Beautiful Bloggers

Two of my favorite ladies, Jenny and Colleen, were incredibly sweet in giving me this Beautiful Blogger award. Thank you for the warm fuzzies that got me all sniffly. It's so appropriate that they were given this award, because they are incredibly beautiful friends. If you don't know them yet, you should get acquainted.

Like Jenny said, she and I have a real-life connection (we're not going to talk about how many years we've known each other), made stronger by the wonderful world of the Internet. Simply put, Jenny has a heart of gold. She is always at the ready to celebrate my happiness or offer a virtual hug and a word of encouragement when I'm in need. All you need to read is one post to realize that Jenny is incredibly gifted with the written word. I will be first in line at her book signing, something I truly believe will happen for her if she wants it. Always open to trying something new, she's so much fun to share online ventures with, and I seriously can't wait until we one day get to play in real life again.

Colleen put it best: she is a soul sister. First bonding over soap opera hunks, we quickly learned that we have a frightening amount of interests and life experiences in common. Perhaps most crazy and hilarious, we found out that we are connected in real life by only one degree of separation. AND that we lived in the same place at the same time - for years. But it wasn't until a decade later that the Internet gods would bring us together. Colleen is a sweetheart. She is a warm and caring soul, a wonderfully supportive friend, and is incredibly honest and heartfelt in her blogging. I have yet to meet Colleen IRL, but it will happen one day soon.

This is how we play:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for the award (see above).
2. Copy and paste the award on your blog (also see above).
3. Link to the person who nominated you for the award (again, see above).
4. Share seven interesting things about yourself.
5. Nominate your own seven Beautiful Bloggers.

Can we skip Step 4? It's hard to think of one interesting thing right now, let alone seven. Is it cheating to repeat previously posted facts? I guess repetition makes them less interesting, huh? *Sigh.*

1. My mother had a water birth. Ironically, I don't know how to swim. (Before you freak out, shouting about how I should know how to swim being a FL girl, may I remind you that I lived in freezing NH during those formative swimming lesson years.)
2. I earned (and I mean earned) the "Most Dramatic" superlative my senior year of high school. Ever since, I have been trying to prove those "Most Likely to Succeed" people wrong.
3. This un-athletic soul was captain of the kickball team in 2nd (3rd?) grade. It was less about how well I kicked the ball and more about how bossy I was.
4. I leave a trail of hair ties wherever I go. In any given day, I'll put my hair up and take it back down  ten times. It's like a tic.
5. I hoard Cadbury Creme Eggs. It's my goal to have enough in my pantry to eat them at least 6 months out of 12.
6. I'm queen of delayed gratification. Even though I get super excited when my favorite magazines arrive in the mail, I pile them up and wait for a "rainy day" to read them. Maybe there's a connection between this and #5.
7. Even though I'm too far along in life for certain dreams to come true, it doesn't stop me from occasionally (or often) daydreaming about becoming a musical theatre star (or soap opera actress) when I grow up. Okay, so maybe I'm not fighting #2 as hard as I thought.

Perhaps that should've been called "random facts." Oh, well. And now for the fun part. In the past month, I've had the pleasure of getting to know some beautiful new-to-me bloggers. This award is for them.

1. Cheri is not only beautiful, but also makes beautiful things. Between her art journal and her weekly gratitude entries, Cheri sees and captures beauty in the world and shares it with her readers. Moreover, she is an incredibly supportive bloggy friend, and I'm so glad to have met her.
2. I met Sarah through GTT and am really glad to have found her blog. Sarah has a great sense of humor, as is evident by her Tivo post, but she also writes beautifully. I also love that I can tweet with her early in the morning (Twitter insomniacs unite). ☺
3. It has been so fun talking to Erin in the short time I've known her. I can already tell she's a beautiful person. This post is near and dear to my heart, even though I'm not a mom, and I absolutely love Erin's candidness. I also have great respect for her ability to improvise.
4. As co-owner of one of my favorite Etsy stores, Katie is a beautiful sewer. She is also a mom to three beauties (Big Monkey, Little Monkey and Little Monkette... how cute is that?). A great resource for PKU-friendly recipes, I think she's beautiful for helping other parents.
5. Amanda's sense of humor is a beauty. She had me hooked with this post and continued to keep me lurking with hilarities like these tales from the ER, though this Bachelor post might be my favorite. I'm looking forward to future laughs with Amanda and getting to know her better.
6. I've known Angie on Twitter for a while (thanks to Colleen), but I only recently found her blog. Angie provides such beautiful warm fuzzies (I mean, how can you be in a bad mood after reading this?). Her posts, like this one, are a great mix of heartfelt honesty and humor.
7. This one is less of an award presentation and more of a shameless plug. My dear friend Marissa is one of the most beautiful people I know. She's the skip of a curling team, and they are headed to Club Nationals today. They'll be blogging about it here. Please show them some love.

In slightly related news, because my readership has multiplied far beyond my hope of having 10 readers, I would like to reward you, my beautiful bloggy friends, with a little giveaway. Details TBA, so stay tuned. I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!