About Me

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Recent retiree--35 year's experience teaching reading, English, adult basic education and volunteer leadership skills. Started this blog to exchange ideas and commentary with friends and others having an interest in joining the discussions. Greatest life accomplishments include: 1.organized my 3rd grade class to check out library books for me to get around librarian's weekly limit--Amazon.com, the Mullins Elementary 3rd Grade Class of 1956 is still waiting for "thank you" notes; 2. volunteered in the Peace Corps, island of St. Kitts, West Indies; 3.taught adults to read, earn their GEDs., and speak English as a second language; 4. bought a border collie puppy for $6, got evicted rather than give him up, and began a life-long love affair with all things "Dog"; 5. joined a physical fitness boot camp in my mid-50s--don't mess with someone who's been doing regulation pushups in wet grass at 5:30 a.m.; 6. walked across Northern England with best friend Sally--over 80 miles from the Irish to North Seas; and 7. travelled to many foreign countries for pleasure and work.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Blog Names and Swag

(The host of this week's Fun Monday Mariposa gives us a two part challenge. One, she wants to know the story behind our blog name. Two, she wants to know about our favorite or most common dish. That's a good thing to ask for now that there are over 50 Fun Monday participants!)

Special Note: recently I've been so happy to receive some awards for my toddler blog. Since tonight we have the Academy Awards show, I thought it would be a good time to thank the award givers and pass them along to other bloggers. Scroll down to the post end for the awards ceremony.

I recently wrote about starting my blog so I won't go into great detail here. Just to re-cap. Last May I casually mentioned to a friend that I may be interested in starting a blog as a way to keep in touch with friends since retiring. I also wanted to build, or get into, a community of writers and readers interested in discussing a wide range of topics including travel, relationships, current events, pop culture, art, music, literature and dogs. The next day she sent me the Blogger web-site.

I signed on Blogger that same evening just to do a bit of research and before I knew it I was signed, sealed, and delivered! Step 1 was to create an account--done. Step 2 was Name Your Blog. Oh shoot,too late to turn back now! I'm thinking like crazy about what my blog should be named. . .well, I live on Summit Court, how about Summit Musings? Done again! Now I'm not crazy about my blog name. It's a bit pretentious and mis-leading. Suppose someone checks me out hoping to read about mountaineering? And, I almost never "muse." My thoughts are a lot more pedestrian--who will win American Idol this year? is Obama going to beat the pants suit off Hillary (I hope not), can I fool Willie into thinking we've already walked today?

So, I'm kind of committed to Summit Musings for now. It's better for me to concentrate on writing better and more frequent posts and learning to navigate around and improve the appearance of my blog page. In the future, when I'm confident that my loyal readers will not lose me, I may change. For now, I hope you'll continue to check me out at Summit Musings.

Now for the requested recipe. I found this one several months ago and make it at least once a week:

Orecchiette Pasta with Broccoli
1. Saute 1 Tbsp. minced garlic, 1/2 tsp. pepper flakes in 2 Tbsp. olive oil.

2. Cook 2 cups orecchiette pasta(or any sturdy kind)to your liking.

3. Microwave 16 oz. package broccoli florets (use baby kind) 5 minutes.

4 Drain pasta and combine in skillet with broccoli, garlic and pepper flakes.

5. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!


************AWARDS CEREMONY***********

I received this seal of approval from
Laurie .



I'm passing it on to Karen Clarke for her good writing and wicked sense of humor.




And then I received this heartwarming award from Kaycie


It goes on to AOJ and Lurchers for her honest writing and love of four-legged buddies.






And finally for this evening, I received this E for Excellent Blogging Award from AOJ , Rotten Correspondent ,
Kaycie , and Lane








I'll send it on to these bloggers for a variety of reasons:

Caffeinated Librarian for being my first example of great blogging. I learned so much from CL about the blogosphere and youthful pop culture.

Marytree for being such a creative mom for her children--great example of learning through creative play.

Gay, Married, with Cat for his insightful, balanced observations on politics and religion.

Doug & Laurie for teaching me to look at everyday life with a photographer's eye and sharing the occasional photos of my favorite canine eye candy, Boscoe and Riley.

Patience for great writing about living with dogs and helping other dogs who need rescue.

Sauntering Soul for insightful writing about her personal journey, plus great looking blog.

Arkansas Songbird for her thoughtful posts on the influence of music in her life and pleasure of teaching students to love music as well.

Nekked Lizards make me laugh with all their family antics.

Jettie for her enthusiastic and welcoming glimpses into the life of a young farm family.

Since this post is getting almost as long as the Academy Awards show, I'll just encourage you to pass these awards along to other bloggers whose work you admire or want to encourage. And thanks to you all for sending them my way!

Now be sure to check out other Fun Monday participants' stories about how their blog names came about and add their favorite winter recipes to your file.

35 comments:

Mariposa said...

Love pasta too! And yes, you have a wonderful name...nice! :)

Congrats in your awards...happy Fun Monday!

Lane Mathias said...

