Despite my occasional protestations that The Earthling’s Handbook is not really a blog, it has received a Liebster Blog Award!  I will set aside my feelings about the yucky-sounding word “blog” to graciously accept this award and acknowledge that at least one-third of my readers have come here via weekly blog carnivals to which I link my articles–so in that sense, this is, in fact, a blog.

I was given this award by Jessica, author of Faith Permeating Life and #1 most frequent commenter on The Earthling’s Handbook.  I first visited Faith Permeating Life about a year ago, after Jessica posted an insightful comment on another blog we both read, and I was delighted to find someone out there in cyberspace who is so much like myself–except that she is more than a decade younger, an introvert, married, Catholic, and didn’t even kiss a man until her wedding day.  Some of the things we have in common are that we both work with data, manage details well, but can become overwhelmed by obligations; we have similar thoughts on gender roles, and I am and she plans to be employed full-time while mothering a child; we both believe that Christianity is incompatible with bias against non-heterosexual or non-marital lifestyles; and we’re both tired of comments about our weight!  Anyway, I really enjoy Jessica’s writing and would be giving her this award if she hadn’t received it already!

Speaking of which, it strikes me as funny that each Liebster recipient gets to give 5 Liebster awards.  That really spreads out the awards!  It’s like a chain letter–practically everybody will get one eventually.  But I do appreciate the way it brings other blogs to the attention of readers–if you like the blog you’re reading, you might well like the other blogs its author reads.

My 5 awards go to

• Hobo Mama.  Lauren shares my interest in parenting, and living, with the assumption that the most natural and we’re-all-people-together and earth-friendly behaviors are likely to work out best for all concerned.  She’s a deep thinker who isn’t afraid of making her articles “too long” and even uses footnotes.  She tackles difficult issues with her young children, does serious experiments with potential new habits, and posts so many fascinating links that I have trouble keeping up!  What I can’t figure out is how she is a hobo–she seems to have a home in Seattle and not actually ride the rails much, if ever–but I love the mental image of a mama with baby in a sling leaping onto a passing freight car, despite my awareness that really doing that would be horribly dangerous!
• Permission to Live.  Melissa was raised in an extremely restrictive, physically and emotionally abusive, patriarchal, evangelical Christian family.  She is slowly learning to give herself permission to live a different kind of life, to find self-worth in more than bearing children, to allow her husband to help her, to quit being judgmental about pumpkins.  At times I find Melissa’s journey absolutely fascinating as a glimpse into an alternate reality, so different from my own upbringing, that exists right here in North America.  At other times I identify very much with some of her struggles to allow herself to do and have things she truly needs and wants.
• Franklin’s Grain of Sand.  Franklin lives in the rowhouse next to ours, but I’ve learned more about him in a few months of reading his blog than in the previous nine years of sharing a wall!  We’re both busy and kind of shy, but last year I gave him the link to my article on bathroom renovation when he and his wife were planning to get their bathroom redone, and they started reading The Earthling’s Handbook, and then he started his blog.  Franklin writes many self-analytical reflections, especially about experiences that turned him off from endeavors he later found rewarding, like computer programming and playing the flute.  As a developmental psychologist working on research about how boyhood experiences affect men’s life choices, I find these fascinating!  I also appreciate his Pittsburgh experiences; my favorite is the glimpse inside a local barbershop I pass every day but have never entered.
• Modern Mrs. Darcy.  Anne is “redefining the accomplished woman” in today’s terms and goes about this mission so broadly and interestingly that I enjoy most of her articles, even though I have no particular fondness for her favorite literature, Jane Austen and the Anne of Green Gables books.  She writes about things like the best books you’ve never heard of and gifts she won’t give her daughters, and she recently explained a little-known but crucial reason to see a doctor if your eyes look funny in a flash photograph.
• Kitchen Stewardship.  Katie works incredibly hard to feed her family the healthiest food possible, research the latest nutritional findings, be a good steward of God’s Creation, and write about it all!  She’s given me great information about dishwashers and detergent, delicious recipes like Chickpea Wraps, and important facts about antibacterial soap.  She’s even tackled the question of whether or not yoga conflicts with Christianity.  I love reading Kitchen Stewardship even though I’m skeptical of some of the nutritional principles she follows (the “lard is good for you” stuff) and some of her Catholic beliefs–at least she comes to her decisions thoughtfully, accepts differences of opinion gracefully, and provides tons of information to help other people do their own critical thinking!

Those are 5 blogs I think are well worth reading, which as far as I know have not yet won Liebster Awards!  Take a look–I hope you find something you love!

P.S. I have been so absurdly busy lately that it has taken me one full week to finish writing this post–an eternity in Internet time–and I am not going to have time today to visit my award recipients to notify them that they won!  I fear that’s a terrible faux pas.  But it will be interesting to see how many of the recipients, through the wonder of trackbacks/pingbacks and site stats, find out about it anyway!