The blog award looks like fun, so here goes:
The award is the Liebster Award. I am supposed to answer her 11 questions (which I love how intriguingly thought-provoking they are!), divulge 11 facts about myself, and then nominate 11 other blogs with less than 200 followers and ask them 11 questions.
Like Manic Mama, I will answer her 11 questions first.
1) What are your plans for 10 years down the road? This is an excellent thought-provoking question and it kind of reminds me of the whole 'bucket-list' concept. I don't have a bucket list. It is also similar to the question "what do I want to be when I grow up". I didn't know in high school or college - despite taking those 'career tests' and I still don't know now and I am 41! I would love to say I would be able to be retired (NOT have to work) and be able to do whatever I want and have a house on the beach for the winter months and in a northern state for the summer and fall months. But the reality of being a mom is that my hope for 10 years down the road is that I am still financially stable - even more so, that all of my daughters are healthy and happy, and that my husband and I have our health. Not very exciting, not very adventurous, but sounds fabulous to me!
2) Why did you start blogging? For the past several years I have been wanting to blog - for several reasons - I thought it would be fun, I wanted to share my random rants about life, I wanted to have a motivational aspect to it since I love all things motivational/inspirational (quotes, pictures, art, nature, etc.).
3) Are you planning on changing things up on your blog or have you already? I am slowly getting more educated on blogging. When I started (this past August), my blog was very bare bones. Now I have figured out how to add pictures and links as well as list other blogs I like. I would like to keep on building my blog - for example I would like to have tabs and list blogs by theme; I would love to be like those bloggers who get to try fabulous vacation homes for free by just blogging about them!! :)
4) Do you have any favorite "secret" obsessions? Well, I don't think these are 'secrets' by any means, but my first favorite obsession is chocolate!! I LOVE ALL things CHOCOLATE!! My second favorite obsession is romance novels. I love losing myself in a good book! And my third favorite obsession would be my 'junk food' TV shows! I love laughing through the sarcasm and innuendo of Castle, the mystery of Revenge, and the pure scandal of Scandal and Nashville! :)
5) What is something you'd like to learn more about or learn to do? This is on a pretty simple level, but I would love to be an excellent chef who could easily whip up healthy, delicious meals for my family.
6) What is something you've learned that empowers you when you're stuck in a rut? I love all motivational 'things': art, beautiful pictures of nature, inspirational quotes, pictures, stories, movies. They inspire me to stop being a slacker, if I am stuck in a rut.
7) If you had the chance to meet someone (past or present) and ask them any question, who would it be and what would you ask them? I am sure the 'proper' thing to do here would be to mention some significant person from history and ask a very intelligent question. But I am taking the more simple approach. I would love to meet Pink and ask her how she became who she is today. She seems like a woman who has no fear and her body is in amazing shape.
8) If money were no concern, what would you do differently in your life? Splurge? Travel? Hire a nanny? Save the world?
I love the fantasizing that this question inspires. If money were no object, I would have a beautiful house on the beach, as well as a beautiful house in a more tempered climate and not very crowded city. The biggest luxury I would enjoy would be to have a personal chef who makes me nutritious yet delicious meals as well as have a personal masseuse to give me daily massages.
9) What's your favorite thing to shop for? If money was no object, I would say furniture! Since that is not the case, I would say books. I love me a good book! The worst things to shop for: bra's and bathing suits! Boy - what a way to hate your body and get in a bad mood! Apparently shopping for regular apparel 'hides' the bare truth - or at least offers you some protection from it!
10) What is your favorite thing about yourself? What thing bothers you most about yourself? My favorite thing about myself is the ease of which I laugh. I love things that make me laugh and love how easily I am brought to laughter. What bothers me the most about myself is the innate worrier/fearful side of me.
11) If you had the chance to be your total opposite for a week, what do you think you'd learn? I have spent my life being a worrier, so the opposite of me would be someone who is not a worrier; who has no fear and just enjoys life to the fullest. It sounds very freeing; what a novel way to live! I would imagine I would do all kinds of things that fear keeps me from doing now - traveling the world, parachuting out of a plane, trying all kinds of different food, etc.
11 Facts About Me:
1. I am a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend.
2. I love escaping reality in a good book or good movie.
3. I have jealousy issues. I am jealous of people who get to do their passion for a living (who truly LOVE what they do); I am jealous of rich people (people who have no concern whatsoever about money; who have an endless supply of money to do whatever they want for their lifetime!).
