The post that took forever.

This post is full of questions and answers so if you want to know who I am passing them along to, just scroll to the end. But you know you don't want to miss out on my totally serious and heart-felt facts and such...And now for the actual post:

Holy Shit!   I received not one but TWO awards!

For those of you who cannot believe that I am worthy of TWO awards in one week, you are really going to shit yourselves when you see the name of the award I was given by Christal on her blog The Real Housewife of Santee. 

 

Her blog is full of insight and things that we can all relate to (see You Know You're Not Hip Anymore When... and Stuff White Parents Do, which made me realize that I am not a bad mother, I am clearly just a black woman). 

More incredible (and I mean that you will not believe it) she bestowed THIS upon me:

 

SUNSHINE!!!!!  ME!!!!!!

The rules of the Sunshine Award are as follows:

1. Include the award logo in a post or on your blog.
2. Answer 10 questions about yourself.
3. Nominate 10-12 other fabulous bloggers.
4. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know that they have been nominated.
5. Share the Love and link back to the person who nominated you .

 

Sunshine Awards Questions:

 

1. What is your favorite color?

Blood Red. Because I am not allowed to murder anyone with my own bare hands no matter how bad their grammar is.

2. What is your favorite animal?
Badger...Have you EVER seen a happy badger?

 

3. Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink?
Coffee...because crack is illegal

4. What is your favorite number?

Bling that shit!

5. Facebook or Twitter?

I have tried to love twitter. I have. But none of my actual friends use it. So I only see Tweets from Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin and encoded links from blog posters. I will go with Facebook.

6. What is your passion?
What I really love is napping. I seriously think I have a problem because I will lie, cheat and (not really) steal to have a nap.

7. What is your favorite time of day?

Bed time when I lay there with Lila and tell her happy dreams. 

 

8. Favorite day of the week?
Well thanks to this pic, it's Friday:

9. Favorite Flower?
Bleeding Hearts. SOOOO appropriate. Plus, when you say it, you kind of picture this:

This is actually A FUCKING CAKE!!!!!
Lilli Vanilli was offering this for Valentine's Day.  Go look.

10. Give or Get Presents?

I know that this is going to sound different than I mean it, but I really hate gift giving. I hate shopping and suck at crafts and so I usually just give something lame like scented candles or gift cards. Since I am usually broke, I can never give the kinds of gifts I imagine giving or that I think that the person deserves.

The second (I know!  But it's true!) award comes from Magical Mystical Mimi and it is the Versatile Blogger Award.

 



 

Mimi is one of my new blog friends who like me, doesn't just follow other bloggers  She stalks them.  Mimi shares my love of answering random questions and appreciation for "salty" language.  Her blog is funny and easy to spend hours reading.  (Plus I never tire of "bich-es"...)

(Yvonne from Attracted to Shiny Things passed this back to me yesterday.  I am NOT doing another post today.  I hope the bloggy gods don't frown upon me for not adding more random facts.  But seriously, I think I am facted out)

 

The rules to this one are as follows:

1. - List 7  random things about yourself that people most likely wouldn't have known.

2. - Pass this award on to other fellow bloggees that you adore.

3. - Link back.

7 (more) Random Facts:

1. When I was pregnant, I claimed I was nauseous CONSTANTLY to get out of doing anything I didn't want to do. 

2. I can't remember the last time I spent more than $15 on a bra.  I knew that my youth (and sex life) was over when I found myself buying bras and underwear at Wal-Mart.

3. No matter how many times I listen to a song on my Ipod, if it comes on the radio spontaneously it is SOOOO much better.

4. I am allergic to raw eggs, but not cooked eggs.

5. I got acrylic nails for the first time 2 months ago, and am finding it really hard to not spend all day digging between my real nail and the acrylic tip to dig dirt out.  I may have to give up my nails because I am spending HOURS of my day doing this.

6. I really don't have many interesting things to say.  Seriously.  Coming up with random facts is REALLY difficult.

7. Even though I am a mom, I cannot CANNOT pretend vomit is ok, even for my kid.  I gag and have to look away every time.  It kind of makes me feel bad.

