Giveaway Winner and Dragon’s Loyalty Award!

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the Happy Herbivore Light & Lean cookbook (as selected by random number generator) is Laura!  Laura left the very first comment on the post, saying:

“I’m craving the Deviled Eggs! This cookbook looks amazing!”

Congrats, girl!  I will be emailing you with further details.

Speaking of Laura (and by total coincidence, I swear), I am honored to have been nominated on her blog This is Thirty for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award!  The award is for the loyal fan/commenter, whether the recipient is a fellow blogger or just someone who follows and comments regularly.

One of my favorite things about blogging is the community of wonderful people that I’ve been introduced to.  I follow several dozen blogs and look forward to reading them every single day.  It is truly amazing to be able to connect with people all over the world, most or all of whom I will never meet in person, but whose personalities and unique voices have nonetheless become so familiar to me.

Giving and receiving comments is one of the many ways that I participate in this community.  Every single time a new comment pops up on my blog, it puts a smile on my face, and I try to pay it forward by leaving as many comments as possible on other blogs too.  Anyway, getting this award from Laura means a lot!

The rules for Dragon’s Loyalty Award are:
1) Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2)  Acknowledge that blogger on your blog and link back (duh!).
3)  Share  7 things other bloggers may not know about you.
4)  Nominate up to  15  bloggers for Dragon’s Loyalty Award, provide a link to their blogs in your post, and notify them on their blogs.
5)  Copy and paste the award somewhere on your blog.

7 things you may not know about me:

1. I am allergic to eggplant (GMO or otherwise), a sad fate for a vegetarian.

[Source]

2.  Growing up, I was really into music and art.  I was a singer, played violin, clarinet, and piano, and my dream was to become a Disney animator.   Now I’m a lawyer, which in many ways is the opposite of a creative profession.

[Source]

3.  I own all 10 seasons of Friends on DVD and have seen every episode multiple times.  Last year I got H into it as well and we watched the whole series together from start to finish.

[Source]

4.  While we’re on the subject of H…that letter actually stands for the first letter of his last name, not his first (and it doesn’t stand for “Husband” either)!  This is because when we first started dating (and when I first talked about him on the blog), we used to refer to each other by our last names 🙂  Rather than change it on the blog after I finally learned his first name, I’ve elected to keep him as H.

H and me, about two weeks after we started dating! I used to be so cute.

5.  And speaking of H’s last name, it’s my last name now too!  But obviously I have continued to use my maiden name for blogging purposes.  I was way too proud of “A. Cook in the Making” to give it up.

6. I am a huge Harry Potter nerd.  I have read each book several dozen times (the first three in Spanish, too) and own the British version of the series.  My sister and I used to dress up and go to the midnight book release parties, and I was one of the people on the message boards looking for emotional support after finishing Half-Blood Prince for the first time.  I also attended the midnight release showing of all eight films.

[Source]

7.  Despite growing up completely disinterested in professional sports, I now (thanks to H) follow all of the Boston teams, and am particularly devoted to (and frankly, obsessed with) the Patriots.

Posing with the Superbowl trophies at the Hall at Patriot Place

Bringing a little Patriots pride to NJ (and no, I am not wearing the jersey of THAT #81…it’s Randy Moss, tyvm)

My nominees for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award are: 
1) Celeste of Honk If You’re Vegan
2) Ketty of Luminous Vegans
3) Cadry of Cadry’s Kitchen
4) Catherine of Veg Charlotte

And if it made any sense to do so, I’d nominate Laura herself again! She always leaves me nice comments 🙂

P.S. – Only one more week until Christmas!!!  Are you ready to go or do you still have tons to do?!  I am somewhere in between.