One of our reader’s, Joe at Catholic Diatribes, has gifted us two awards for our blog:

I suppose I should restate the rules for those who are unfamiliar with such awards.

1. Link back to my nominator, above.
2. Display the awards. I hope this post counts.
3. List seven things about myself:
   1. We enjoy being an unconventional family. We recently bought a shuttle bus as the primary transportation for our family of 10.
   2. My dad has suggested the possibility of buying a former school building to convert to housing. Oldest son is very enthusiastic about this idea, especially if it includes a gym.
   3. Oldest son firmly vetoed my suggestion of a former asylum (postulated while watching Session 9 on Netflix, which was filmed in an abandoned, at the time, Kirkbride building.)
   4. But I think Steve had the best idea of looking for a campground or summer camp. Dreams are free, anyway.
   5. I don’t necessarily recommend viewing Session 9. While we enjoy a good horror flick, this wasn’t one of them. Nothing at all happens until the very end, which all happens almost entirely out of the blue. The architecture in the building is awesome, though.
   6. In addition to psychological horror, I enjoy fantasy and occasionally sci-fi. For relaxing, escapist reading, I prefer a good young adult fantasy novel. Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors.
   7. We’ve also been replaying Burnout: Revenge for XBox 360. Son #2 thinks I should stop playing it, because while driving today I suppressed an urge to knock down the traffic delineator posts (I had to google to figure out what they are called–the tall, thin orange post thingys.)
4. And last, nominate other blogs. Most of the Catholic blogs I read have been nominated already, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. Like Mother, Like Daughter is always inspiring as a Catholic mom of a big family. She has lots of tips on how she manages her home and family, as well as sharing lovely pictures of both. Simcha Fisher’s usually witty and always perceptive writings have been the most often forwarded links from me to my husband. I’ve been reading Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog Conversion Diary since the early days of her conversion. Her perspective as a former atheist has led me to examine Christian experience that I’ve taken for granted, and I also identify with her socially awkward, introverted temperament. And last, since I mentioned movies above, I’ll nominate my favorite Catholic media reviewer, Steve Greydanus at Decent Films. He turned our family on to Studio Ghibli (even though I’d already discovered their adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle, by the aforementioned Diana Wynne Jones), and we’ve discovered many other gems we otherwise would have missed via his recommendations.