I am going to pass each award to just a FEW people, because, SERIOUSLY...who has this much time?  I have already been working on this for 6 days (nope, not joking).

Remember to follow the rules....

The Sunshine Award goes to:

YVONNE from Attacted to Shiny Things.  Because hers is one of my all time favorite blogs and I give her every Goddamned award I get.  Because she seriously sees the world in a totally whacked-out way and describes it hilariously. I also believe that we might somehow psychically share thoughts.  (She's also lucky I'm not passing the Versatile Blogger Award back to her AGAIN!!!)

• IRIS at The Bearded Iris. She also always makes me laugh.  Plus this bee-atch has incredible DIY abilities and takes beautiful photos. 

• MOOKIE at Mind of Mookie.  I can't help but love a male perspective.  Especially when it's smart and funny.  Don't let the testosterone scare you off!

AND the Versatile Blogger Award goes to

• MIRANDA over at Mom's Bookshelf and More...because it is almost always "more" and it is always interesting.

• JENN over at Random Lunacy.  She is a very smart cookie and you should read her.

and I seriously passed this along just recently so I cannot possibly come up with any more...

p.s. I started writing this on Wednesday the 7th.  It is now the 12th.   Yeah...that long.

I found that giant Orange Vagina you were looking for!

One of my new favorite (and very funny) bloggers gave me an award. 

I want to seriously recommend that you go over and read and follow and perhaps even internet stalk Shirley Ewe Must Be Joking.  That bitch be crazy! Plus she knows all the words to "Bust a Move" as I found out when I was reading about HER award here:

Proof that I actually WAS awarded an award 

 

The rules are basically as follows: 

•  Thank the blogger that bestowed the award (check)
•  Post 7 random facts about yourself (I LOVE talking about myself)
•  Forward the award to 10 (TEN?) deserving bloggers (THAT may prove challenging).

So I am going to base my 7 random things on some random photos I have saved on my laptop (and some I just found recently saved on discs).  Some are actual real pics from my actual real life and others are silly shit from the blogosphere.  Lets see if you can tell which are which.


HERE WE GO!

1.

I am pretty sure Lila is destined to become a crazy cat lady.  At the time of the top photo (which she took herself) she had 5 stuffed kitties.  That photo was taken about 6 months ago.  Since the taking of that photo, she has somehow accumulated 6 more kitties and a couple of little bears that she claims are cats but are actually little bears, pigs or mice.  She likes to bring all them all over the house with her and she sleeps with all of them. 

This is not even all of them...

She has also told me that she has no intention of ever getting married because (in her words) "I don't want to be a mommy." 


2.

Seriously.  It's a vagina.

Did you see a giant blow up pumpkin here or did you see a kid crawling into a humongous orange vagina?  See, I have a filthy mind and and the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy.  To me, this was hilarious and warranted a photograph.  Ben is a contractor and EVERY SINGLE TIME that he goes to pick up plywood or 2x4s I giggle and ask him if he "got wood in his truck."  And don't even get me started about black caulk.

3.

I admit it.  I think "The Situation" is kinda hot.  But I cannot watch Jersey Shore (not only because it's total crap but also) because every episode reminds me of the fact that I am no longer young and hot and that I would totally be laughed at and made fun of for trying to get him to "smush" me...Which brings us to our next photo:

4.

Don't look so shocked.
I was young once.

My friend and I used to have "stripper night on Danforth St."  We would put on slutty clothes and 7 inch clear heels and take pictures of each other.  I found the disk with the photos on it this past week and when I looked at them I nearly lost my mind.  10 years ago, I was fucking HOT!  What the hell happened to me!  It was ONLY 10 years ago.  And all that time, I always thought that I was so flawed.  Skinny legs, small boobs, cellulite.  And yet NOW, I would fucking KILL to look like that. Fucking youth really is WASTED on stupid 24 year olds.

5.