4. I HATE flying in airplanes. Metal tube in the sky. So many reasons that is just wrong.
5. I hate flowery perfume. I was raised in a house with a step-father who had a fit if anyone wore perfume; he said he could not breathe around perfume (I always found this extremely ironic considering he is a heavy smoker and does not believe that anyone could have a problem with breathing around second-hand smoke. I am also amazed at how non-smokers can live in the same house with smokers); so now I cannot tolerate perfume; it hurts my throat and irritates my nose.
6. My father died when I was 4. He was an alcoholic. It is the reason I never drank when I was younger because I was always terrified that I was genetically pre-dispositioned for the disease (it was those SADD classes in high school).
7. At age 41, I realize how precious life is and how short it is. The past couple of years have brought the deaths of a neighbor, a friend's husband and then her mother, and the devastating loss of my husband's parents. In addition, a friend my age is currently battling for her life with Lou Gehrig's disease. Life is short. Cancer sucks. Terminal illness sucks. All the more reason to live each day to the fullest and enjoy every minute that you possibly can.
8. I love what Manic Mama said about Twitter and I couldn't agree more. How crazy to have to communicate by short blurbs. Sounds horribly frustrating.
9. I hate being sick. I am a big baby when I am sick. (Evidently, I also have an issue with patience...or the lack of patience!).
10. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
11. I wish for world peace and the end of all the horrible, painful, terminal illnesses out there such as cancer and Lou Gehrig's Disease!
For the last part of the award - I decided to list the 11 questions that I am supposed to ask 11 other bloggers and put them out there for anyone who would like to answer one or all of them (because I really have no idea how to find out if a blog has less than 200 followers).
1. Do you love what you do? Are you doing your life's passion and able to live comfortably off of it? And if so, how did this come to be? Did you always know from a young age what your passion was?
2. What do you do for fun/leisure?
3. What is your main character flaw?
4. What is your main character asset?
5. What is your guilty pleasure?
6. Are you happily married? (It is amazing to me that I do not know many happily married people. It is sad to say, but the majority of the marriages that I know are not truly happy ones. Either one person - or both - are miserable or they are merely functioning, raising kids. This has become quite the noticeable thing during what I will say is my friends' and my "mid-life crises" years. For example, my girlfriend's husband came home from work and said: "I love you but am not 'in love' with you. Life is short, we don't know how much time we have left, so I want to be having fun.". They have been married for 18 years. Ironically, my girlfriend was not devastated. She agrees that they have just been roommates for a long time now, without many similar interests. And while I agree with his sentiment that life is short and we certainly do need to enjoy our lives, I find the reality sad that many marriages are not truly happy. Why is that? I am realizing that this is quickly turning into a blog of it's own - so I will have to delve into this topic more on some other day.)
7. What inspires you?
8. What is your favorite food?
9. What is your favorite place to vacation and why?
10. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite book, or even favorite type of book?
11. If you had to be known (famous) for one thing (your legend per se), what would you want it to be?
Always Full of Questions,
Me
Motivational Moment:
We are getting ready to go on a family vacation to the beach! This weekend I started packing for the trip (since this upcoming week is the last week of school and dance; the dance recital is the night before we leave; our schedule is crazy for the next 7 days!).
Anyways, when I was shopping at Target (love that store!), I found the coolest journal for the girls to write in throughout the vacation (I love that my girls enjoy journaling/writing like I do). It is called The Journal of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. I bought this journal because of the cute little happy sayings scattered through it (such as: dangling your feet in water; when your pet notices you're in a bad mood and comes to see you; grandma emails; laughing so hard you make no sound at all!). I didn't happen to notice the inspirational message from the author until I gave the journals to my daughters to pack for the trip.
Here is a snippet of Neil's opening letter: "A few years ago I hit some giant speed bumps in life. Within the span of a few months, my wife told me she didn't love me anymore and my best friend lost the battle with serious illness. I was heart-broken and lonely, and my mind was all over the place. I found a lot of comfort back then in writing about one awesome thing every single day...Over time these awesome things started putting my mind in a different place. They helped me get to bed without a twisted stomach. They helped me focus on all the little things that make life so awesome."
Neil's story is very inspirational. He started a website called '1000 Awesome Things' (http://1000awesomethings.com/ ) which led to books as well as the journal mentioned above. (BTW - his website has over 51 million views!!!). Thank you Neil for sharing your story and your 'Awesome' thoughts! And congratulations for getting through such a difficult time in your life and for being in a happier, successful place now.
There is much written about people who get through truly difficult times and come to be in a better place than they were before the difficult time. There is even the thought that without the difficult times in life, we would not experience happy times because we would not have lived through the drastic differences that each experience brings.
May all of you who are going through difficult times be able to find your moments of awesome and may you get through to the other side of the difficult time to a place of peace and happiness.
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