Shout Out

I am a very lucky girl who has received a lot of blog love lately. But I've been a bad girl about saying thank you and passing these awards on in a timely manner.

So without further delay, I would like to sincerely thank four fantastic bloggers for passing The Honest Scrap Award on to me. Lisleman at More Than A Few Clowns Short, Angelcel at AC's Scrapbook, Alix at Casa Hice and Brian Miller at Waystation One are all great bloggers. I'm a Follower and loyal reader of each blog and I highly recommend you check them out for yourself!

The Honest Scrap Award comes with a few rules: First off you need to thank the blogger that awarded you and link back (see above). Next you must list ten things about yourself so here goes....

1. When I met my husband, I thought he was ten years younger than he was and he thought I was ten years older. Age never mattered to either of us and by the time we got around to the "how old are you?" question (about 4 years into our relationship) it didn't matter that I'm 18 years younger than he is.

2. The last time I had an alcoholic beverage was at our wedding reception 16 years ago. I wasn't a very big drinker back in the day but I drank so much champagne that I had a hangover for our entire honeymoon. Seriously! I haven't had a drop of anything since.

3. Thanks to some crazy medications I take for lupus, I've been known to gain 25 pounds in less time than it takes to hiccup. That's why I have a closet of clothes separated in four sizes. The strange thing is that when I gain weight, it packs on proportionately so if I find a pair of jeans that fit, I can literally buy them in four sizes and eventually wear all of them. It's freaky. Of course it takes way longer than a hiccup to take the weight off when I stop taking the meds but eventually it comes off.... after about 1,000 miles on the treadmill.

4. My Passport photo is so bad that when I go through Customs I say "Trick or Treat" to the agent before I show it to him. My Driver's License, on the other hand, is one of the very best photos I've ever taken. Add in the fact that the photo is nearly eight years old, and I look oh so young, and you'll understand why I wish someone would card me or ask for my I.D.

5. A few years ago I had a heart procedure that I was mostly awake for. I could literally see the doc fishing around in my heart with two wire like instruments on the "computer screen". If I had seen that when I was about 13 years old, I'd have been inspired, studied way harder in school, and become a doctor. It was the most fascinating thing I've ever seen.

6. I do not like surprises-- especially surprise parties. I dislike them so much that I nearly made Beloved include "never surprising me with a party" in our marriage vows.

7. I already have my nursing home picked out. Yep, when I'm old and "it's time", I know exactly where I'll be living and who will be caring for me. It's a lovely facility in Ohio with a continuum of care (meaning they can't kick me out if/when I get sick). Planning my (hopefully distant) future like that may be a very Type A/control freak thing to do, but I'm a realist. And I've spent a LOT of time with loved ones in assisted-living facilities so I'd rather make the decision myself.

8) I would love to be two inches taller-- especially if the 2 inches were located between my bottom ribs and my hip bones-- In order words, I'd really like to have a waist.

9) In my younger days, career choices were made based on how early I had to get up. I am not a morning person so any job starting at 7AM, was out of the question.

10) I've started grinding my teeth-- When I'm awake-- Writing blog posts. WTH?

Alix at Casa Hice also gave me a shout out for the "One Lovely Blog" Award. There's no long list of rules of to-dos with this one, I just get to tag my favorite blogs.

Unknown Mami gave me the "Mami Loves Me and You Should Too! Award. I'm a big Mami fan and love her too. She started the wildly popular "Sundays In My City feature that I've participated in for the past 13 weeks (and you can too!).

Since I've never been great with rules and since my Favorite Blog List in my sidebar on the right is a mile long and FILLED with really GREAT BLOGS everyone SHOULD READ, I'm going to direct you to one specific blog that I've found to be really special.

Sassy Pants Freckle Face gifted me with a Tarot Card Reading and I thank her very much for her generosity. I've never had a reading before and didn't know what to expect but our phone conversation was very interesting, caring and surprisingly accurate about things there were absolutely no way Sassy could have known about. You can read about her talent HERE and HERE. If you are interested in knowing more by all means she's open to hearing from you. If this isn't your thing, no problem, just move on.

And please know that I pass these awards on to ALL OF YOU so feel free to grab the logo and include them on your blog. I feel really blessed to have found you and your blogs over the past nearly 11 months and value your friendship, generosity and readership. A million thanks!

Have a great weekend!

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit: © Karen Roach - Fotolia.com