Apparently, I am one of the only asshole parents who doesn't feel the need to start scheduling her 4 year old for hundreds of different activities.  Seriously.  WHEN THE HELL did kids start needing social lives and extra-curricular activities?  Lila goes to school and plays with her little friends there.  Then she spends the rest of her day playing and annoying me.  But I am okay with that. Because ballet classes are expensive, as is karate, soccer, MyGym memberships, art school, and music lessons.  I read the other day that the typical 4 year old is involved in 3 different scheduled activities a week IN ADDITION to preschool, and that parents now worry that their child is not involved in ENOUGH activities to get into a good college.  MY KID IS 4.  Unless she is working for a highly specialized scholarship for playing the glockenspiel, getting her scheduled and busy 7 days a week really isn't necessary at this age. 

6.

I get excited about really dumb things.  Like REALLY excited.  I have been known to terrorize drivers by spontaneously screaming out with joy at the sight of a bunny hopping across the road.  It's actually become dangerous at times.  I had to tone it down so as not to scare my kid, but she has gladly picked up my habit for squealing at bendy straws, sporks, and 80's hair metal videos.

7.

I am actually VERY political.  I can be found angrily posting comments on all the political websites and find that I need to take "news breaks" because I get so angry and frustrated with the stupidity of those in charge that I want to strangle someone.  I have started to believe that the hopelessness that I feel when I see how stupid politics can be is a huge contributor to my depression.  Still, I look forward to this spring and hope that the Occupy movement reconstitutes and moves forward with some kind of actual agenda so I can go participate in more marches and protests.  (Just so you know, I am NOT a dirty hippie liberal, just a mom concerned about the future for my kid).

Lila made her own sign that says "Being Greedy is Not Nice"

And here is who you should go read next (also known as who I think deserves the Versatile Blogger Award).

Coffee Lovin Mom

39 For The First Time

Random Lunacy

Nursery Phymnes and Curse Words

Inside My Head

America's Next Top Mommy

Frugalista Blog

Spotts in the Valley of the Sun

Tired Mama


And of course, Attracted to Shiny Things

BWAAA HAA HAA HAA HAAAAA!

Soooo....a couple of months ago (when I was on internet vacation) one of my favorite bloggers over at From Diapers to Diatribes bestowed an award upon me that is truly the award I have been waiting for.  I suppose it's better late than never.

As you all know, world domination is one of my fantasies, so this is completely AWESOME!!!

This award allows me to change ANY 3 things I want to, IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.   After much careful consideration, I have settled upon the following things:

1.  Effective immediately, children will work by remote control until they are old enough to understand that the Mommy is in charge and they can't do anything about it.  Have a headache and your kid keeps singing the theme song to Spongebob?  Simply hit the VOLUME-DOWN button.  Temper tantrum?  MUTE.  Need 15 minutes to yourself?  PAUSE.  And the best one...At bedtime simply turn the power off.

2.  Any time you are out in public and someone is acting like an asshole, you get to call for everyone's attention and take a vote as to whether or not the person deserves to be backhanded for their douchy-ness.  If necessary, you and the douchbasket can each make a short statement. If the majority votes yes, you can slap them.  I believe this will greatly improve the public behavior of all of us.

3. Dumb, mind-numbing websites will have a built-in 30 minute time limit.  Seriously.  Do you know how much time I spent reading Damn You Autocorrect this morning?  And there is NO REASON to spend more than 10 minutes at a time scrolling through Facebook updates or playing Farmville.  Of course, blogs that have actual WORDS in them are excluded from this rule. 

Now the hard part:  I have to decide who I want to give this award to...

• Attracted to Shiny Things (This one was an obvious choice.  Yvonne is CLEARLY a natural overlord).
• Inside My Head
• People I Want to Punch in the Throat
• Motherhood WTF
• Mind of Mookie

I cannot wait to read your changes!

Bad Ass Bitches.

First of all I would like to thank the Academy.  And of course, Mollie over at OK in UK for passing this on to me about 3 months ago (it's been a rough few months, okay?).

Since there are no rules to this one, I am going to simply pass it on to a couple of people and leave it at that.

