As a birthday gift to me (though he didn’t know it was my birthday) Geoff Le Pard, who blogs about the Universe and whatever occurs to him at TanGental, nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.
Needless to say I was both surprised and delighted. I could say that I aspire to inspire, but I think even that would be a great exaggeration.
In his post Geoff provides three reasons for selecting me:
- I see life through a prism
- I have a firmly fixed moral compass, and
- He wishes I’d taught him at school!!!!!
The first two I am not sure about, but I am definitely honoured by the third. Thank you Geoff. I will endeavour to attain this high bar you have set.
The rules for accepting this award are:
1. Thank and link to the amazing person(s) who nominated you.
2. List the rules and display the award.
3. Share seven facts about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated.
5. Optional: Proudly display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you.
Thank you, Geoff. I am honoured.
These are seven things about me:
1. I am passionate about education and the power that education has for transforming lives. I believe that everyone has a right to an education. I have spent all of my adult life involved in education in some way; and most of my childhood was spent in school!
2. I am the third of ten children. What that tells you about me I’m not sure, but I believe we are more than the product of our birth order and environment; that each of us has the power to make choices about how we want to live our lives. I’m not saying environment and genetics don’t play a large role in who we are, but I am saying they do not determine everything.
3. I have two adult children of whom I am extremely proud and who I love very much. They are what is important in my life. They each have a wonderful partner who I also love, and my son has two beautiful children who I adore. My family gives me an enormous amount of pleasure. I am very fortunate to have all of them living close to me.
4. I enjoy playing games, especially word games like Scrabble, Upwords and Balderdash. I especially enjoy playing them with my family. We often spent days playing games together when the children were growing, and had grown, up. We’re having a bit of a rest now that the grandchildren are small and doing the entertaining. I’m sure we’ll have three generations playing together again soon. We collaboratively do the ‘Big Quiz’ (40 trivia questions) in the local paper when we get together on Sundays, hoping that someone in the family may know the answer. None of us fair too well on the sporting questions!
5. I have a silly sense of humour. I enjoy word plays and puns and alternate meanings for words and sayings. In my head I finish words and statements with ridiculous things before the person speaking has even time to finish them. I laugh uncontrollably at something I think is funny, like this silly senior’s password email that arrived in my inbox this week:
6. I think life is short and should be fun. We don’t know how much time we have so we should enjoy what we’ve got. This doesn’t mean we have to be out partying and playing all the time. It means we need to focus on enjoying what we are doing in the present moment, no matter how unpleasant it may be. It also means making choices and accepting responsibility for the choices we make.
7. I love learning. Learning gives so much joy. There is too much to learn in one life time, and it is scary now that the road ahead is considerably shorter than the one already travelled. I hope that in my days of teaching I have inspired in children a love of and joy in learning that they will carry with them throughout their life travels.
Nominating 15 other amazing bloggers is the hard part. Not because there are not 15 amazing and inspiring bloggers, but because I have nominated many before for a Butterfly Award, a Versatile Blogger Award and a Liebster Award. Not only that Geoff has nominated many of these same bloggers for this award, and Charli Mills has nominated them also.
We have a wonderful community of very supportive and encouraging bloggers. We each write our own blogs about our own interests, explaining our ideas and points of view. We read and comment on each other posts sharing points of convergence and divergence, and often adding further insights.
Rather than re-nominate bloggers I have nominated before (and be assured that you are all very deserving of this award and if you wish to add the Inspiring Blogger’s badge to your blog I am happy for you to do so) – over the next few weeks I am going to do a little more exploring to seek out other inspiring bloggers to add to our growing community.
A big thank you, to each and every one of you, for encouraging and supporting me on my blogging journey. Having your company is what makes it all worthwhile!
I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts on any aspect of this article.
Previous nominees:
Liebster Award
Belinda Pollard of Small Blue Dog Publishing (Australia)
NANNY SHECANDO (Australia)
Anne Goodwin (UK)
Caroline Lodge (UK)
PS Cottier (Australia)
Teachling (Australia)
Peter Worley’s philosophy foundation (UK)
Michelle Sowey at The Philosophy Club(Australia).
