Surprises

For Valentine’s Day, my other half really decided to surprise me this year: he gave me the flu. On Thursday night I just had a tickly throat. By Friday morning my body decided it would be best if I slept for 24 hours straight, only waking up twice for some toast, water and painkillers. I haven’t been ill for about a year and it’s amazing how I can just forget how awful it feels to be sick. Fortunately yesterday I felt a bit better and today my head doesn’t feel like a furnace combined with a spinning top. I still feel like crap though.

As if the universe knew I needed cheering up, yesterday I was nominated for three blogging awards. A big thank you to JM McDowell and My Wanderland for nominating me for the ‘Very inspiring blogger award’. Many thanks also to Julie Israel of The Read Room for nominating me for the ‘Reality blog award’.

Rules for the ‘Very inspiring blogger award’

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. Link back to the person who nominated you.

3. State 7 things about yourself.

4. Nominate 15 bloggers for this award.

5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination by linking to one of their specific posts so that they get notified by pingback.

7 things about me

1. I have terrible circulation, so I love the blanket I huddle under most evenings, which is a fellow resident on my sofa where I write.

2. I haven’t used my crosstrainer this year at all and as a result feel guilty as hell.

3. I find it hilarious to cook. I don’t measure anything out properly (I have no patience) and will throw anything I can find into whatever concoction I’m making. Sometimes my meals taste great. Other times I regret adding so much cayenne pepper.

4. If it wasn’t for Facebook, I never would have met my other half after university and we wouldn’t now be a couple. I wrote on his wall on his birthday and after sending each other hundreds of messages and emails, we started dating.

5. Yesterday I completed a sketch of the floor plan for our dream home (for when we win the lottery).

6. My favourite film is Wicker Park – it’s beautifully shot, has a complex love story and a great soundtrack.

7. My favourite book is Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray – it’s packed full of so many wonderful paradoxes and is brilliantly written.

I’ll include my nominees at the end of this post.

The ‘Reality blog award’ involves answering five questions and nominating five bloggers. Here’s my Q&A:

If you could change something, what would you change?

I’d like people to treat everyone else fairly and with the respect they deserve. Personally, I’d like to have more self-confidence… and I’d be able to cure myself of this flu right now!

If you could repeat an age, what age would it be?

I have such a problem remembering my age! When I was a kid I longed to be an adult and have the responsibilities that went with being over 16. Now I’m an adult, sometimes I long to be a child again and not have any responsibilities, just play and be free, doing whatever I want to do. I don’t think that I’d like to repeat an age though – I’ve learnt so much as I’ve aged that I wouldn’t want to go back and relive the past.

What one thing really scares you?

Losing someone I love.

What one dream have you not completed yet which you think you will be able to complete?

I want to publish my novel. I know I blog about planning a wedding, but getting married has never been a ‘dream’ per se for me – I only dreamt when I was younger that I’d find a soulmate and I’ve found him already [insert fake vomiting noise here].

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

If I could take a backseat in someone else’s mind, I’d find it fun to listen in on my other half’s thoughts for a day. Then again, I imagine yesterday they would have been something like: ‘Should I do the washing up or continue to play my computer game all day? …Oh, is it midnight already?’

Nominees

I’ve decided to nominate for both awards the 15 bloggers who I’ve most recently followed (but obviously there’s no obligation to accept or forward the awards to other bloggers):

Adventure for words

The amateur’s quill

A fantasy come true

Martina Newhook

Contemplating love

SneakPeak2013

Regi McClain

Writer in progress

Time to write

Jamie Ayres

Infinite awe

Tracy Cembor

Today’s literature

A fine day for an epiphany

Diary of a novel

I hope that’s 15 blogs – I’m getting dizzy again and it’s difficult to count!