Liebster Award

I've finally had a moment to breathe. I recently graduated with my PhD in management and as a reward spent some time playing and reading blogs. Lo and behold, I have been nominated for a Liebster Award by some pretty awesome bloggers -Carla at Sullivan, Shannon at Simdale Valley Post, Emma at Around Aleaton VT at Kulo Seeri, and Maisie at Millwood. Thank you so very much. It means a lot that I was nominated :)

Accepting the nomination comes with these conditions:

1. Post the award on your blog.

2. Thank the blogger who presented the award and link back to their blog.

3. Nominate 5-11 bloggers whom you feel deserve this award and have fewer than or equal to 3,000 followers.

4. Answer 11 questions posted by the nominator, and ask your nominees 11 questions.

My nominations (not including the wonderful blogs that nominated me, which you should visit and read) include some oldies, but goodies and some pretty recently updated blogs as well. I tried to find different blogs than the ones previously nominated by the bloggers who nominated me:

1. Simmington Hills

2. Riverdale

3. Simmerville, and their new blog here

4. Arrendale Heights

5. Ashland Sims

6. LaQuest Beach

Here are my 11 questions.

1. How long have you been playing The Sims (any of the franchises)?

2. What was your first time playing The Sims like?

3. What's your least favorite part about playing The Sims?

4. What's your most favorite part about playing The Sims?

5. How often do you play The Sims?

6. Do you play any other games besides The Sims?

7. What made you start blogging?

8. Do you have any sims named after people you know?

9. Have you ever played a simself in the game?

10. What haven't you explored in the game yet?

11. Favorite drink to have while simming?

Like Carla, I am going to answer the questions from each simmer separately. I'm starting with Carla's questions first.

1. What was your first Sims game and what version(s) do you play currently? The Sims 1, I currently play The Sims 2 and a bit of The Sims 3

2. Do you write outside of the game or do you only write sims-related stories? I write outside the game. Before I started my PhD program I wrote a lot of fiction stories and poetry. Now most of my writing is spent working on academic articles examining CEO leadership and how it impacts the performance of firms.

3. Do you do anything creative, apart from writing? I paint, dance, crochet, some DIY home items like bookshelves, home improvement, sew, crafts like making hair bows and play felt food for the kiddos, cook...hmm, I do a lot, lol.

4. If you could create any mod for the the game, what would it do? CAS color wheel from TS3. Otherwise, I imagine it all in my head for the blog, lol.

5. What made you decide to start blogging about your game? I think after finding California Simmin and Simmerville's websites. I dabbled a bit in websites with journal features and then moved to blogs. I started in 2003 with a geocities website for my TS1 hood, Greymount and haven't looked back since.

6. Are any of your sims or storylines inspired by people you know in real life? Yes, many of them are things that happened in my life, and some to others. Most times it is more of the gameplay happened and it reminds me of what happened in a person's life and then that gives me the background for writing on the blog and interpreting the game play.

7. What is your favourite thing about simming or blogging? Playing virtual dollhouse and interpreting why my sims would respond a certain way. I love seeing the interactions and writing about their stories.

8. What is your least favourite thing about simming or blogging? Photos. I suck at photos. I used to take a lot of time with formatting and retouching, but now I just take photos and get the story up. I figure it's a chronicle of my game and my game and photo skills are not like others, but at least this way it gets the story out in a timely manner.

9. Do you plan your updates or just play and see what happens? Or do you do something in between? I typically just play unless I'm continuing a storyline from something that happened earlier.

10. Is there any "ritual" (for want of a better word) you have to do before you sit down to play or blog? Making yourself a particular drink, turning on some music, making sure you have some quiet space? Kids are usually sleeping or out of the house. If I'm blogging, I sometimes play music to help with the writing mood, especially if an update has an soundtrack. Otherwise, I just play. Playtime is so limited that I can't be too picky, lol.

11. What's one thing you've never seen in your game or done with your sims/hood that you would really like to? Supernatural stuff. I just started experimenting with witches, I think I might next move to vampires and other paranormal sims. It's just finding a way to work it into the stories.