Tag: real

A Blogger Award?

Golly gee! I do believe I have been awarded a blogger award by one of my new favorite bloggers, Carrots In My Carryon. This chick is hilarious. I mean, who couldn’t simply adore a blogger with such a clever name? I am “blogger-smitten”.
I have learned quite a bit about this whole blogging thing over the past couple of months.
First, I had no idea how to even add tags to my blogs, and now I am adding links to blogs in my posts. This is an impressive feat for someone who once thought their laptop was broken because the volume button wouldn’t turn the stupid thing on. So, go me!
Second, I had no idea there were “blogging awards” and that I would ever in a million years be nominated to participate in one. I feel quite important right now. I am trying to keep a lid on my glee so as to not annoy simply everyone who comes into contact with me now.
Third, the WordPress blog world is full of insanely talented, amazing writers and people. I simply hoped to connect to those in my life, and yet, here I am connecting with people all over the globe. I am feeling all the feels right now.
As I am learning, there are rules to participating in the blogging award business. These are the rules, copied and pasted from Carrot’s blog:
THE RULES:

  • DISPLAY THE AWARD CERTIFICATE ON YOUR WEBSITE
  • ANNOUNCE YOUR WIN WITH A POST AND LINK TO WHOEVER PRESENTED YOUR AWARD
  • PRESENT 15 AWARDS TO DESERVING BLOGGERS
  • DROP THEM A COMMENT TO TIP THEM OFF AFTER YOU’VE LINKED THEM IN THE POST
  • POST 7 INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF.

I think the award certificate is this:
dragonsloyaltyaward
I am not quite sure why it is picture of a dragon, and I am immensely relieved that I do not have to write a fantasy story about a dragon. Or, that my facts have to be dragon-themed. Other than my breath in the morning, I am not very dragon-y. I like watching the Mother of Dragons with her babies on GOT, but that is the extent of my dragon-ness.
I am supposed to nominate 15 people. Let’s see if I can round up 15 fellow bloggers.
Drum roll please…I nominate:
1. babysteps22 because she is adorably hilarious. She is my blogger friend hailing from India. I am learning so much reading her posts. She is super funny, a great writer, and simply lovable.
2. AuntyCath because she is funny as hell and super supportive. She lives way over in Australia, and that is just rad as shit.
3. albuslepus because she commented on my latest post and it made me happy that someone new relates to what I have to say. Also, because I want to learn more about this person!
4. RobynChristi because she is my British doppleganger, in that we share the same humor. She is adorable and just funny as hell. Twinsies!
5. sfarnell because his comments on my posts are funny and I know very little about him! I know how men like these kinds of things *evil laugh*.
6. ACoupleTalks because their blog is very very funny and thought-provoking. Also, their angle is interesting: a husband and wife co-writes this amusing and insightful blog. Check it out.
Whew, I am getting tired. Do I really have to nominate 15 bloggers? Do you know how much work goes into tagging people? 6 is almost 15, right? I think 6 is good.
OK, here we go. I know ya’ll have been chomping at the bit to read these super random facts about me. It has taken most of my mental energy today to come up with 7, somewhat interesting facts about yours truly. Everyone better enjoy this, and consider these facts the most interesting factoids learned in quite awhile! Ready? Here we go!
1. I didn’t know I had a sister until 7 years ago. Straight out of Maury, we have the story of how Katie met Tracy. Actually, our story is precious to me, and I will be writing about it soon. Stay tuned.
2. I am directionally-challenged. It took me the entire 4 years of high school to be able to find my locker on the first attempt. When I started college, I relied on my friend to get me to class. Every.Single.Day we would exit class and I would start heading in the wrong direction. Every day.
3. I am forever worried about all of the old people of the world. Did they take their pills? Did they cross the road safely? Have people been holding doors for them? If I see an elderly person crossing the street, I slow my car, and wait until I know they got across safely. Don’t mess with my elders! I will eff you up.
4. I am super OCD. No, not “counting or checking compulsive”, (although I have been known to check to make sure I unplugged my flat iron or coffeemaker more times than is sane), but in a, “Is-my-nail-art-the-exact-same-on-every-nail-tell-me-for-the-54,847,643-time-why-you-are-not-mad-at-me-anymore-and-OMG-that-person-across-the-room-sneezed-and-now-I-am-going-to-die way. Yeah.
5. I have intense wanderlust, but I also have a fear of the danger present in all new experiences. When I was in England, we rented a car to be able to have more flexibility with our destinations. After a harrowing trip on the motorway, through tiny village streets, and finally into the parking lot of the Quality Inn, literally the first hotel I saw outside of Birmingham, I never wanted to drive in England ever again. I was sure I would die in England, and my family would find out because someone would happen upon some obscure story about the End of American’s Jolly Holiday. That damn car was parked for two days until we had to get to Wales, to get the ferry to Ireland. I had to get back on the horse, and I got over my fear of dying in a tiny Peugeot. By the end of my trip, I was an expert “wrong side of road driver”. Getting over the scary shit in life has always been a challenge for me.
6. I have an insane attention to detail. It is why I remember faces, not names, and why I remember scary details about you, details you didn’t think you told me. I also have a keen sense of reading body language. I can tell when someone is anxious, worried, or uncomfortable. I react to people’s body language more than the words that come out of their mouth.
7. I am a 3rd grade teacher, and I adore every stressful, time-consuming, and inspiring moment of every day. However, my dream job is to be paid to travel and stay at weird hostels and hotels, and to just experience the hilarity that travel can be. You know where I am going with this, right? Yup. Then, obviously, I will write genius reviews of my experiences. I am sure there are millions of people who would love this gig. Dreamers can dream.
Well, I can’t wait to learn more about the fabulous bloggers I have nominated. Ya’ll better do it!!

