Awards, awards, everywhere…and a meme
Feb 29, 2008 Randomness
I’m a huge slacker. I have been tagged by some fabulous blogging friends and even given awards and I’ve totally neglected them. So here I am trying to catch up.
A Roar For Powerful Words
Waaay back on January 7th Life As I Know It awarded me the A Roar For Powerful Words; an award/meme started by The Shameless Lions Writing Circle. And all I have to do is give you three writing tips.
I’m a little shocked that people enjoy my writing. I feel like many of my posts are big run on sentences. Or short fragmented sentences. Riddled with punctuation and spelling errors. But here I go anyway, giving you three tips.
- Write what you know. You will never see me writing about car mechanics other than to say my husband fixed this thingy and now that thingy works.
- Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. We spend way too much time worrying about what other people think.
- Don’t write anything (especially on the internet) about somebody that you wouldn’t say to that person in real life. Doesn’t mean you HAVE to say it them, but when you write it keep in mind that you may have to deal with the aftermath should they google themselves and find your comment. For example, if Britney Spears was right here in my office I would have no problem telling her to keep her crotch covered.
I’m going to pass this award on to some fantastic writers I know:
Angela, Mommy Needs Coffee and Joy Unexpected.
E for Excellence Award
Then on February 19th, Shannon at Mommy Bits gave me the E for Excellence award. That same day Lance at Dad2Twins (who was also awarded by Shannon) awarded me with the E for Excellence award again. Now I need to pass on the award to 10 excellent blogs. And those excellent blogs (in addition to Mommy Bits and Dad2Twins) are:
- Mrs. Fussypants
- Mrs. Flinger
- Playgroups Are No Place For Children
- Clever Escape
- In This House, I’m the Mama
- Life As I Know It
- Lis Garrett
- An Iowa Mom
- Blue Bamboo
- Busy Dad
And then, as if my head wasn’t already swelling up with pride, Shannon went and bestowed two more awards on me.
and 
The Daily Dose Award
Xandra, the creator of the Daily Dose Award says this award is for blogs you read every day; “all the blogs you’ve discovered that you can’t possibly live without. They make you laugh, cry, think and feel connected every time you read a post. They give you a thrill as you see them loading into your browser and you get an equally satisfying thrill when you see that they have commented on your blog.”
I’m passing this on to all blogs awarded above plus Cynical Dad, Creative Type Dad, Metro Dad, Izzy Mom, Sarcastic Mom and Bossy.
The Unconditional Friendship Award
The Unconditional Friendship Award is for those bloggy comrades that are always there for you, no matter what.
This one I’ll pass on to Lori, Necole, Baseball Mom and Momilies.
Book Meme
And last, but not least, Stephanie at In This House, I’m The Mama, tagged me with a fun book meme.
Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.
Here’s mine:
Wouldn’t we all be better off if we tracked down our first loves? Then we cross our fingers and hope that the answers will emerge on camera. We film the contestants constantly, we do interviews with and without their partners, and we gather sound bites that can be woven together in postproduction to give the show some narrative flow.
~Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst
And for this one I tag five of you that would enjoy participating.
Tags: A Roar For Powerful Words, Book Meme, E for Excellence Award, The Daily Dose Award, The Unconditional Friendship Award
Love Thursday 02/28/2007
Feb 28, 2008 Love Thursday
Lee’s grandmother loved angels. She had a tons of them all over her house. When Partylite candles came out with a whole angels line I bought each one of them for Granny.
After Granny passed away Lee found these angel shower curtain holders in her stuff. He pulled them out and hung them in our downstairs bathroom.
We are in the process of remodeling the downstairs bathroom (and the upstairs bathroom due to a flooding toilet and water damage) and the angel hooks are hanging on the towel rack. As I was in the bathroom doing, um bathroom things, I looked up and saw the angels looking down on me. I noticed two angels with their backs to each other and their hooks looked like a heart. I thought, “Granny’s angels are forming a heart.”
Tags: angels, Love Thursday
A simple cure for writer’s block
Feb 27, 2008 A day in our life
Are you suffering from writer’s block? Have you run out of things to say? Have you already told us what you had for lunch?
Well I have the cure.
It’s simple really. All you need to do is get in your car and drive it directly in to a snow bank. There you go. Instant blog material. For example, my night.
The three younger kids and I were in the car on our way to pick up their teenage brothers. Keaton was at church and Justis was at a friend’s house. It was 7:45pm and I had to pick Keaton up at 8pm. We have an alley where our garage is. The city does not plow that alley (except this one time when some dipwad tried to plow in his S10 pickup truck and got stuck about halfway down blocking us all in, but that’s a whole other story). I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this enough this year, but we’ve had over 60 inches of snow and ice this winter. Therefore, there are grooves in the ice and snow where all of our cars have driven down the alley. It’s kind of like a roller coaster ride where your cart stays on the tracks and you bounce off those tracks. Good times.