Summit Musings is a great name, especially as I now know how you came to choose it:-)

Like the recipe. Any pasta/garlic combo is good for me:-)

Sayre said...

I need to try that recipe!!! I'll bet it works well with whole wheat pasta and my whole family loves broccoli.

I like your blog name. It makes me think of someone who is trying to figure things out - which probably applies to a lot of us.

laurie said...

i had wondered about "summit musings." and you and i started our blogs exactly the same way! i just wanted to see if i could do it, and the next thing i knew, a lifelong commitment to a bulky URL.

i'm definitely trying that pasta.

and thanks from the Annex for our first blog award!

thefoodsnob said...

Well, your name is totally appropriate!
That pasta looks great, quick and delicious, what more could you want?!

Lisa

mary said...

Awww, thanks Faye. I look forward to checking in and seeing what your up to and yum for the recipe. I keep meaning to do a post on why my blog has it's name.

Karen said...

Thanks so much for the award, Faye, I'm thrilled! I like the name Summit Musings, and the meaning behind it. I like names that are a bit clever and obsure.

Mine just speaks for itself really - not too imaginative for a supposed writer!

ellen b. said...

Fun to hear about your blogging debut! Oh and a recipe bonus, very nice, thank you! Have a great week...

Sauntering Soul said...

I love the name of your blog. It sounds like your sitting up somewhere just observing life and writing about what you see.

Thank you so much for the award!

Attie said...

OOHHH Thank You so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! This really makes me feel part of the blogger world!! I didn't do Fun Monday today cause I wasn't gonna have time to visit everyones and you made it so Fun anyway!!! Thanks so Much!!!

Kim said...

I like your blog name. I like your blog. I like pasta, but you lost me when you mentioned broccoli. Ew.

Well done on all the awards. I guess I didn't have to tell you I like your blog -- you already knew it from the awards, huh?

willowtree said...

There's nothing wrong with your blog name (other than musings is a very common word in blog titles), however, it's no big deal to change it. The URL (address) stays the same, only the title changes so anyone who has it bookmarked will still find it. I changed mine (it used to be call Once Upon A Blog) and there was virtually no impact.

Mamalang said...

I love the name!

And that recipe sounds so yummy!

Ari_1965 said...

The recipe sounds very good. I love broccoli. The only problem with broccoli is that it smells up the entire house as it cooks.

Junebug said...

You know Willowtree makes the best comments everywhere I go. He just has a way with words. Now did he say "Once upon a dog"?

Pamela said...

I like pasta and garlic and broccoli -- lotza garlic. lotza pasta, too. (:

ChrisB said...

I'm often curious when I find new blogs as to how they got their name so this week my curiosity is being satisfied!

Celeste said...

I agree with the others -- the blog name is great. The recipe sounds good, too :)

Amanda said...

I love anything pasta related! This looks like a nice recipe to try out.

Unknown said...

we had the same troubles with naming our blog. I tried to come up with something witty and insightful. However, due to the pressure from the NLL (we gotta get this done now!!!), I was pretty much witless at that time. Thus, since I promoted our ranch as the southwestern gecko (didn't have the ring) we followed suit with the blog. But it all came together as your did. You may have other notions to change, but it becomes a part of you - and Summit Musings is a good title. A peak -

And any dish with pasta and garlic, well, I will toast you with my fine wine... ;) NLM

Unknown said...

Oh and thanks for the award. I sometimes wish we had a normal family, but then what would i have to blog about?

Kim said...

I, too, love all things Dog. In fact, two are snuggling with me as I write this! Hmmmm...contentment!

Cynthia said...

That recipe looks so wonderful.

I know what you mean about not being sure what to name your blog and then not liking it so much!

Michelle said...

That dish looks yummy!! I am really on a broccoli kick right now. Love anything with broccoli in it!!!

Your blog name is great!! Thanks for the story.

Alison said...

I love the name of your blog, always have!!!

Congrats on the awards!!

IamwhoIam said...

My type of dish quick, filling, and oh so good. And what summit do you muse from or about.

the rotten correspondent said...

I like the name of your blog. I really do. It's even better that it's your street name!

That pasta really does look great.

And congrats on all your well-deserved awards!

Beccy said...

I chose my name pretty quickly, it happened to be what I was drinking at the time!

Gay, Married, with Cat said...

Thanks for the award! I plan on sampling the other blogs you cited; it's always fun discovering a good blog. :-)

Jenni said...

That pasta looks very good. I am so tired of the standard red sauce with meat that my family can't get enough of.

Kaytabug said...

I really like the name of your blog. I think it's even neater that you used your street name. Cool!

That pasta dish sounds really yummy!!!

Congrats on all of your awards!

Melanie said...

Great dish! And your blogs name is neat too.

Wow- that's a lot of awards. Congrats

Jientje said...

I had the same experience signing in for a blog, it was signed sealed and delivered before I knew it!

Unknown said...

What a bunch of nice awards you have! And I don't think your name sounds pretenious at all. I like it. :)

KittyHawk said...

I'm so surprised that there's pasta involved in your favorite recipe! LOL