Kid Id

 Ixy

Eejaye

Yvonne

And now, after using a bunch of words, here is my Wordless Wednesday:

My kid with the hair hat.  She's thrilled.

Because Sucking is AWESOME

So the other day I am perusing my favorite Blog Attracted to Shiny Things (because I stalk it for new laughs all the time) and I see that she has been awarded this:

And all I can think is, "THAT BITCH!  I want that Goddamned icon on MY page.  Maybe I will just steal it and say someone gave it to me."  But as I read further down I saw something fucking incredible. 
SHE AWARDED IT TO ME!!! 

 Not only did she give it to me (along with 9 other bloggers) but I was the FIRST which means that I am the best (I am feeling really humble today obviously).

So in order to claim my award, which I intend to do right now, I have to tell you "7 DEEP things about me" which is easy because some days I just LOVE to talk about myself, and pass it along to 10 awesome bloggers (harder because I have been stalking Attracted to Shiny Things so hard that I have barely read any other blogs in the last few weeks...)

Deep Things:

1. Although I have upwards of 400 friends on the Facebook, I have a mysteriously absent social life.  Seriously.  I don't know what happened to all my real life friends, but since I moved back to Upstate New York 3 years ago, I have had only a few outings that involved anyone other than my kid and her father.  Perhaps I should be spending less time on the Facebook.

2. Just when I had gotten to the point where I didn't care that I was overweight, I outgrew my fat clothes.  Now I have to lose weight.  I was okay with not being skinny.  I was.  I went out and spent some money on big-girl sized clothes and was like "fuck it."  Because in truth, I like chocolate cake WAY more than I liked being tiny-sized.  So I accepted it and moved on.  But apparently my ass didn't get the message that I was perfectly comfortable in a size 14.  Because it thinks that a 16 or 20 would be more comfortable.  Which would be fine, I guess.  But I truly cannot afford to go and buy any more clothes.  So the cake will have to wait.

That's me on the right.

3. I used to date a con man who maintained that I was the only person he ever told the truth to.  Back when I was kid, I had a little boyfriend and he had a little brother.  The little brother grew up to be super hot and charming and I totally fell for him.  Then he moved away and I carried that torch until a few years later when we met up again and I fell all over again.  But something wasn't right.  He acted really suspiciously all the time.  He changed phone numbers and addresses all the time.  He was incredibly unreliable.  For example, we would have plans for the weekend and I would confirm this with him on Friday.  Then Saturday he would fail to show up but Sunday morning he would call me from South Carolina and explain that "the Feds" showed up so he had to take off for a few days. "The Feds" came up ALL THE TIME.  My friend and I used to laugh about it because we thought he just had a girlfriend or something and so I ended up basically writing him off.  But a few weeks later I saw on the local news that they had caught one of his best friends who was wanted in like 7 states for fraud and assorted scams and realized that all these places his friend was wanted were places he had called me from (as confirmed on my phone bill).   The friend went to prison for a really long time but never ratted.  He managed to run from the Feds for another 8 years before he was let go on a technicality just recently.  He's still fucking amazingly hot.

4. This is really hard.  If I was just giving you random facts I would be able to do this, but "DEEP THINGS?"  What the hell Yvonne?

5. I am a really shitty housekeeper.  I hate cleaning and I have a 4 year old running around so you see how this is a problem.  I never understood those people who get a rush from cleaning and organizing because I get the opposite.  Cleaning drains me.  It makes me want to die. Not to say my house is FILTHY.  I clean.  But I don't do all the maintenance stuff as often as I should (I refuse to clean toilets more than once a week and I force Ben to scrub the tub which only happens maybe once a month) but it gets done eventually.  And I refuse to pick up Lila's crap more than once a day so generally shit stays strewn all over the house until she goes to bed at night.  And don't get me started about the inside of my car.

