So, I've been informed by someone who will go unnamed that when that person sees that I've "received another one of those stupid awards" that person usually just skips the post that follows. 

It's okay.  I get it.  I skip things in italics, stanzas, long quotes, charts, graphs, and citations.  It has nothing to do with the content.  It has everything to do with the way my brain works.  I just can't do it.  Never could.  Not in school, not at work, not in life. 
There are a few writers who can include quotes or write poetry I can read, and I'll tell you why and how.  I lift their poems from a website/blog/text (if I see it in a book I google it and find it online so I can do this) and put it in a word document to reformat it so my brain can process the poem.

Writing poetry is a comfort
I never read what I record
I can't bear the way it looks
Once the words have left me.

Still reading?
See that happy award up there?  It's from Christina at Beena's Blog.  Christina has one of those blogs that makes you feel like less of a miserable failure at being a mom/woman/person and feel more like a normal human being who doesn normal human things on a normal human basis.  But her blog isn't a total train wreck full of stories of stuff being flushed down the toilet and shoved up little nostrils.  It's full of well written stories of real momhood.  Personhood.  And I can't get enough of it.
So thank you Christina.  Not just for the award, but for sharing your story with us.
I'm never clear on award rules, especially since I never follow them, so here's what is going on in my weird blizzard-imposed mid-week weekend.  A mandatory two day break in the middle of the week sounds much nicer than it really is, trust me.
Trust me.

1.  Long ago I read an article about children's dreams, and I remember something about preschoolers dreaming about cutesy fuzzy animals, like kittens and bunnies and bears.  Jake has been having really vivid dreams lately, so we've been sitting up latenights talking about them.  It's fun.  Reminds me of summer camp.  Flashlights under the blankets at 2am with your kid and a case of the giggles is the ultimate.  Unless it's not.  He had a really bad one a few nights ago, and I asked what it was.  He told me he was lost in the woods and skeletons and ghosts and witches were jumping out at him and it was dark and he couldn't see the bad guys until they were right in front of him.

Hold up.

That was MY nachtmare.  Is my.  Except instead of ghosts it was pirates.  I still have that nachtmare.  Thirty years of being lost in the haunted woods.  I get it right around the time I get the one where the breaks don't work.  Jake and I have the same nachtmare.  Creepy.
His good ones have "white bunnies, and sometimes red cats but sometimes they aren't so good, and baby polar bears that don't live in the snow and love to play and can change colors whenever they want and you, mommy!  and you're wearing a pink dress and beautiful shoes and your hair is all messy because that's how you look the prettiest".

2.  Every Halloween I buy a few bags of those plastic spider rings and I slip the ring part in the slots of everyone's keyboards at work and it looks like there is a big old spider sitting there.  It's especially satisfying when people opt to have one of those pullout keyboards that sit under their desk and it's their first year on the job. 
I like tricks better than treats.
I'm going on nine years on the job now, so you can imagine how many of those things are kicking around the office.  Sometimes they show up in unexpected places, like file drawers or behind the last of the coffee cups.  Sometimes they show up around my house, like in the lint tube chimney thing or in the AV wires that have been outdated for at least a decade but you can't ever be too sure so you keep them just in case.  Places that get cleaned when you have the worst storm in recorded history raging outside your front door.
(Smiles weakly and touches her cat as a reminder that life surrounds her)

3.  I get my hair cut four times a year.  No more no less.  It's one of those weird rituals that I started when I was old enough to start making decisions for myself and can't break now or else your favorite aunt will snap her neck when she reaches for the big oval platter next Thanksgiving and the holidays will be ruined for your family forever. 
The first day of every season I get my hair cut.  If it falls on a Sunday or Monday, I take a deep breath, and I go on Tuesday, and it will be okay.  It will be okay.  It will be okay.
It will be okay because I just go ahead and cut a little chunk of hair all by myself.  And something is better than nothing.

4.  I'm still taking improv class, but this time around isn't very fun at all.  There is a lot more learning and explanation and "no not that do this instead because that's not the way it's done".  It's kind of boring, lots of standing around, blah blah blah.  That's why I haven't been talking about it.  It's sometimes fun when you are up and doing it, and I thought there would be more up and doing it since class is 2.5 hours instead of 2 hours now but I think that extra half hour is mostly teacher talk.
I'm trying to plow through, and I sometimes like learning, but I really just wish there was more doing.  I mentioned that the whole class cycle is dedicated to The Harold, and I'm about Harolded out.  The repetition, the rules, the fact that I have to pay attention.  This is not for me.  I'll be glad if the next level has absolutely no Harold at all.  If it does, I think I'll be looking into the weekend workshops that are running or maybe into Comedy Sportz or something.  Anything.
One of the things I really liked about the last class is there was no standing around, not too much repetition, not too many rules, and not too much paying attention.  I'm really good at all those things.  Really really good. 
This other stuff is work.  It's not that I ooohhh! 
Hey!
What's that?
Shiny! 
Gotta go.