And the Oscar Goes to.... (part 1)

I love getting awards, who doesn't?! It really brightens my day to know that people not only read my blog, but like it. That's crazy to me! I mean I think I'm a decent writer, and some of the stuff I have to say is interesting, but still, maybe it's not so interesting to everyone else. Anyway, thank you to Dee, Laural Out Loud, Island Girl. They have each awarded me with a shiny (sometimes even sparkly!) new award! I'm so excited! Anyway, as much as I love awards, I am a very bad award receiver! It always takes me forever to re-award them! So, I'm sorry for being a bad award receiver, but thank you for my awards, I love them! Ok so, 1st off Laural Out Loud gave me this award: That is so sweet, isn't it cute??! Thank you, again! The rules for this award is to give it to 10 blogs I love!! That should be easy! I'm going to try and give this to people who don't have this award, but no promises! These are the people who have and will type paragraphs of advice when I most need it, just because they care! Who else would be more deserving of such an award!?!

• Mrs. Newlywed @ Misadventures of A Newlywed
• Krystyn @ Really, Are You Serious
• Jen E @ Mommablogsalot
• Chelle @ Creative Momma
• Leslie @ Got Kids, Need Valium
• Tyne @ The White House
• Dana @ Supernanny Where Are You
• Megan @ Wandering DC
• Joy @ When Does Daddy Come Home
• Dawn @ Dawn's Daily Life

Next, I have this lovely award from Dee! Isn't it pretty?!?The rules to this award are Post the badge on your site and link back to Maternal Spark. Tag 5 of your bloggy friends who have sparked creativity, conversation, controversy and friendships! That's it, it's easy to spread the sparky love so go on...do it! These 5 blog friends are amazing and deserve some bloggy love so go check them out!

• Heidi @ Mommy Doesn't Live Here Anymore
• The Mom @ Cheaper Than Therapy
• Mojito Maven @ Make Mine a Mojito
• Cheryl @ The Daily Blonde
• McMommy @ The McMommy Chronicles

So, that's that now go check them out and tell them I sent you! lol Moving on... Island Girl @ Not Perfect But Worth It passed on this lovely book award to me!Here are the rules: Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences...The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL! Ok, I'm warning you this is gonna be boring.. the only books I have near me are Text books so here is a short excerpt from my Mass Communications text book. "In three months, Common Sense sold 125,000 copies- some historians say it was closer to 250,000- 1 for every 10 colonists. Paine was no mere armchair commentator. In 1776 he joined George Washington's army." I'm gonna spare you from boredom and stop there.. for the record they were talking about Thomas Paine and the subject was Books in National Development. Yeah... bored yet? So, hopefully these people will have something more interesting to say, sorry for boring you!

• Jen @ Daily Mish Mash
• Danielle @ Life With the Hewitt Family
• Jen E @ Momma Blogs A lot (I know 2 awards in 1 post, but I know how you are about books!)
• Tabbie @ Love's Story

I know that's only 4 but I give up! Ok... so are you sick of all these award posts, yet? Well because I'm a procrastinator so popular, I still have 3 more to give out!! I'm so humbled by all this love, when I started this blog I never imagined that anyone would actually read it, much less send me awards telling me they love my blog!! Thank you everyone! Because I love you all so much.. I'm going to spare you! I'm going to do the 2nd half of these awards later in the week, so this doesn't turn into a novel or anything! Please go check out the award recipients, if you haven't already! They all have amazing blogs, and we all know how much we love bloggy love, so show them some please :) Part 2 coming soon...

Me vs. You

Why is it that we can't just be happy with what we have, and we always have to compare it to everyone else? There will always be something that's not good enough if we constantly compare ourselves to other people: Someone will always be skinnier than me... that's just the way it is. But then there are the few that aren't. Someone will always have more money than I do... Someone will always be happier than I am... Someone will always be something that I am not or just more so than I am. Why is it that we do this to ourselves? Why can't I be grateful for what I am and for what I do have without comparing it to other people? There is usually nothing good that comes from this... it usually only leads to feeling inadequate.. at least in my case. I may not ever measure up to other people... but I am me, and I should be happy with that. Easier said than done, obviously, but it's really starting to make me crazy! I am setting myself up for disappointment by comparing myself to everyone else. The truth is my friends boyfriend might say sweet things that mine doesn't.. but that doesn't mean that my boyfriend and I aren't happy! The truth is half my friends will probably always be skinnier than me, and it sucks, but I am who I am! It's such a waste of time to compare ourselves to everyone else... we are all our own person and that's the way it should be. So why can't we just love ourselves and what we have without worrying about other people!?