There’s No Food ( Australia)
Obscure Pieces (Australia)
Cultivating Questioners (USA)
Nillu Nasser Stelter (UK)
Charli Mills Carrot Ranch Communications (USA)
Versatile Bloggers
Butterfly Award
Norah Colvin 
Pingback: Fifteen blogs for inspiration! | Norah Colvin
I confess, Nora, that as honored as I felt to be nominated for this award, I couldn’t quite imagine writing an acceptance post after having written something similar for the Sunshine Awards last year. But seeing how you handled the request to name 15 bloggers makes me think that perhaps I can find the time to do this (once I get another book chapter done!). In the meantime, when I need a distraction from writing I’m going to explore the links you put up to other bloggers, confident that I’ll find a few more like-minded spirits there to inspire me. So thanks!
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Hi Vicki, Thanks for your lovely warm comment. I pass the award nominations to people whose work I am happy to promote. I have no expectations that you must continue to do so. It is entirely up to you. It is important to not get distracted away from your own priorities, and completing your book is essential. When you have time to explore, I’m certain you will find others with whom you will be keen to connect. Keep on with your wonderful work! I have already connected with others from following links on your site, which is a virtual treasure trove. 🙂
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Congrats to you, thank you for sharing about yourself and providing the list of bloggers to check out. Some I follow others, I’ve never heard of. That is the beauty of this award stuff. Spreading learning and inspiration.
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I agree. I love being able to pay the compliment forward and learn about lots of other wonderful people in the process. 🙂
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What a lovely post Norah! I just love these seven things about you but particularly the sense of humour one with the boiled cabbage password! Startled the cats suddenly shrieking with laughter !
Thank you once again for deeming me a versatile blogger (and sorry I’ve only just read this – I don’t seem to get ping backs registering on my blog like I should)
I agree birth order and parenting don’t account for everything – an inspiring teacher can be critical to some lives. Like Geoff and many others, I would have loved and learned a lot from a teacher like you! Lisa xx
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You are very kind, Lisa. Thank you so much for your support.
Wordpress should automatically ping back to you as you are on WordPress too. I can’t remember if I entered the others to ping back to though. I just thought I’d list them all for others to check out if and when they wish. 🙂
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Happy Birthday, Norah!!! What a lovely birthday gift – a well deserved award! Congrats! ⭐
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Thank you, Karen! It was a lovely surprise! 🙂
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Congrats on a genuinely well deserved award, Norah. Your no. 5 had me in stitches – a sense of humour is vital – you have to be able to see the funny side of things in life .
May you live long and continue blogging! 🙂
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Thanks for your support, Teagan. I’m pleased you enjoyed the password episode. I wish they would just tell us up front what they want! It would make things a whole lot easier!
Thank you for your wishes – I send them back to you, multiplied! 🙂
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Congratulations, Norah, and I can’t imagine anyone NOT wanting you as their teacher: you’re so thoughtful about optimising the conditions in which children can learn and adapting yourself to their needs rather than trying to mould them to your own framework.
Interesting about birth order – I think how we are parented has a HUGE impact on the type of people we become as well as the choices available to us. Birth order is undoubtedly part of that but the effect will be different in different families. For example, some parents will be highly anxious about their firstborn, others particularly indulgent, influencing personality in different ways. But it’s always worth considering that in any family there are (psychically) at least as many sets of parents as there are children.
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Hi Anne,
Thanks for your generous comment.
It is interesting what you say about parenting. Obviously it does have a huge impact on the offspring. It couldn’t really be any other way. And that this can be more important that birth order is probably correct too. The attitude of parents to the firstborn, or to parenting the firstborn can differ in ways such as you have described above. I love the way you have partitioned the role of parent to include all family members. Siblings do certainly learn from each other. I often say that I have two ‘only’ children as there were 12 years between them. The first was certainly almost another parent in the house in many ways for the second. Whether the way I parent/ed each of them differed in response to birth order, gender (first a boy, second a girl), my age (experience and knowledge) or changing societal expectations of parents I am not sure, but I think all had a influence to some extent. Bec thinks she got the old parents who were much more fun when her brother was small!! I am certain there were advantages and disadvantages for both.
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Well done Nor – very deserved! I enjoyed your seven facts about you – very descriptive indeed!
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No surprises then?
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A quick little “Yay for you, Norah!”…not REALLY commenting! lol 😉
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Thank you! I appreciate your non-comment! )
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Congrats!
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Thank you! 🙂
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I also wish you had been my teacher, I am just so glad you were my childrens teacher. Keep inspiring !
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Thank you Louise. It was a privilege to work with your children. Thank you for sharing them with me. You are all very special people. 🙂
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