Woohoo! I Got An Award!

My friend at Mommy Needs a Martini (if you haven't read her blog, go there now!) has nominated me for a Liebester Award! My first thought (before I even knew what it was) was "Woohoo! I got an Award!" because really, who doesn't like getting awards! You don't question it, you just go with it!

After my excitement settled, I did ask myself, "Self, do you even know what this award of for?" And my answer was, "Nope, but I got an AWARD!" If it wasn't good, they wouldn't call it an award, right? But at some point I thought I should find out a little more about this honor bestowed upon me by my awesome friend because after all, with great honor comes great responsibility. (Now that I think of it, I am pretty sure it is power. "With great power comes great responsibility" but whatever).

Back to the award. The Liebster is given to recognize up and coming blogs and to shine some light on them so that others came enjoy them as much as the person who nominated the blog. The Blogger receiving the award must answer 11 questions posed to him/her by the one who nominated them. Then after leaving an additional 11 random facts about his or herself, the Blogger poses 11 questions to be answered by those the Blogger passes the Leibster Award on to and the train continues.

There was a lot of "blogger" and "him or her" in that. Essentially, I answer 11 questions posed to me by Mommy Needs a Martini (because she nominated me). Then I give 11 more facts about myself. Finally, I nominate other bloggers and I leave 11 questions for them to answer and they continue the cycle.

Here it goes:

11 Questions asked to me:
1. What was the first blog/Facebook page you followed?
Oh no! I don't remember. But I can tell you that Jeanette, of Mommy Needs a Martini has taught me everything I know about blogging, so far. I am still trying to catch up. 

2. What is your ALL TIME favorite sports team?
Easy- THE NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS! I am obsessed. If you keep reading my blog I am sure that you will find out somehow. I can't hide it!

3. What is your favorite season?
Anything but winter. I love sitting by the pool, but I also love football season and I can't pass up a good spring day, but once the snow has fallen and people start trekking all over it, winter is just a cold mess. 

4. What is a board or pinner on Pinterest I just HAVE to follow? Or Twitter if you don’t pin?
Me! Actually, I get a lot of little kids birthday ideas from Catch My Party

5. What is your biggest fear?
It used to be suffocating, I can't imagine anything worse, but now it is probably failing my daughter. 

6. Who do you aspire to be like?
Well, not be like because you should be yourself.. but you know what I mean.. so who? This is tough- Maybe, Ellen. She is content with who she is, no matter what others say. She is rich (who doesn't want to be rich?) but she always seems to be giving back and helping others and she always seems so freakin' happy. Who else do you know who really "just wants to dance." It would be great to reach that point in life.

7. What band/singer do you wish you could rock out with?
Right now my daughter and I are obsessed with Bruno Mars. I don't know if that is who I would pick next month but right now he would do. 

8. What is your biggest pet peeve? It is a toss up between fake people and selfish people. I doubt that needs any explanation. 

9. What is your guilty pleasure?
New Jersey Housewives. How can you not watch? It is so irritating and hilariously ridiculous.

10. If you could be on a reality show, which one would you pick?
The Bachelorette. I don't want to pick from 25 guys or deal with their man-drama but I do want to travel all of the awesome places she gets to go on ABC's dime or What Not To Wear- who doesn't want a whole new, free wardrobe?

11. If you could live anywhere in the world without having to worry about family obligations/income/work (blah, blah, blah – remove logistics) where would you live?
Fiji! Tropical and far from real life.

Okay, so now 11 Random Facts about ME! This was touch when I was writing my blog post About Me, so let's see what I come up with. 

1. I hate bologna. I mean really hate it. I don't like the smell or the taste or the texture. I am getting queasy just writing this. I can't have it in my fridge or my house or even walk passed it in the grocery store. 

2. I love brand new socks. They never fit the same way they do the first time you put them on. So nice and snug and warm. (how is that for random?)

3. I say SUPER a lot! As in that is SUPER annoying or she is SUPER nice. I don't mean to say it. It just happens and I can't stop. 

4. I speak 2 languages fluently. Spanish and English. I learnt them both at the same time, but I don't look like I speak Spanish so I love answer unsuspecting people's comments when I am out and hear people being bitch in Spanish. SURPRISE!

5. I am a Coca-Cola girl. When I ask for Diet Coke at a restaurant and they ask "Is Diet Pepsi ok?" I always say "no" and sometimes I want to ask them if they really think one is a substitute for the other. 

6. I am a Penn State Nittany Lion through and through and no amount of scandal will ever change that! (This does not mean I support any sort of molestation or child predators because I do NOT! ). 

7.  Since I have become a mother I have started to care a lot less what other people think and do, unless it somehow could affect my child. 

8.  I always try to fight the trendy things but most of the time I somehow get sucked into it anyway. I fought the Apple craze like it was my job but now I have a Mac, an Iphone and an Ipod. We even have AppleTv. Did the same thing with Pinterest. I refused to use it and didn't even know why but now I an an addict. This happens with clothing styles, too. 

9.  For a little while, when I was younger I was bullied on the school bus. There was an older, bigger girl who used to say mean things and throw gum in my hair. I hated having to get on the bus and it made me feel so sad. Now, when I hear about or see children getting bullied now that same exact feeling comes back. 

10. Sometimes I don't know if I believe in God, at least not the God that they push in church (or some churches) or maybe I believe in God but not church. I do believe there is something, somewhere greater than myself (which is what I think is important) but there are just so many things that just seem to happen without purpose and I know that is part of believing (to believe that it has a purpose), but things like the abuse and death of innocent babies (what could be the purpose? what have they done?). A church-goer will always have an answer for me but it just seems to be too much of a stretch some times.  Somethings, I just can't rationalize. How is that for deep? 

