My Own Personal Award Show!

*Please do NOT get dressed up for my award show.  In fact, I encourage you to wear your expandable pants and find something yummy to eat if you are in attendance.*

When I dumped facebook about six weeks ago, I made a decision to give my blog a facelift and began devoting time to developing an actual community on my cozy corner of the internet.  That turned out to be a very good decision for a myriad of reasons.  One of them being that as I continue on my own journey home to myself, I find that the thing I value most in the world  is authenticity.  I want to know that with all of my trials and triumphs, all of my beauty and all of my scars too, that it’s just okay.  I want to be loved for my perfectly imperfect human self and I want to extend the same courtesy to others as well. 

Through making a definite effort to get to the tender center of my being, I find that I am more drawn to reach out to others by way of sharing my own self the best way I know how, which is simply communicating from my heart.  I find writing is a wonderful avenue to do this since my actual voice needs some work (which I am slowly stepping toward strengthening).  I am seeing that the disconnect comes from the fact that my whole life (up until now), I have bought into the misunderstanding that I was not acceptable, it was not okay to speak up and it was certainly not okay to have my own truth, which really stripped me of the dignity of my own human experience.

Often times readers comment that it takes courage to share the way I do (Thank you), however, for me it isn’t courage so much as a necessity.  I have a story.  I need to share it.  I don’t know if it will come through a book, or simply musings on my blog… but at any rate, I want to thank all of my blogging community and followers.  Thank you for reading my words.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts.  Thank you for becoming a part of my internet home and thank you for welcoming me into yours.

I’ve recently received several awards and I am truly thankful for all of the acknowledgment.  This blog post is dedicated to responding to the awards.

Since my heart spills with gratitude this morning, the first award I want to receive and give out to everyone, whether you are a blogger or not is The Hug Award.  To me, giving this out symbolizes that each and every person who reads my blog is sharing in my story which inspires hope in me.  Also, I want to give this out to anyone who is sharing their life as it is and welcoming others to be a part of their journey.  I believe we are all connected and it is incredibly important to just show up as we are, so thank you for sharing yourself.  If you are a blogger, feel free to consider yourself nominated and hang this award on your blog.  If you are not a blogger, consider yourself hugged and deeply appreciated today.

I came across this award on Sonel’s Photographic Corner, and was deeply inspired that she just gave it out to anyone and everyone.  Thank you!

 ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES for HUG AWARD©

“Hope is an expectant desire; a confidence in a future event; a ground for trust and confidence; to think; to look forward to with trust and expectant desire.”

The HUG Award© was initiated by Connie Wayne at A Hope for Today : http://ahopefortoday.com, which promotes hope, love, peace, equality, and unity for all people.

Read more about this beautiful and inspiring Award here :
http://ahopefortoday.com/2012/01/14/hope-unites-globally-hug-award-guidelines/.

Moving along…..

The Kreative Blogger Award

I was nominated for this award by Sharing the Food we Love.  Thank you for sharing the love!

The rules of receiving this fantastic award are as follows:

• Thank the blogger who gave me the award and provide a link.
• List 7 interesting things about myself that my readers might find interesting.
• Nominate 7 other bloggers, provide links and let them know.

7 things about me:

1.  I woke up this morning filled with gratitude and it is continuing to grow and it feels really GOOD.

2.  I’ve been working on a vision board since the new year and I’ve been carefully mapping out how I see my life grouped into nine different quadrants.  It’s taking so long because I just want to make sure it’s all what I really really want and not just some flight of fancy.  I think I may finish this week and I’m so excited!

3.  Last night, I jumped rope and had a lot of fun.

4.  Also, last night the 8-year-old I babysit for predicted that my next boyfriend would be really really into basketball… (think I may go hang out at some basketball courts).

5.  I threw my neck out the other night while I was sleeping.  I have no idea where my dreams took me, but I hope I had a TON of fun…. because the pain the next day was unreal.

6.  Recently, I started losing lots of weight.  I’m not complaining… in fact I am amused that I can scarf down pasta and look at chocolate… and drop five pounds immediately.

7.  I have been reading a book by a British author and I’ve fallen in love with her writing… and now I daydream about going to London where I will do lots of shopping (it’s a really girly book), drink lots of wine, do a couple of pub crawls, heal my whole life AND do it all while speaking in perfectly eloquent poetic metaphors. *Sigh* …. where IS that financial windfall?

My nominations for The Kreative Blogger award are:

1.  Influence Versus Control

2.  Enjoy My Adventure

3.  A Writing Writer

4.  Pia Valentin Poetry

5.  Little Miss Obsessive’s Anatomy

6.  I’m not Lost, Just Weird

7.  6 Months to Live

CONGRATULATIONS!!!  You all WIN!

Sunshine Award!

