A better day in which I say Squee!

Things are a bit better at my house.  The job situation hasn't changed, but I did get pulled aside by my boss today and she apologized for how this happened.  Things were out of her control and she was forced to do this.  She told me that she would never have told someone this on a Friday afternoon, but her management made her.  She did offer me some additional time off without charging it to my vacation.  It's better than a poke in the eye.

Oh - and my management duties?  Will have to continue.  They fall under "other duties as assigned".  Ain't life grand?

But not all is icky....
I had a terrific surprise waiting for me when I got home yesterday.  I was one of the winners for Heather's Birthday Giveaway recently, and my package arrived.  Bonus!  I got the goodie bag!  Heather was soooo generous to me.  She gave me 2 packages of pearl beads (which I've already got on a shuttle), 2 skeins of her gah-juss HDT - Stormy Skies and Mulberry Dreams - in size 30, and a dynamite handmade crimson shuttle.  I'll be seeing how this red baby flies really soon!

Made me feel really lucky - and really blessed.  Thank you Heather - you are so generous.  If your birthday was even a tiny bit as good as your gift made me feel, then you had a truly wonderful day.

Another bonus awaited me today when I got home.  Like you, dear readers, I read a lot of blogs.  There are a few that are daily must read blogs.  You know these blogs - you feel like you really know the writer and have to know more about them.  One of my all time favorite bloggers is Blackbird.  I love her work.  She and I share the certain things - three sons, a long commute, a love of family, etc.  So I was reading her blog today and suddenly I stopped short and shouted Squeee! 

Because Blackbird has given me an award!  It's the Honest Scrap Award. 

Scrap means left over, fragments, discarded material. Many times truth and honesty are discarded material, considered fragments and left over. People like us need to tell it like it is, and let the scraps fall where they will.

(In typing the name of the award, I initially mistyped it as the Honest CRAP award. Heh.)

I'm honored.  Blackbird, you are far too kind.

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the person who gave the award and list their blog and link it.
2. Share "10 Honest Things" about yourself.

3. Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

4. Tell those 7 people they've been awarded Honest Scrap and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

Okay, so I've got to be honest.  Do I have to?
 
Here goes:
1. I've been stress eating lately and it's bad things.  Candy bars.  I've got type II diabetes (though usually it's well managed) and candy is BAD for me.  Got to stop.
2. I see people dressed beautifully at work and say to myself "They make more money than they have a right to", when really I'm just very jealous.
3. I love singing harmony to all the songs on the radio when I'm driving alone.
4. Things that are awesomely good make me get teary.  I'm kind of a sap.
5.  I don't like my given name.  But who really does?
6.  I'm a loyal friend.  I treasure all my friendships and feel lucky to have them.
7.  I love reading good southern literature, like Flannery O'Connor and Thomas Wolfe. (I lurve Flannery.)  I also love classics, like Dickens and Victor Hugo and Jane Austen.  I'd like to teach a class on Christian symbolism in Southern Literature.
8.  I have freckles and am a natural redhead, though my hair has turned from auburn to brown in my old age.
9.  I wish to God that DH and I were on the same side of the political fence.  I'm one way.  He is - something else.
10.  Though The Stooges can each make me crazy, I adore them all and would do anything for them.  I would die for my boys.  And all of my family.
 
And for the list of great Bloggers, drumroll please!
 
1. Victoria.  Love her art, love her aesthetic.
2. Julia.  Wow - can she ever sew.  And such a nice lady.
3. Grumpy Granny. An old friend from way before the Internets. We go back to before the Carter Adminstration.  Always encouraging.
4. Fluid Pudding.  Makes me snort.
5. LadyShuttlemaker.  I feel a real kinship with her. And I love all her work.
6. Heather at the Tarnished Tatter.  We've been sharing some great and funny emails.  And such a good mom!
7. Ree the Pioneer gal.  Love me some Marlboro Man and those kids.
Badger and Jen from KnitterKnitters were already awarded - I love them too!
 
All right bloggers - go to it!
 
And I leave you with a funny, a not safe for work funny.  A Thanksgiving NSFW funny.
 
Before you see it, you have to sing a Sesame Street song.
 
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong.....
 
Now look here!
 
Hee!  Now I have to go and start defrosting a big turkey....