Color Me Blushing

Well. Well, well, well.

To say I'm overwhelmed with love doesn't even begin to describe how I feel right now. I'm just floored. Maybe even close to speechless. So while mentioning this in public makes me squirm as much as the thought of giving birth next week -- and I'll have an epidural for that, thank you very much -- I have to go on record and say how humbled, honored and touched I am by the awards that have come my way in recent days.

First to take me by surprise was the You Lift Me Up award, given to me by Julie at A Joyful Life.
(If I could, I'd pass the award on to the Bella Band that's currently in charge holding up my pants. But that's another post.) Julie said all sorts of sweet things about me and my blog. But my favorite? She called me fun. FUN! For a sanguine, there's no higher compliment.

And truly, the humbling thing about getting this award from Julie is that she encourages me. Julie is funny, thoughtful and altogether real. Right now, she's braving a Michigan winter to help out her sister who is experiencing some serious side-effects after an emergency c-section last weekend. I love her servant's heart, her willingness to drop everything for those she loves and her joyful attitude in the midst of it all. Now that's a woman worthy of a Josh Groban serenade.

Next to come -- the Underblog Award, passed on to me by Lisa at Take 90 West.
It's an award designed to shine the spotlight on blogs that might not attract the same number of eyeballs that other blogs do -- you know, the blogs that have traffic to rival LAX, the blogs that give away $500 gift cards with the same nonchalance that I eat yet another Christmas cookie (which are starting to go stale, by the way, thank you Lord), the blogs that soldier on in the midst of The Black Plague and still manage to be wickedly funny.

And once again, the funny thing about getting this particular award from this particular blogger is that I would have handed it right back to her if she hadn't tagged me first. Lisa is a fellow Midwesterner (which is saying something, considering most blogs I frequent are written south of the Mason-Dixon Line), she's fall-down, snort-coffee-through-your-nose funny, and she's not afraid to open a can of whoop a** when the time is right -- and I love that about her. Lisa's only been blogging for a few months, and I sincerely hope she's discovered by hundreds, nay, thousands of new readers in 2008 who will be just as charmed by her humor, her honesty and her ability to personally understand wind chill as I am.

And then yesterday. Oh my. One of my all-time favorite bloggers, Lisa at The Preacher's Wife, slapped me (in the good sense) with The Daily Dose award.
It's a new award thought up by her sweet friend Xandra to highlight blogs that (in Xandra's words) (that's what the quotation marks mean) (see all the things I learned by being a journalist for all those years?) "you've discovered that you can't possibly live without. They make you laugh, cry, think and feel connected ever time you read a post. They give you a thrill as you see them loading into your browser and you get an equally satisfying thrill when you see that they have commented on your blog."

Wow. What a heady description. And once again (are you seeing a pattern here?), I feel like this is an award I would give to Lisa, if she hadn't scooped me. Lisa is hysterical and charming and altogether real. Maybe more importantly, she's completely in love with Jesus, and her passion to know Him and make Him known overflows from her soul and splashes onto everyone she meets -- even her imaginary, Internet friends like me.

In a perfect world, I would now turn around and pass on these amazing awards. But I'll be honest -- my brain is too wrapped up with details about Sparkle's birth right now to think that abstractly. Do you think I can get a pass for labor? Because I totally intend to have my very own awards ceremony here in a few weeks. (Think the Academy Awards without the stick-on dresses.) (And without Joan Rivers, because she creeps me out.)

I just need more time to gather my brain cells and make them function with purpose.

(To which my husband would loudly proclaim, "AMEN!")

Until then, I'll just live in the glow from these awards. It's warm here, and I look better with a little something-something anyway. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I'm tickled pink.