Ugly Sleep

Don’t get me wrong, I adore waking up to my boyfriend’s adorable sleeping face. Most days. Yes, I love feeling his warmth against me as he peacefully dreams, and all that mushy shit. But, let’s be real here. Those memes that paint the picture that love is sleeping like you’re one big romantic pretzel are bullshit. 
  This looks fucking awful. I bet his breath smells like hot Limburger cheese. 
Let’s be honest, here. I’m going to paint a true portrait of what it’s like to share the same bed with someone. 
First, I’m going to break it down to how sleeping with your significant other changes during the different stages of your relationship. 
In the beginning, during that fateful “first sleep”, you don’t actually sleep. Instead, you lay perfectly still so as to not wake the other person. You don’t want to portray, so early on, that you sleep like an epileptic Tasmanian Devil. Not yet. Additionally, you fail to sleep because you must concentrate on never opening your mouth. No one likes a mouth breather, especially after you’ve had chicken cesear salad for dinner. 
Not only must you keep your mouth odor to yourself, you can’t, for a second, allow your body to relax. You don’t want your bowels to believe it’s “a go” to expel any gas. Farting on your first night together, especially if your fart smells like hot salad, would be the absolute worst thing to happen. 
Eventually, you relax enough to actually sleep and you feel euphoric that you shared such an intimate, beautiful thing together. Cuddling sometimes occurs, as does morning kisses. Either you don’t smell each other’s breath, because you both secretly brushed your teeth prior to “waking up”, or you’re too happy to care your breath smells like something died. 
Somehow, your communal sleeping habits move from nose-breathing picturesque statue and sickeningly romantic, to something so ugly. So scary. 
When my boyfriend and I first started dating, I was so scared to pop the fart cherry. You know, getting past that first fart in front of the same person you don’t let know you pluck hairs from your chin? It was so scary, and so painful. If the gas was too intense, I would pretend I left something in my car, so that I could go outside to let them fly. I recall a time when he, too, used to be embarrassed to fart in my presence and would actually say, “Oh! Excuse me!” Gone are those days. 
Like easing up on farting in each other’s presence, so has our sleeping-with-someone-new-rituals. Nose breathing all night long is just not realistic, so full-on-gaping-mouth breathing complete with drool is what’s happening now. You don’t really know someone until you’ve smelled breakfast, lunch, and dinner on their breath. 
The idea to write on this topic came the other night when, while rolling over, I almost lost an eye to the corner of my boyfriend’s man-sized pillow. It’s this behemoth down pillow with really poky corners, sharp as tacks. I secretly think that’s how he’s going to do me in. Who will ever be charged with murder by pillow corner? 
As I laid there, feeling grateful I still had two eyes, I pondered how the way we sleep is the direct opposite of how every “love meme” says its done. As I listened to his even breathing, mixed in with a fart here, and a fart there, I wondered how we got past that too-embarrassed-to-be-a-real-human stage. I figured it all comes down to the fact that it hurts to hold farts in, and breathing your morning breath into someone’s face, is just another way of saying, “I love you”. 
When your relationship has made it past the first, surreal, romantic “get a room” months, sleeping gets real and it gets ugly. If you can honestly say you or your significant other has not farted in bed, laughed, and said, “I was just warming up the bed for you, because I’m romantic as shit”, you’re a fucking liar. If you don’t wake up looking like Amy Winehouse, after a binge, you’re an alien. If you still sleep with your mouth as far away from your lover as possible, give it up. Pretty sleep is no way to live. I don’t love my boyfriend any less because I recoil when his frigid toes touch me in the night. He doesn’t find me less attractive even when dried drool cakes my eye shut. We both understand we don’t have to sleep like horny teenagers to be in love. “Ugly sleep” wins over shitty “pretty sleep” every time. 
  
We all wish we looked like Snow White while sleeping. Just like having Kylie Jenner “asshole lips” is unrealistic, so is looking pretty while snoring.