Wow, I'm Speechless! (despite the following long post)

Two awards in a week!?! It's not often you find me speechless, but I couldn't believe my eyes as I read yesterday that I have been granted another award by the hysterical Paige Kellerman! This was particularly touching since I had only found Paige's fabulous blog just last week and as I read her uniquely hilarious comedic writing style, I had the though of, "Holy killer writing skills Batman, this girl could type circles around me!" If you haven't read her blog yet, then you must head over NOW and laugh till you pee your cave panties! Thank you very much Paige for the award and I look forward to insecurely crying laughing over all of your great posts!

This now means that I have been blessed with 2 awards from 2 great blogs and now I get to spread the love. You can see both of the awards posted on the right and if you click on them, they will take you to the fabulous bloggers from which they came from.

With the award from Stephanie, it looks as though I am supposed to write 3 random facts about myself in order to fully accept the award and then pass it on. So with no further ado, my acceptance facts:

1. I comb my eyelashes. Applying mascara has been dubbed by my family as 'my ritual' and I spend about 15 mins in this daily sacred art of mine. I was blessed with nice long lashes from my dad (as well as my light blue eyes) so I feel the need to make sure they look perfect and well displayed! It doesn't matter if a mascara advertises to be 'clump free', long lashes tangle in the goop of anything (and I have tried almost all of them!). Refusing to have spider eyes, I invested the best $5 of my life at Sephora and bought what's probably supposed to be an eyebrow comb, but I use it for my lashes. Your eyelash comb must be metal (the plastic ones break) and no matter how clumpy your mascara may make you, it's no match for your blessed comb. So far I haven't met another self created eyelash comber but I have inspired a few. Once you start, you will never be able to stop! (except you guys...although a bit of dark eye make up can be hot sometimes!).

2. I have been in a pageant. It was NOT a beauty pageant. In my senior year of high school, I went through the full blown process to become festival royalty for my small town's Irrigation Festival (don't knock it, it's the longest running festival in the state of Washington!). After months of dance practice, etiquette tips, speech practice, a judges tea, and a pageant later, I was dubbed Princess Maggie for the Irrigation Festival's 107th year. It was a fun process, I did a speech on geoduck 'hunting' and reigned under our Queen Jennifer and alongside Princess Cortney and Princess Jennifer. We put in over 400hours of community service over the next 12 months, which included riding on our fabulous float in 17 parades, selling festival merchandise, visiting nursing homes and participating in a Cancer walk. This is where I got my scholarship that I ended up never using but I gained 3 royal sisters and lots of new friends. I also ended up being part 'royalty mom' to 2 royal courts a few years ago and had a blast with those girls!

3. I have a rubber band around my eyeball. You would think that I would be able to remember how old I was when I had my first and only surgery experience but this is me we are talking about, so I'll wing it...I think I was about 22. I noticed my sight had been blurry but I chalked it up to my contacts being weird and made a mental note to compare it when I put my glasses on to make sure it was not my actual eyesight....first mistake! Mental notes for me are about as useful as using a fish for deodorant. About a week later, I FINALLY remembered and mentioned it to my locksmith boss at the time. He told me to call my optometrist that moment and get it checked since he had a friend that had retina problems and lost his eyesight in one of his eyes because of it. I am pretty blind already. I have had glasses since the 2nd grade and my eyes get so progressively bad every year that when the next year's new prescriptions came along I would always be amazed at the ability to see individual leaves on trees again! Anyhoo, I called my optometrist, he had me come in ASAP and lo and behold, my retina was detaching and had torn in 2 places. (At this point most people say, "Owwie! That must have hurt!" but no, I couldn't feel a thing) I was sent for emergency surgery because my optometrist told me that if my retina did detach then it would be very difficult to restore it and most likely I would be blind in that eye. So this all leads to my 'rubber band', which is actually called a scleral buckle, but it's basically a rubber band around my eye that elongates my eye, pinning my retina back in place. Elongating my eye basically took my already bad prescription in that eye and multiplied it by 2 so my eyes are extremely different in terms of sight which doesn't matter much since I can't see clearly a few inches from my face.

Ok, enough about me! I am going to split these awards up and grant them to some wonderful bloggers that I have come to know and love. I would have normally granted these awards to the wonderful women who gave them to me, but since they already got them, I'll pass them on to others who from my knowledge haven't received these awards yet.

First the winners of the:

1. Bodacious Boomer: She paints dog's faces, posts the most disturbingly funny news stories and photos, and calls me Kiddo (which I love!). She is also a great responder to your comments which causes even more laughs!

2. The Crazy Life of a Writing Mom: Elisa is not your typical mom blog which is why I adore her and get so excited every time I see she has a new post! Her kids are the most creative and imaginative kids I have ever read about and I hope my kids are like them! I would have given her the Liebster award but since Paige already did, I thought I'd give her this one!

3. Vive le Nerd: Joshua has a nice biting sarcasm which is great in his writing but also fabulous when tweeting. He also has written some short stories and poetry which are incredible! Reading his blog is my version of not being able to look away from a car accident...I know I shouldn't understand his nerdy world but sadly, I DO! (although I blame it all on Branden!).

4. A Few French Fries Short of a Happy Meal: Miss Sassy Pants is spew your tequila on the computer screen funny! She's from my home State and I love reading about her crazy family (owning chickens in Seattle), her recent ride alongs with the cops in her University town, and the hysterical things she does while under the influence of...'college tap water".

5. Good Times With Rebecca and Barkley: Peanut is 7 and I think she is the cutest little blogger on the planet! She is Stephanie's daughter and I'm so glad Stephanie let her have this little online outlet because she is creative and funny! Her Wonderful World of Cats is a favorite in my house, as Branden and I have watched it at least half a dozen times!

6. Tony Van Helsing's Mystery Theatre: Tony only posts about once a week but it's a day Branden and I look forward to! His recent post on "The Night We Blinded Lemmy" left me with tears streaming down my face as I struggled to read it to Branden! We agreed that it was the best 'celebrity encounter' story we had ever heard!

Ok, now on to the:

(which means "favorite")

Not only is she eerily my older counterpart, having similar (but much worse) eye problems, she lived abroad (grew up in France) and she is very accident prone (she also had a 'getting stuck in the car window' story but hers was much worse) but it's also her BIRTHDAY!!

Crazy World: Melynda is a great writer, she has a wonderful sense humor, plenty of comedic scenarios in her life and she also can have you welling up with tears as she throws a few touching tales in here and there. She is such a strong woman and has overcome some things that I don't think I could ever handle and I am completely impressed by her.

Please go visit these wonderful blogs and enjoy all the fun and laugher that they contain! I love the people in my Blogland!