Little Miss Sunshine

It's award season in the little box of crayons. Over the last couple of months, some lovely bloggers have passed on some award to me and my blog (incidentally, the word blog sounds just plain gross).

The Sunshine Award comes courtesy of Louise at Lou, Boos and shoes. Louise's Things of Beauty, which she posts on a Friday, are something I look forward to each week.

So the award. Seven random things about me. Feel free to tune out now...

1. I generally don't have anything better to do than write a post on seven random facts about myself.

2. Each week, I make a donation to a different charity. It's not much, only five dollars, but that's really all I can afford at the moment. I started doing it this year because I felt really lucky - lucky to be able to quit my job and follow a dream of going to university, lucky enough to have parents who let me live rent-free and therefore only have to work one day a week, lucky not to have any debts (well, other than that pesky credit card debt...). Just lucky. So I decided I would give what I can to those who need it. Some are have personal relevance (the Cancer Council, the Heart Foundation, the MS Society), others are humanitarian (Amnesty International, the International Women's Development Agency), others for ones who don't have a voice (RSPCA, OzChild), but all are important and deserving.

3. I have a small tattoo on the inside of my left wrist. It's an ankh, the Egyption symbol of eternal life. I've had a long fascination with Egypt (pyramids and mummies and hieroglyphics - oh, my!) and did an eight-day tour of the most overwhelming country I've been to back in November, 2008. The tattoo was done on a whim when I was living in Galway, Ireland: I'd returned from Egypt a couple of months earlier and was walking down Shop Street and in typical Irish fashion, the rain started lashing down. I started to get really pissed off (getting rained on was a daily incident and one that was fast becoming tiresome) but then I stopped in the middle of the street and laughed, thinking, Well, this is life! and went straight to the tattooist. He would draw the design and I'd say Smaller. Definitely smaller, to which he would grit his teeth and start over again. Five minutes and fifty euros later, I was inked. Sometimes I love it because it reminds me of that time in my life; sometimes I wish I hadn't done something so permanent; sometimes I think about what I'll have done next.

4. My nickname is every variation of Lou: Louie, Lou-Lou, Lisey-Lou, Lucy-Lou, Lewis. You get the picture. It started when I was a newborn, so to be called anything other than Louie by family feels odd. If they call me Annelise, I snap my head around at them, ready to fight back because I think I'm in trouble, but to be called Louie by most other people doesn't feel right. My uncle has never called me anything other than Lewis.

5. I can't click (or snap, whatever) my fingers. I've tried and tried, but it just doesn't happen. A common misconception is that coming up to me and clicking your own fingers in my face will make me suddenly be able to do it. It doesn't.

6. I have discussed at length with my family that I want Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway to be played at my funeral, with my cousin playing the harmonica (unimportant fact: he can't play the harmonica). Christ, if Wind Beneath My Wings or Sarah Maclachan's Angels is played, I will haunt. I'd also love to see the celebrators (because it will be a celebration of life, not a mourning of death) do the Mexican Wave.

7. I can recite all the lines from Dirty Dancing, word for word. My favourite scene is when we're introduced to Johnny. Ahh.... And then he tells Robbie off: You just put your pickle on everybody's plate, college boy, and leave the hard stuff to me.

So there's seven random facts. The award rules are that I pass it on to three more bloggers, so I've chosen:

Habebi of The Constant Search for More
Sarah of sarah b. says hello
Kristin of Skinny Jeans and a Chai Latte

Please don't feel obligated to do! I'm just passing it on because someone liked my blog and in turn, I like your blogs. I also have another two awards and I haven't posted them, not because I'm ungrateful, but because I'm lazy.