Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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!

16 comments:

  1. Disturbing photos and stories? Moi? If you haven't had to seek help yet because of them they can't be that disturbing.

    I must dig deeper for something truly perverse.

    Thanks for the props kiddo.

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  2. Awe, you are so sweet to give Peanut an award! I will show it to her on Friday (she's with her dad, sigh....). She'll love it.

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  3. OH! I remember when you had your eye surgery! And what's odd is I'm listening to a lecture all about eye injury/surgery/infection right now. Coincidence! (and, yes, I should be paying attention, but, of course, I'm not)

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  4. Hahahahahhahahaha "college tap water." I like it.

    And a rubber band on your eyeball? I blinked A LOT while reading this post.

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  5. You are sooo sweet! Thanks for making my day. You always write the best comments and say the sweetest things. I LOVE that picture from the pageant.

    I have a fun idea (at least I hope you'll think it's fun) :0) Would you ever consider letting me interview you on my blog?
    -E
    ecboutique05@gmail.com

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  6. First, ouch on the eye. I know it didn't hurt, but just the thought of that happening makes my eye twitch and ache.

    And thanks for the award. Car accident? ;^P

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  7. Boomer, I can't even start to imagine what truly disturbing post ideas you probably have been sitting on...waiting to burn our corneas with! I look forward to it!

    Stephanie, I'm already having Peanut withdraws so I know it's gotta be really hard on you! Hang in there and thanks for the award so I could pass it on to your wonderful daughter! Hugs to you both!

    Alicia, you also remember your OWN pageant experience! You were the one to convince me to sign up the year after. After you mentioned free clothes and a candy box...I was sold!

    Miss Sassy Pants, for the college you go to, I'm sure vodka is the tap water! Although my husband is laughing and correcting me that Busch Light is Pullman tap water (or at least that's what his friends called it!).

    Elisa, you now are in the 2 week award club too! Interviewed on your blog??? Two words: Heck yes!
    paddedcellconfessions@live.com

    Joshua, it didn't feel so great afterwards. My eye was swollen shut for a while, had 4 stitches in it, and took about 6 months for the swelling to go away completely. I looked pretty gnarly which was really helpful because I was too nice to tell off a guy that had been trying to date me before that...he saw me after the surgery to bring me chocolates and flowers and never came back! Double word score!

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  8. Thank you so much for the kind words! And why didn't I read this sooner? I was at the mall, earlier today and walked right by Sephora. Now that I know about it, I MUST try this "combing my eyelashes" thing. Mine are long, clump and make me look like an evil fortune teller...
    Thanks for passing on the blog love and for the other awesome blog suggestions!

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  9. Congrats on the awards. That's awesome. Not awesome? A rubber band around your mother hugging EYEBALL! Ouch.

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  10. Well done for your awards. - Dave

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  11. My only surgeries have been eye surgeries - Lasik (multiple times). I cannot IMAGINE the retina detaching. that is crazy. I feel the need to go see my optometrist asap.

    LOVE the pageant overview. It sounds entertaining and fun!

    Eyebrow/lash comb. I'm scared. I love mascara and can definitely see myself getting addicted to that ;)

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  12. Never knew about such a thing as the rubberband, learn something new everyday.

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  13. There were a number of things I wanted to say in the comments, but then I came to the torn retina and rubber band around the eye part and from that point on all I could think to say is "OW!"

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  14. Your so stinking sweet! Thanks girl! I decided to go ahead and post today after all but I'm worried it might be a little sad after the last couple of days. What you said in your email had me thinking. So I blame you. lol

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  15. I'm sure you were beautiful then as you are now. Thanks for that information on your eye. I had heard of that before but never had it explained. Are you all better?

    Dean
    http://leftcoastguy.com

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  16. Paige, oh you must get a comb now! Warning though, if you thought hitting your eyeball with your mascara comb was painful...then just wait till you do it with a metal toothed comb! You get really good at being careful though!

    Vixen, thank heavens I don't even know it's there but my biggest concern about it has been the fact that this procedure isn't usually done on people until they are in their 70's or 80's because it's typically an elderly eye problem. I asked my surgeon about how this thing was going to age in my young self because we have all seen rubber bands get old and brittle. I thought that by the time it had been in about 30 years it could just snap on me and my eye could go shooting out of my head...my surgeon just laughed and said I "should" be fine...

    Dave, thanks! It's good to see you out and about in Blogland again!

    Queen B, I so far am not brave enough to even consider Lasik. The first thing I asked my surgeon when I went to get my rubber band was "Are you going to knock me out for this!?!" and thankfully the answer was 'yes'. I can't imagine being awake for an eye procedure!

    Pat, I'm glad I could aid in your knowledge growth for the day...I think I normally do the opposite to most people ;) Welcome to my cell and thanks for stopping in!

    Fail, if it had hurt then I probably would have had it checked out sooner and wouldn't have had to make a mad dash to get surgery! It's really weird to go through your day as normal and then the next thing you know, you are being knocked out in a hospital and worked on....although considering I stress myself like crazy over just getting shots, it was probably better that way.

    Melynda, sometimes those sad posts are necessary but if it makes me cry, I'm not blaming myself! ;)

    LC Guy, how sweet of you to say! Yes, I am all better even though I'm 27 and my eyes still progressively loose vision unlike most people who's vision usually stabilize at 18. At least they are pretty so I can't get mad at them ;) Thanks for visiting me!

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Does this straitjacket make my butt look big?