Here are the rules {Not that I am going to follow them to letter or anything...I feel like rebelling today}:
Kind Blogger:
"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."
Honest Scrap:
A) List 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!
B) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap
Are you really sure you want me to reveal 10 honest, dug deep for things about myself? Can't I just list someone else's honest things, like, say my Husband's? No? You do realize this will likely turn into a flippin' novella, right? I don't do one liners. I am complex and, therefore, so are my answers. Alrighty then, you asked for it, Dawn...
1) I am slightly dyslexic. It only really comes out in complicated math problems like Algebra, Physics, etc. Want to know how deliriously happy I was to find out I needed to learn Physics when I was studying to be an X-Ray Tech? I thought, "Well, that's it. I'm screwed. I can't pass these classes or take the State Boards unless I can do Physics!" Luckily my teacher had this nifty little grid that taught me Physics! ME!! I can do Physics! Woo Hoo! So now, I can take your X-Ray without giving you a Cancer inducing dose of radiation. And, BONUS, the X-rays are actually readable. Who knew MaS and Kv were so easily manipulated!
2) I hate loud music. Unless it's my own, of course! I actually do not play loud music as a rule, but sometimes when I am by myself in the car, I crank up Rick Springfield's 3 Warning Shots (It's a great song off his new CD) or some other worthy song such as Anything, Anything by Dramarama, Magic Man or Barracuda from Heart, and drive. But what really bugs the crap out of me is when I can hear someone's dumb ass music while I am in my own home with all the windows and doors shut. I pay for my home just like you do and I have the right to enjoy some peace and quiet there.
I also have the right to go out on my patio for quiet time away from my baby girl and not have to listen to your crappy tunes blasted so loud that I wonder if you are charging money for it! I really don't care what time of day you do this, if it is messing with my sleep and/or peace or that of my husband or daughter, I will call the cops on you. Oh, and if I can feel the concussion of the music and/or engine blasted from your vehicle in the walls or floors of my house or in my ears, I have been known to call the Pokey Man and report you as an erratic driver. {Sometimes I prefer to listen to the voices in my head over your stupid Rap music, white boy! And, no, you are not pretty fly for a white guy!}
3) I absolutely loathe being treated like I do not know what I am doing as a Mother. My daughter is perfectly healthy and extremely intelligent. She has not only always met every medical milestone early, but exceeded each one on the charts. She said her first word at 6 months old {It was Mama} and twenty minutes after she did that, she stood up on her own using the netting in her playpen.
I am medically trained/educated and I read all the articles/studies I could get my hands on in order to prepare for becoming a Mother {I was reading this kind of stuff long before I became a Mom}. I nursed my baby because it was the best thing for her. My Husband and I picked an awesome Pediatrician because we wanted the best for our baby. So, just because you "raised some kids" doesn't mean you know everything. And until I ask for your advice, keep your trap shut!
Oh, and just because my daughter is almost four years old and not completely potty trained yet does not mean I am lazy or incompetent. She knows exactly what to do and how to do it {and she has gone in the "big toilet" several times, just not consistently}, she just, apparently, has better things to do right now. The Diva has an iron will...have you not met her yet?? Better yet, have you not met her Mama???
4) I started my blog because I saw a story about dooce and another woman in Chicago who were making good money from their blogs. I figured, how hard could it be? I am a decent writer. I have a child and something to say. I even had a couple of short stories and poems published in Seventeen magazine when I was a teenager. So I believed it was doable. I just thought it would be a simple way to allow me to contribute to my family's finances, stay home to raise my daughter until she starts school AND have an outlet for my writing and ramblings. Little did I know...I have ads for amazon.com, Google Adsense and AffiliateBot. I haven't made a dime. But I have found an amazing community of bloggers who have many of the same struggles as I do and have taught me things about blogging and parenting I didn't know before. I am happy to say that some of them have become very good friends.
I am still trying to find ways of helping out our finances by doing something online. Someday soon, I hope it will all finally pan out. My goal is $1000.00 per month. I do not want to be dooce or that Pioneer chick, but I would like to feel like I am actually doing something that benefits our bottom line. That would also stop my husband's rants about throwing out
5) I once told my family that I was applying to both UC Berkeley and UC Davis. We were having dinner. My family are staunch Republicans. {I turned out Libertarian/Republican. I'm the rebel...} My Dad and Big Bro were none too pleased. It wasn't exactly true. I did apply to both Universities, and was accepted, thank you very much, but I would never have actually gone to either liberal university. I did it to get back at my Dad for calling me a "pinko-leftist-fascist-liberal-commie Angela Davis" because I wore a pair of peace symbol earrings. They were really cool earrings. And it was the 80's...all things 60's were big back then. Boy was that a fun night! The look on their faces was just PRICELESS! Daddy always did love a good practical joke...
6) There are a couple of very popular blogs out there that I thoroughly dislike {it's not dooce, but I still have yet to find out why she is the queen}. These authors are the most self-involved, self-centered people I have ever come across. It's scary. Really. And these blogs have massive followings. Readers are specifically told not to post anything from anyone else's blog there. The authors want nothing written in the comments unless it is about, for or stroking the ego of them, them, them. Narcissist much?
I thought that this blogging community of ours was here to support, help and encourage each other, not for kissing some chick's ass hoping you might get a prize by following her/them. All of us bloggers do have some degree of narcissism, otherwise, why did we actually make our blogs public, allow comments, get bloggy buttons/banners, cool templates and list ourselves on different sites, etc.? But this kind of crap is just that. CRAP. These are those creepy "follow the leader blindly blogs". I think these are some sad, sad women to need that much recognition and spotlight for writing that is neither grammatically correct {or spelled, for that matter} nor contextually interesting. I would rather have a few followers that become my friends and truly enjoy what I have to say, rather than a massive following of brown-nosers.
