Virtue May Be Its Own Reward, But I'll Take These

As much as I enjoyed the A to Z Challenge, I was also relieved when May rolled around and I could get back to my regular "whenever I damn well please" posting schedule. But after spending the past two weeks recovering from blog overload (or "bloverload") by retreating into the real world, I feel it's time I finally gave some recognition.

Of course, since my ego is the size of a Buick, what I want to recognize is that my blog has been recognized. I'm talking blog awards, people. I've recently received three of them from four fellow bloggers (only one of whom is a fellow), and as is my practice, I've Photoshopped them into oblivion.

Matthew Vanacore over at FilmMattic was the first to bestow the Stylish Blogger Award upon me. If you like movies like I like movies (and I like movies), you owe it to yourself to check out his blog.

Then check out Marian Allen, who determined I was "crazy all over the inside of [my] head," and then also gave me this award, presumably because my craziness is so stylish. Nonetheless, I didn't think the award really lived up to its name, so I went to work:

Before:

After:

Marian's award also came with the stipulation that I share seven things about myself. Normally, I ignore stipulations, but luckily for Marian, I enjoy making lists:

1. For Halloween in kindergarten, I dressed as a carrot.
2. The day I bought my first car, I got into an accident... before I left the dealership.
3. For Halloween in first grade, I dressed as a carrot.¹
4. I haven't set my alarm clock for a time ending in 0 or 5 since I was 15 14.
5. Once, while playing volleyball, I dislocated a thumb. The thumb wasn't mine.²
6. I can hold my breath for upwards of 15 seconds.
7. When I was two years old, I tried to jump into the Grand Canyon.³

At the tail end of the Challenge, Elizabeth Mueller passed this award along to everyone who made it through to Z, which I thought was a very nice gesture on her part. My decision to embellish the award wasn't nearly as nice a gesture, but I didn't let that stop me:

Before:

After:

And finally, Deirdra Coppel over at A Storybook World handed out an award to everyone in the Challenge. She chose the Creative Blog Award for me, though for the life of me I can't think of why. I couldn't even come up with a inventive way to improve her award; all I did was add depth, contrast, and color:

Before:

After:

Well, that's it for today. Maybe next time I'll do something more stylish, or creative, or survivory.⁴ But for now, I'm going to retreat once again into the real world, and see if I can maybe win an award there. Wish me luck.


¹ In both instances, it was an orange felt costume, with a green felt cap, and had C-A-R-R-O-T in bold black letters down the front. Booya.
² Despite being a short white guy, I can jump high and spike hard. (Unlike Nathan Fillion's character, my nickname of "The Hammer" is because of my fist.) Anyway, after his partial block, the guy popped his thumb back into place and proudly played through the pain the rest of the night. I have no idea why. They were just pick-up games.
³ I failed.
⁴ For instance, Bridget, I know you still want me to create the Deviant Blogger Award. I'll get started on that once I finish the Procrastinating Blogger Award.