Okay.  Oh Em Gee, since I first spotted this award, I thought to myself, I simply must have that award.  I am a Professional Sunshine Spreader…..  Now, I got it, TWICE!  Thank you Pia and Andrew!  This has made me SO flipping happy to get. 

The Rules: *Made to be broken*

Include the award Logo(s) in a post or in your blog.

1. Answer 10 question about your self.
2. Nominate 10 to 12 other fabulous bloggers.
3. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blog, letting them know about the award.
4. Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

The Questions:

.    What is your Favorite color?    Black. (it goes with EVERYTHING).

.    What is your favorite animal?  Right now, a certain Jack Russell Terrier named, “Bodhi”

.    What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink?   Latte

.    Do you prefer Facebook or Twitter?  Neither

.    What’s your passion?  Giving.

.    What’s your Favourite pattern?  Ummmmm.  I don’t have one.

.    Do you prefer giving or getting presents?  Giving

.    What’s your favourite number?  8

.    Favourite day of the week?  Sunday AND Monday.

.    Favorite flower…
Gerber Daisies AND Tulips.

Nominations   

Winners!

1.  The Blissful Adventurer

2.  My Blog Addiktion 2011

3.  The Phoenixplains

4.  Ms. Elena Levon Traveling:  Live simply, Travel Lightly, Love Passionately and Don’t Forget to Breathe.

5.  Zen and Genki

6.  Learning to Live Outside my Box

7.  Identity Specialist

8.  Fun and Fabulousness

9.  Jots From a Small Apartment

10.  Fancy That Fancy This

Now, wouldn’t it be COLOSSALY AWESOME to have a song break?!?!  Don’t all award shows have some sort of intermission, anyway?

7×7 Link Award!

Thanks again Andrew for your nomination and vote of confidence!

And now, the rules for the 7 X 7 Link Award

1. Give thanks and acknowledgements to the blogger who nominated you for this award
2. List 7 of your previous links in the following categories. Most Helpful, Most Popular, Most Beautiful Piece, Most Controversial, Most Surprisingly Successful, Most Underrated, Most Pride Worthy)
3. List 7 things about yourself.
4. Nominate 7 other bloggers for this award.

 

Here are my SEVEN Links:

- Most Popular:  Swimming in the Sea of Hope

- Most Beautiful Piece:   I See My Path but I Don’t Know Where it Leads

- Most Controversial:  My Home is Everywhere

- Most Surprisingly Successful:  Pay it Forward

- Most Pride Worthy:  The Person I Used to Know as Me

- Most Underrated:  Sometimes the End Really is Just the Beginning 

- Most Helpful:  Celebrating a New Story

7 (More) Things about me:

- I don’t readily admit this…. In fact I’m very ashamed…. but I am a smoker.  Unfortunately, I have no desire to quit.

- My favorite green drink is kale, spinach, garlic, green apple, cucumber, zucchini, and celery.  In fact, I have been known to drink this at the same time as smoking.  I giggle when I tell myself that this creates balance.  I am definitely a walking contradiction.

- I’ve always had a desire to shave my head.  I am seriously considering it since I cannot afford to get my hair cut anyway.

- I am a recovering people pleaser.  I always do the best I know how to do.  Sometimes this falls short of others expectations… I am learning to care less what others think of me.  People pleasing is way overrated and in my experience does a lot more damage than good.

- Through my tight financial times, I have learned that grapeseed oil is a fantastic moisturizer (seriously, google the benefits).  In fact, when I can afford luxurious products on a regular basis again, I think grapeseed oil might continue to replace the fancy moisturizer.

- I like yoga.  Really slow, gentle yoga makes my body smile.

- I think the best job for me would be someone’s personal muse and cheerleader.  I do so desire to get paid to brighten someone’s day.  (A version of that is on my vision board).

And the winners are…

1.  Hiking Mama

2.  Experience North Cape

3.  Sharing the Food we Love

4.  Restless Jo

5.  A Story of Light

6.  Red Pants and a Mustache

7.  Living 4 Bliss

And Last but not Least:

The Wobbly Fish Award!

Again, Sonel posted this on her blog and it made me smile because I love the rules so so much.  Also, since I’ve been having a wobbly time in my life as of recently, I found this to be most amusing.  So, I award this to anyone who stops by and to my followers.  Thank you for providing some sort of grounding through my wobbly times!

Jude from The Writer in the Woods created this award.

This award is for all of you who are having a wobbly, who are feeling wobbly, who like wobbly things, or who simply fancy a wobbly award on your blog. You are also very much entitled to this award if you are a Piscean person – their symbol being the fish.

Rules: 

1.  Don’t send it on to other bloggers – because they can all award it to themselves.

2.  Send a kind wobbly fish thought to someone you know who could do with it.

3.  Smile whenever you look at your wobbly fish!

4.  Download the image if you would like the award for your blog.

Okay, I think that about sums up my award show for today.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by and have a lovely day!