I am pleased to say that Between the Highway and Home has been graciously nominated for a “Liebster Award” by my fellow Atlanta Blog Network member Isabella, via her blog La Bella Vida Design. Like Isabella, I am a relatively new blogger, so receiving this recognition is exciting and encouraging. The whole idea behind the Liebster Award is to promote new, up-and-coming and promising blogs and to connect bloggers.
I was unfamiliar with the Liebster Award until now and am happy to accept Isabella’s nomination. For those who are likewise unfamiliar, here are the rules, as well as my own acceptance post.
The Liebster Award Rules:
1. Thank the specific blog and blogger who nominated you and provide a link back to their page.
2. Answer all eleven questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
3. Give eleven random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate up to eleven other bloggers and provide a link to each one.
5. Ask eleven questions for your nominees to answer.
11 Questions from La Bella Vida Design
1. What does blogging mean to you?
For me, blogging means freedom in publishing. A freelancer is restrained by the need to design each piece to suit a specific outlet or audience. A blogger operates completely unrestrained.
2. What are some of your goals and ambitions when it comes to your blog?
My goal and ambition with Between the Highway and Home is to capture the world as it is rather than the world as I want it to be. I try to remember what Kentuckian Silas House wrote: “But romanticizing a place is just as bad as vilifying it.” However, as with all things, I tend to stumble along the way.
3. How long have you been blogging?
I began my blog in February of 2014, but did not begin blogging in earnest until August of the same year.
4. Where do you call home?
Although I was born and raised in Southern Indiana and I currently reside in Decatur, Georgia, I have never felt more at home in any place in this world than I did when I lived in Williamson County, Tennessee. I will call it home again one day.
5. What is your blogging niche? What inspired you to blog on that specific topic?
My blogging niche is travel and culture, specifically in the American southeast, especially by taking “the road less traveled.” My principal inspirations have been “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon and “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz.
6. How do you balance your blogging schedule?
Balancing my blogging schedule does not require any great effort, because I would be traveling to the same places, taking the same pictures, asking the same questions and writing it all down whether I blogged or not. I find it compulsive.
7. What did you want to be when you grew up?
As a child, I told everyone that I wanted to be a paleontologist. However, my interests gradually switched from dinosaurs to cowboys and Indians. Although the impulse to be a historian was always there, being a writer quickly became my ultimate goal.
8. Are you currently working? What is your occupation?
I do not currently work a typical 9 to 5 job. I ran a contracting business with my brother for quite a while, but left the company in his hands to pursue a career as a freelance writer and photographer.
9. What did you study in school?
I studied journalism and political science at Indiana University in Bloomington.
10. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
For the past several years, I have battled with the impulse to be something of a “know-it-all” on a certain caste of subjects. It is a special kind of arrogance that I wish I could kick all together.
11. What do you do in your free time?
As far as hobbies go, I like to play guitar and read, especially historical non-fiction about Southern history and identity and the American Civil War. However, my favorite way to spend my free time is socializing with friends, especially over good food and good drinks, preferably with football on the TV.
11 Random Facts About Myself
1. I did not become interested in photography until I received a camera for Christmas from my parents in 2013.
2. Although I studied journalism and political science in school, I do not read or watch or listen to the news, nor do I participate in political debates. The world is now as it has always been, the only things that change are the proper nouns.
3. When I get old, I am committed to growing a beard after the fashion of Jamey Johnson or the Robertson family, much to the utter dismay of my girlfriend.
4. When it comes to music, I almost never turn on the radio.
5. I really do enjoy cooking, but my kitchen ain’t a la carte. If you don’t want what I’m making, there’s a Waffle House down the street.
6. I’ve learned that the best things in life are not free. They’re earned.
7. For all that I intend to spend the rest of my life writing, the only fiction writer I much care for is Cormac McCarthy.
8. I have a borderline snobby taste for Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey, which I acquired while living in Lexington, Kentucky.
9. I am hopelessly obsessed with the past, making me a poor consumer of popular culture. The people I revere the most are all dead.
10. The title for my blog, “Between the Highway and Home,” is inspired by a song by Jason Boland & the Stragglers called “Every Moment I’m Gone,” which appears on their Rancho Alto record.
11. While some people are incredibly picky when it comes to their barbecue, I for one love it any way it comes – tomato, vinegar or mustard base on pulled pork, dry or wet rub ribs, smoked brisket, etc. As long as it comes with some good collard greens.
My Liebster Award Nominees
3. urban.apron.
Questions For My Nominees
1. If you had the opportunity to live in any other time period other than our own, which would it be?
2. How many generations back can you trace your family? Do you know where your ancestors came from?
3. How does where you grow up differ from where you currently live? If you currently live where you grew up, how has it changed since you were a child?
4. If you could have a conversation with any person who is no longer alive (famous or otherwise) who would it be and why?
5. Name one item you own that you know you will still have and still use in ten years.
6. What do you believe to be your best virtue or virtues? (Ex: humility, patience, courage)
7. If you knew at eighteen years old what you know now, in a single paragraph, what advice would you give?
8. Tell your readers the one place in the world that you believe they should visit before they die and why.
9. What are you most sentimental about and why?
10. What is the most important thing your father or a relative father-figure taught you?
11. Ohio State or Oregon?
Between the Highway and Home. 