healthy, and lose weight the right way, which lead me to running.  That was junior year of undergrad, and I never looked back at unhealthy things like starvation.  I will always be a runner at heart, but now I am much more diverse in my activities.

And now, here are the 11 bloggers I am nominating!

1. Michelle @ A Little Moore From My Kitchen
2. Marcia @ Year Twenty-Nine
3. Jennifer @ Live Learn Love Run
4. Allison @ Train Eat Repeat
5. Courtney @ Eat Pray Run DC
6. Amie @ The Jersey Amazon
7. Chloe @ How She Runs
8. Cynthia @ You Signed Up For What?!
9. Melissa @ The Wheezy Runner
10. Sarah @ Sweet Miles
11. Stacey @ Pug Mama Stace

Blogger friends, here are your 11 questions:

1. What's your soulmate workout?
2. Do you follow a labeled lifestyle - paleo, vegan, etc?  Why or why not?
3. Are you a group-ex person, or do you prefer solo workouts?
4. Does your significant other love fitness like you do?  Or, if you're single, how important to you is it that your future mate be into working out?
5. Ice cream or fro-yo?
6. What movie could you watch over and over?
7. Morning person or night-owl?
8. If your friends used one word to describe you, what would it be?
9. Have you ever done or would you ever do a mud run?
10. What did you study in school?  Are you doing something with it now?
11. What do you want to be when you grow up? (that might sound silly, but as we get older, we still have new dreams!  What yours?)

Thanks again, Paige, for nominating me!  This made for a really fun post and I love "meeting" other bloggers!