6. I don't really believe in God but I believe in Serendipity.  I was raised Catholic and always had a hard time swallowing the whole "God will punish you" thing because it just seemed that God had better things to do than watch teenagers masturbate or monitor my every thought for covetousness.  So I stopped believing.  But I never stopped believing that there is some kind of master plan and that everything happens for a reason.  Not that we don't make our own choices.  We do.  And we go horribly off path.  But in the end we always end up where we need to be.

7. I was afraid that my kid was going to destroy my shitty attitude and bad ass reputation.  Instead she gave me more shit to be pissed about.  But she also made me a total dork.  You know how old people never listen to new music until it's on a commercial?  Well, that's me.  I also dress the same as I did like 10 years ago, totally oblivious to trends and can't be bothered with makeup most days.  Congratulations Lila for making me totally lame.

I am working on bringing this look back.

OK.  Now the hard part:

I hereby bestow the Blog on Fire Award to the following bloggers:

1. Tails of Motherhood

2. Pooping in Peace

3. People I Want to Punch in the Throat

4.  OK in UK

5. 39 for the First Time

6. Bad Words

7. Just Plain Jayne

8. Taking it On

9. Adventures in Mommyhood

10. Shanimal's Crackers

I don't suck? Thanks!!!

HOLY CRAP!  I was given another award! 

YAY to MOTHERHOOD (OH AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN) for not noticing that I am so sick I haven't showered in 3 days and that all my posts have been a little sickly lately too.

But I will take it. 

First the official part that I have to do to accept this award:

Seven random facts about me:

1. My first year with Lila was so bad that I swore I would never have another baby.  And I am sticking to it.  I am not a praying woman.  But I cannot tell you how many times I prayed to God during Lila's non stop 10 hour crying fits and my 24 hour post-partum crying fits to just let me live through this without killing her or anyone else and I would never think I was smart enough to try it again.  He let me live. So I have to let Lila be an only child.  For everyone's sake.

"We have to pray just to make it today...Oh yeah, we pray..."

2. I think I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome even though I kind of don't think it's a real disease.  I keep being tested for every illness known to man (which is putting me into debt because I have no insurance) and they can't find any good reason for me to feel so crappy all the time.  I am going with it and asking for a prescription for 2 hour naps every day. 

3. I am in a pretty bad mood as I write this.  I am sick and Lila has been sick and Daddy's been away (hers not mine) and so I apologize for the whining.

4. I thought 30 days of books was going to be fun.  And it was.  For like 12 days.  But here on day 24 or wherever the hell I am , it is getting tedious.

5. I worked at Borders for like half of my adult life.  My only real dream is to one day open my own book store. 

6. I am pissed that Oprah quit before having me on. 

That's right, Oprah.  You missed out on this.  Cry me a f**king river.

7. My laptop is broken and I have to use Ben's computer.  It was put together sometime in 2003 and is the slowest thing I have ever used.  I am trying to get my blog to that "next level" but I am limited by this machine I literally CANNOT get it to log into twitter, which I can easily do on my PHONE!!!.  It also won't let me comment on blogger blogs for some reason.  And this post right here took me an hour.  Yeah.  I am serious.  So Although I am supposed to give this award to something like 15 blogs, I am probably going to have to limit it to 3 or 5.  And they will likely be wordpress blogs.  Unless I can go back to work in the next couple of days to use my work computer. 

Nominations to come.



(p.s.  as always, I just randomly googled these pics.  I have no idea who they belong to but they aren't mine)

I sure feel sexy. Here's your dirty facts.

WOW!  I have never won anything in my life and now it turns out that there's TWO people who love me!

So in the spirit of fulfilling my obligation and in order to claim my prize (s), I am going to meet the prerequisite demands that such an honor requires.

First off, thank you to NEVE at Edge of Crazy for this one:

In order to claim this, I have to tell a really naughty juicy secret about myself:

I was kind of a groupie. 

No seriously.  There was a band in the 90's (who I will not mention) but they were big enough to have a top 40 hit and if you heard their songs on the radio, you'd be all like, "I remember these guys!  What the hell happened to them?"  I LOVED them and swore that I would find my way onto their tour bus one way or another. 