A normal person with average intelligence would drive with their tires in those tracks. I, however, am not such a person. I like to think of myself as more of an Einstein. An entrepreneur. A risk taker you might say. I was tired of being tossed around on that stupid roller coaster ride that is our alley. So I decided to be a rebel and try to drive on top of the ice outside of the grooves.
About five houses down from my house, I slid off the ice, bumped in to the grooves, slammed on my breaks and when all was said and down I was sideways in the alley. SIDEWAYS. Front wheels dug deep in to the snow bank on the right. Rear wheels dug even deeper on the left. Roller coaster ride over.
I threw the car in to reverse and tried to back out. Yeah, like that was going to happen. The van got and evil grin on its face and laughed hysterically at me. I’m pretty sure I heard it should, “You are goin’ nowhere lady.”
I gave Skyler & Spencer the remote to the garage and told them to run up and get some shovels. They came back with three shovels and we tried to dig out the wheels. Have you ever tried to dig your car out of snow banks that are taller than your bumpers. It’s not fun.
After a while my fingers were numb, my nose was running, and the car still wouldn’t move. So I did what any self-respecting woman does. I called my husband.
Lee was in class. He did not answer the first time I called. He probably thought I wanted to know where the remote was or something (which is something he paged me 911 about when I was in school ten years ago). But when I called a second time he went in to the hall and answered. The conversation went something like this:
Lee: What do you need?
Me: Um, I got the car stuck in a snow bank.
Lee: Where are you at?
Me: In the alley about five houses down from ours.
Lee: What did you do? Where you trying to drive outside of the grooves. (He knows me so well.)
Me: Um…yes.
Lee: What do you need me to do?
Me: You need to go pick up Keaton and Justis and if I’m still stuck when you get home, help me.
Lee: You’ll still be stuck when I get there. I’m leaving now.
And he was right. I was still stuck when he got there. I hadn’t even moved an inch. I wasn’t oops-I’m-stuck-in-a-snow-bank-let-me-dig-out stuck. No I was wholly-f*ck-I’m-stuck-and-will-probably-have-to-call-a-tow-truck-or-else-cry-or-
maybe-both stuck. Maybe even broke-something-in-the-front-end-of-the-van stuck. I was stuck.
Lee and Keaton held back their laughter long enough to try and dig me out. Still not moving.
I finally sent all the kids home and to bed while dad and I tried to dig out.
When it was obvious the van was wedged tightly between those two snow banks and shoveling wasn’t doing a damn bit of good, Lee went to plan B. He hiked back up to the garage and got a come-along. [I say that like I have any clue what a come-along is, but really I just asked Lee what that thingy was called.] Lee has been driving this little Isuzu SUV thing he may or may not be buying from his friend (we aren’t really talking about it because he knows I don’t want to spend money on another car). He hooked one end of the come-along to the Isuzu and the other end to my van. Then he threw it in reverse and jerked my van.
It moved. It really moved. We could see progress.
But we were still stuck. And by we I really mean me.
It took several more jerks. Some shoveling. And then some more jerking. And then a miracle happened. One final jerk and I was no longer sideways. I was facing Lee. And it had only taken an hour and a half to get out of the snow. If my toes weren’t completely frozen I would have gotten up and did a little touch down dance.
Now my ABS light is on and who knows what else is wrong with my van. I can’t think about it right now. Right now I’m frozen like a popsicle. Right now I need to curl up in my favorite blanket, in front of the heater with a mug of hot cocoa. No more driving for me until Spring.
Tags: come-along, getting stuck, snow bank, winter driving
And then I peed my pants
Feb 26, 2008 A day in our life
I used to have a drinking problem. I was a pack-a-day Mt. Dew drinker. All that caffeine. All that sugar. My body is starting to shudder just thinking about it.
After several attempts I finally kicked the habit and switched to water. Flavored water. It’s been we over a year since I had a caffeinated beverage.
Recently I decided to switch from flavored water to regular water. I think I’ve had enough Splenda to last me a lifetime. But every now and then I still need to satisfy my sweet tooth.
However, I think God is trying to tell me to be strong and not give in to that sweet tooth.
Tonight I got a bottle of flavored water to take to school with me. As I was driving to school I opened my bottle to take a swig. But when I twisted the lid off the water exploded out of the bottle all over me. And it was cold.
Have you ever tried to drive down the interstate at 70 mph while keeping your butt off the seat? It’s difficult. Trust me. I scoured the car trying to find something to sit on. All I could find was Skyler’s dance bag. I pulled out all of her shoes (her ballet, tap and jazz shoes) and slid the bag under my butt. While driving 70 mph on the interstate, occasionally swerving on to the shoulder until I was situated. I’m sure the people behind me thought I was drunk.
Luckily I have slicky pants on today so it dried by the time I got to school and I didn’t have to walk in to class looking like I had just peed my pants. It was much better than last time I spilled water in my lap.
