And The Liebster Goes To . . . // Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Me

As a small blogger, I've noticed that there are a lot of perks to being a big blogger; namely, people read your blog.  That's pretty cool.  (Not that I don't appreciate it, Mom. Thanks! Love you!)  Besides having your mom read your blog, there are a few other perks to being a smaller blogger, too, one of them being that you're eligible to be nominated for the Liebster Award!  It's a way to connect with up-and-coming (coughcough smaller coughcough) bloggers, and it's really cool!

I was nominated by Itunu, who blogs about fashion, fitness, and lots of other super fun, feminine things over at Beyoutiful Beauties.   Itunu's blog is really pretty, and she writes with a positive voice that leaves me with a serious case of the warm fuzzies.  So, you should probably go check her out.

The Liebster Award is kind of like a chain email, except not annoying and a lot more productive.  Once you're nominated, you're supposed to nominate eleven other people for the award.  Supposed to.  The thing is, I kind of like to rebel sometimes, and so I'm going to rebel.  Instead of nominating eleven people right now,  I'm going to collaborate in some form with eleven up and coming bloggers throughout the year.  I have no idea exactly what that's going to look like, but I'm doing it.


So, the facts first:

1 |  I'm 5'7", which means my little brother is taller than me.  He wastes no opportunity to make this fact
 known.

2 |  I love volleyball, a lot.  I play for my high school team and my dad is the coach, so I have a built in practice partner / coach around pretty much 24 / 7.  It's pretty cool!

This picture's not winning any beauty contests, but it's proof that I play volleyball! There I am, with my hands on my hips.  Sassy. 

3 |  iCarly may possibly be my favorite show of all times.  They're showing reruns of it on Nickelodeon recently, and I don't hate it.

4 |  My love language is NOT physical tough.  If you were wondering.

It's not, I promise.  I don't even know what I'm doing here. 

5 |  I struggle with Twitter. (And you can be front seat to those struggles here.)  I know it's important for blogging and stuff, and I think I'm getting better, but being witty/interesting/relevant in 140 characters or less is tough! So one time I just tweeted about how it was ten at night and I wanted to eat a brat.  That should not have happened. No one needed to know that.

6 |  My room is a disaster zone.  I used to keep it super clean, but its tidiness has disintegrated with the general together-ness of my life. Oops!  I've decided that I seriously need to get my act together before college, because roommates don't like messy roommates, probably.

7 |  I recently learned how to use GIFs. (See also: Just like any other photo.  Who knew? )  I wrote a post using them, and it was pretty much the most fun thing I have ever done.  Not true, but it was great! I highly recommend them.

8 |  I am kind of wishing that whoever invented this award thing had liked the number seven instead of eleven, because I was doing pretty well with these up until now.

9 |  My favorite song ever is Iris.  It's emotional and the music is on point.  I literally saw the Goo Goo Dolls in concert this summer just for that song.  #WorthIt

10 |  I've got less than a year to decide where I want to educate myself after high school, and I'm still in that "Oh, I don't knowwww . . . I have plenty of time to figure that out!" stage.  I'm also starting to realize that that statement becomes less accurate by the day.

11 |  I am a very, very slow texter backer.  I just get distracted and forget to respond to texts, or I can't think up a response so I just don't.  That's bad of me.  I don't want anyone who ever texts me to think that I hate them!

Answer these questions:

1 |   If you could go anywhere on vacation, where would it be?

Africa.  Africa, Africa, Africa.  I have always wanted to go. 

2 |  What's your favorite dessert?

Does a parent have a favorite child?  Okay, but I'll try my best.  Right now, a peanut butter Oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen sounds amazing, but I'd go for anything pretty much anytime.  #SweetTooth

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3 |  What was your favorite thing to do as a child?

I used to make my mom use a hole puncher to punch "dots" out of pieces of construction paper.  I kept my dots in a box until one day I decided to be a fairy or something and sprinkle them all around the house.  I think my mom enjoyed seeing her hard work paying off. 

4 |  What are some of your hobbies now?

I really like cooking and baking, and I'm always up for pretty much anything active.  (Except hockey.  I'm afraid of hockey.) I like spending time with my friends (duh), and reading, and blogging, and doing my hair, and taking pictures, and, and . . . lots of things.  Oh, and eating. 

After my first (and only to date) 10k! I'm on the right.

5 |  Who's your inspiration?

My mom!  She's such a hard worker and has an amazing relationship with God and a perpetual positive attitude.  Plus, she lets me wear her old crew neck sweatshirts, and they're pretty great. 

6 |  What's your style (preppy, boho, urban, etc.)?

Errhm,  retro / preppy / athlete? Is that a thing?  I like dresses and collars and cardigans and Keds, but most of the time I'm rocking the running shorts and t-shirts because that works well for what I spend most of my time doing. 

I loved these Keds to death.  I think they have a total of 9 holes between the two of them. 

7 |  Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

Well, I'll for sure be twenty-six.  Other than that, not a clue.  I could be married with kids or super duper single.  I'll probably have some sort of job, though, because adults have to do that, right?  And hopefully not living at home.  

8 |  Tribal print or polka dots?

This is hard! I keep typing one and then deleting it and then typing the other.  I can't do it.  Okay, fine.  Polka dots! 

9 |  Why did you decide to become a blogger?

Before this space was birthed (ew, I don't like that word), I blogged at another blog that I called (un)cool.  I have no idea where that one came from.  I mean, I've always liked writing, but I have no memory of what made me want to start a blog.  Reckless, on the other hand,  started with a viewing of The Great Gatsby and some quality family time that inspired me to love other people more recklessly.  I wrote a pretty in depth post about that which you can read here. 

10 |  Who is your style icon?

Can I Pinterest that? Yes? Okay, hold on a second.  Princess Kate, because she's always lookin' good.  Plus, her hair.  She's a beaut. 

11 |  What's your favorite t.v show?

Besides iCarly, there's Duck Dynasty and What Not to Wear and Full House.  And Harry Potter Weekends on ABC. 

We already talked about how I'm not nominating people right now, but I already went to the trouble of linking all these nice links to some of my favorite bloggers, so I'm just going to leave them there and you can do with them what you want.  (One option, for instance, being to click them and see what's going on with some bloggers you may not have heard of before!)

Allison from Something Beautiful

Nicole from Natter with Nic

Kathleen Norris from Places I Will Go

Amy Lord from Ten Penny Dreams

Martha Kate from Leaving Perfection Learning Grace

Donna from Grace and Galoshes

Norkor from Voyageur Africaine

Kristy from Classy Kristy

Vanessa from I Write About You

Bethany from Miss Unrep

Mika from Why Not, Mika?

Later, skaters!

Allie

Oh, and P.S. . . Speaking of chain mail (Yes, I did mention chain mail in this post.  Were you even paying attention?) lets hear the biggest thing promised to you by chain mail that didn't come true.  Comment those broken promises! Let it all out!

That is all.