I met the drummer when I was 18 at one of their shows and he got me drunk and we made out on the tour bus.  We exchanged phone numbers or whatever and I thought that would be the end of it.  Three days later he called me just to chat and we had several months of phone sex while he was on the road.  That fizzled out when he went back home, and he stopped calling so I just assumed it was over. 

The following spring (about 3 months later) he called to tell me he'd be doing a show nearby.  So I got all slutted up and showed up at his hotel and did all the dirty things we talked about months before.  


On a tour bus in Toronto.  Yes, that IS a leopard-print shirt
he's wearing.  Oh, and it was mine.

They did many shows in the Northeast around that time and I dragged my friend along to as many as I could.  Then they played a show in my hometown.  My mother insisted I bring him to our neighborhood bar and he hung out and smoked pot with my uncle and my mother and her friends oooh'd and ahhhh'd about a real-life rock star in the bar (lame, I know). 

I got to meet some other cool people when they did a festival-type show, including Iggy Pop (which really was the high point of that time period).

When he went home, I understood that it was over and he had a life to return to so that was that. 

SO there's my dirty little secret.  I really hope my kid never reads this.

..........................................

The other award comes from Kristy at Pampers and Pinot. 
She said I have been making her laugh lately and then my last two posts were kind of a huge pity party so I suppose that just illustrates that I really am "versitile".

For this one I have to tell you all 7 fantastic (or not) random facts about me.  So here they are:

1.  I haven't worn shorts or a skirt above my ankles in about 7 years (and I lived in Arizona for 4 of those).  I have dermatillomania and if you google it try not to look at the pictures because those will give you nightmares.  Mine is a less extreme (but still kind of bad) version of that and I only do it to my legs for some reason.  Right now they're nice and smooth (but horribly scarred) and I am praying I can get to the summer and be able to take my kid to the beach for the first time this year without being ashamed.

2. When I had my second ultrasound I totally freaked out the tech girl by telling her I needed to see my baby's arms to make sure she didn't have claws.  I also made her tell me she did not have horns.

I was pretty sure I THIS
is what I would see

3. I used to have fantastic boobs (the "nice rack award" made me think of this one).  I LOVED them and used to show them off to anyone who would have a look.  I always thought that if I gained weight that they would be larger, more voluptuous versions of what I had.  WRONG.  They're pretty much the same size only flatter and closer to my belly-button.

Yeah...I was THAT girl...


4. I drink at least 6 cups of coffee every day.

5. I am still pissed off about the ending of Lost.  I realize it's been nearly a year and that it was just a TV show, but fuck that shit!  The show consumed me for about 6 years and it turns out they all just "go to the light"?  Seriously?  I have dreams sometimes about all the better possible endings that would have made the whole story make sense.  Maybe I should be writing for TV.

6. My kid is exactly like me.  Seriously.  I really feel sorry for her father because all the shit I get annoyed with is shit I do to him.

7. Blogging has changed my life.  I know this is cheese-ballish but it's true.  I think I desperately needed an outlet for all the ramblings in my head and having a bunch of people read my thoughts and respond and "get it" has made all the difference in the world for me.  I have never had a huge group of friends but I feel like the people who read my blog and comment and appreciate what I say are like the buddies I don't have out here in the real world.  And I am forever grateful for you all.


ps.  I was looking at the old blog I kept on the myspace and it was fucking AWESOME!  But no one uses the myspace anymore.  I may need to cut and paste all these absurd posts somewhere for reference when I am depressed.

p.p.s  I know I need to pass these awards on, but since my kid broke my laptop (AGAIN...FUCK YOU NICK JR.COM!!) I am working on this ancient computer in Ben's office and everything takes three times as long.  SO I am going to think about it and post my awards later.  Stay tuned.

They like me...they really like me!

Well what do you know?  I have received my first blogging award from Kristy over at Pampers and Pinot. 

I will be back later to generate random facts and then pass this along to the next round of deserving bloggers.

In the meantime, go visit Kristy's blog and give her some comment love.  She's funny and expressive and her blog is very nice to look at.

-Selena