7) I probably yell at my daughter more than I should. I am working on that, or at least trying to, which is half the battle. I do get frustrated with her. I prefer for her to do what I say without having to repeat myself over and over again, ad nauseam. It never happens. She has an iron will. Just like her Mama. Funny how that curse your Mom puts on you when you are a kid always comes true...You know the one, "I hope when you grow up, you have a child that acts just like you are acting right now!" Yeah, that one. The only difference, in my case anyway, is that my Mom was and still is nuttier than a fruitcake and a major control freak, so I don't know how accurate her "curse" really was! The Diva has many of my characteristics and many of her Daddy's, too {unfortunately, they are the ones that irritate me the most! LOL}. Needless to say, we butt heads quite a bit. Shocking, isn't it??!!
8) I used to be a very organized person, "used to be" being the operative phrase here. Now my house is in a continuous state of hurricane aftermath. There are three reasons for this, first, I got hurt and had to have several months of "physical therapy treatments", including prophylactic casts on each leg for 6 weeks at a time, that finally ended in a foot surgery that I had already told my podiatrist he should just do almost a year earlier {Whatever is the 1 in a million side effect of a drug, I get it. Whatever treatment or therapy is the most unusual or last ditch effort, is the only thing that works for me. Don't ask. I'm abnormal.}. During this time, I was left unable to stand or walk for any real length of time without severe pain in my back, hips and feet. Cleaning the way I normally liked to became harder and harder to accomplish.
Second, while I was recovering from the surgery, which caused me to walk with a limp for over a year, I got pregnant with The Diva. It was not planned or expected in any way. I was supposed to be infertile. I was on the Pill. I ended up on bed rest for the last trimester of my pregnancy. Third, my Husband...he likes to make piles. While "cleaning", he makes new piles of things he should be going through, organizing, purging and putting away, instead, he puts new piles o'crap in different places to, as he says, "just get them out of the way for now" {those new piles never seem to go away completely, they mysteriously reappear in new areas after my husband "cleans"} The end result of all of this plus a preschooler is that I am overwhelmed and exhausted 98% of the time and therefore my house always resembles the aftermath of a natural disaster. OH JOY!
9) My/our 20 year High School Reunion is this Summer. I don't really want to go. The tickets are ridiculously expensive. We would have to find a babysitter that
All of that so we could go to a room in a hotel where our Prom was held and small talk with a bunch of people we haven't seen or spoken to in 20 years because we didn't really like each other to begin with, but tolerated in school. We didn't go to the 10 year Reunion for pretty much the same reasons. I just don't want to listen to these people embellish their lives to try to justify who they truly aren't, nor do I want to see the same stupid cliques and prejudices emerge from people who are supposed to be adults.
Although, if we won the lottery AND my friends Carol and Sarah were going, I might be persuaded to change my mind. Then again, if we won the lottery, I would just take Carol and Sarah to Jamaica or the Bahamas with me. High School Reunion or tropical vacation with two of my best friends...VACATION!!!!
10) It has taken me THREE weeks to write this post. I had to figure out 10 honest things about me that I hadn't already revealed on this bloggy of mine. This was tough. I try very hard to be completely forthright here, already. I really had to think hard on this one and that can get very messy considering the vast, bizarre place that is my mind! Some of my "things" were more rants than anything else, but that is the way it goes sometimes.
I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through my psyche. No, I will not be paying for your PTSD treatments, sorry. You get on this ride at your own risk. Didn't you see the disclaimer and release of liability? Besides, I'm trying to save for my daughter's future therapy bills.
Cousin Red and the cramp fairy came to visit Friday. They are still here. I am exhausted, in pain and bitchy. I can only think of two people right now that I want to see do this "10 Honest Things About You" {and haven't already received any of these lovely awards} and they are Courtney from blogging*matilda and Claire from Are Muffins Just Ugly Cupcakes? Where DO Squirrels Poop?. So, Court and Claire, have fun, my friends! If anyone else wants to do this, feel free to do so, just please let me know that you did it so that I can go read it.
The awesome ChicagoLady presented me with the Measures Up Award. Thank you Chi, you are the bomb!
Here are the rules:
1. Say a nice thing to a man in your life.
2. List at least six ways you measure success in your life.
3. Assign five other worthy blogs.
I told my husband he did a good job heating up the Chili for dinner last night. Does that count for the first rule?
Rule number 2, six ways I measure success:
1) If I am a positive influence on someone else, I am successful.
2) If my daughter is healthy, happy and knows The Lord, I am successful.
3) If my friends have good things to say about me to others or seek out my advice, I am successful.
4) If I can thank God every night for the day I just had and that my family is safe, I am successful.
5) If someone thinks about me and smiles, I am successful.
6) If I have people who love me, care about what happens to me and think what I have to say matters, I am successful.
Rule number 3, assign six worthy blogs:
So I am going to dissent yet again...To those of you who started following me during my reign as BSU Top Blog, this award is for you. Take it with my gratitude for putting up with my brand of bizarreness and still coming back for more. If there are any other followers that haven't received this award, feel free to take it with my blessing. In any case, just let me know who took it so I can keep a record and come read your answers, OK?
TuTu's Bliss, gave me this one because, even though I have already recieved it, she thought I needed some more sugar! TuTu, you ROCK! And you live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii and you take awesome pictures!Here are the rules:
- Put the logo on your blog or post.
- Nominate at least 10 blogs which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE!
- Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
- Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.
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It's Award Season Here At The Asylum...
http://damnvoicesagain.blogspot.com/2009/02/it-award-season-here-at-asylum.html