11 (I made it!). I wish I would have found a hobby or sport that I loved when I was younger and stuck to it. I am pretty good or decent at a few things but I don't think that I am great at anything. 

Well, there are 11 things about me. Some serious and some not so serious but all of them random. so the next step is for me to come up with 11 questions for other bloggers to answer and  the really hard part...to find bloggers who have not already received this award and done this answering.

Blogs I am Nominating (Drum roll, please!):

Blah Blah Blog: Jenni, working Mother of 3 getting back to her blogging and she may be a little crazy, like the rest of us, because she claims she loves to clean. :)
Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk: She's has just started a new blog so go visit and support her!

11 Questions I pose to you:

1. What is something you have done that you are ashamed of? 

2. What would you eat of you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life?

3. What is a fashion trend that you can't stand?

4. What is the best part of your day?

5. What is one thing that you would change about yourself?

6. What is one thing that you have done that you are most proud of?

7. Do you believe in ghosts?

8. What is your dream job?

9. What is the last dream you had, that you can remember?

10. Who would you want to play you in a movie?

11. What song best describes your life right now?

A Little About Me

I feel like I should have written something about myself in my first blog post, as if rambling on about blog names didn’t tell you enough. I was obviously quite affected by the naming process, so I am going to backtrack and tell you about myself now.

I hate when I have to describe myself. Where do you start? How much do you tell? Talking bout yourself isn’t easy.

I feel like I am on an interview when the interviewer asks “tell me about yourself.”

Again, there are articles out there on how to write a blog post about yourself (Someone else telling you how to write about you? Weird!). There are almost as many as there are about, how to answer the dreaded interviewer question “tell me about yourself.” (I have to stop googling everything I do)

First, “tell me about yourself” isn’t a question! What do they want to know exactly? Do they really care if I was born in late March interrupting an important NCAA tournament game or that it is impossible for me to not eat the entire carton of Ben and Jerry’s Cinnabon ice cream? How about that I love my football team so much that I wore a jersey over my wedding dress for my bridal entrance? (All true!) No, they probably don’t care about that stuff. If I build myself up too much, I look snobby. If I don’t say enough, I look nervous or unqualified. So really, they just want to put me on the spot so that they can judge me. (Wow- that was a tangent and a half! Can you tell my frustration with interviewers?)

Those articles basically tell you to lie or “inflate the truth” (which is still lying!) to impress people. I don’t think so! People are going to judge no matter what and I would rather you judge me for me than for someone I made up.  The one good piece of advice that I did get from those articles? Don’t say anything that will turn the internet creepers on. (Although that could be just about anything these days).

So, now that I am done with the stray topics (I think), let’s see, I am a licensed attorney, in a few states, but I don’t think that I belong in one of your typical lawyer jokes and it definitely isn’t what defines me.

Before anything else, I am a mommy. I have a baby girl, Emmelyn (“Emme”), who is almost a year old and a step-daughter, Olivia, who is almost eight. They keep me on my toes. Olivia is a grown up in a little girls body. She makes me laugh all of the time and is very nosey- she needs to know everything and is always listening. When I married my husband, Olivia was six and we got together when she had just turned four, so Emmelyn is my first baby. I love her so much I could squeeze her (I don’t know why that is an expression because sometimes I do squeeze her and she does not like it). She wakes up happy (I have no idea who she got that from) and is super smart (I know all parents think that about their kids, but mine really is!)Every day she teaches me something new and I am sure that I will be writing about it.

I like to be creative (probably asking yourself how I became a lawyer…me too!). I like to make things or write things. As you can see, my creativity is very specific. Lol (can you write “lol” in a blog? It feels awkward.)

I stalk my children with a camera. I am what we call a “Momma-razzi.” I capture everything that they do. At less than a year old, when you call Emmelyn’s name, she turns and smiles because she thinks you are calling her for a picture. When she sees a camera she stops and poses. Yes, it is very a serious photo-addiction. It isn’t just me, though. My husband gets in on it, too. (I would say 40% because he likes it and 60% because I insist on it).

A little about the hubs, Josh describes himself as “a jack of all trades and a master of none.” However, I have yet to come across a project that he can’t complete (or fix because I tried to do it on my own first). If only he would do these projects one of the first 20 times I ask. All in all, he’s pretty handy to have around. 

I live by the motto, “when in doubt, Google it” (not Bing or Yahoo, just Google). In case you hadn’t noticed yet, since both this and my previous blog refer to things I read on the internet. Actually, even when I am not in doubt I still google so maybe I should change the motto to “just google it.” And why not? Everything you need to know is out there somewhere, isn’t it?

(WARNING: You should not use this motto with WebMD. Unless you already know what you have and just want info, searching your symptoms on WebMD will do nothing but worry you. Their slogan should be “WedMD, where every headache is a brain tumor.”)

So anyway, I googled, again, and here is what Google thinks I need to tell me readers.

Something about myself that will keep readers interested:

Well if my above tangent about interviewers and then again about WedMD or my ability to ramble about the title of my blog for an entire post doesn’t intrigue you then I don’ t know what will. How about a story?

Once I got pulled over for swerving and I told the officer that I was doing the electric slide and I turned up the radio. He laughed, told me he had other things to do and let me go. (I guess he appreciated my honesty). C’mon, that is interesting, isn’t it?

Why should you read my blog?

Because I am the mom and I said so. (I am dreading the day when I actually say that).  I hope to have some interesting stuff to say, and you don’t want to be the only person who didn’t read it when everyone is talking about it, do you? J

What qualifies me to be a blogger?

Ummm….I have a computer and internet access.  Do I need anything else? I can just google anything I need to know!

Something that will make you relate to me: Well, you also have internet, we have that in common… and you have gotten this far into my post. So far, I think we are doing pretty well. Hopefully you will read the next one, too!