I won! I won!

This has been a lucky week for me and so this post will be a bit wordier than most of my posts here on Confessions. 

No, I didn't win the huge lottery (Tom intended to buy a ticket, but got there too late!) but I did win Jillsy's Tweet Around the World Challenge - I contributed photos of 7 different birds! I'm not sure what I won, but I'll let you know when the mystery package arrives.

But I won!

Now Jillsy has a new challenge for April ...

(Click on the pretty thumbnail above to find out how to play. You'll find the beautiful color board at the bottom.) 

My luck didn't stop there ... Ethel Mae, of The Adventures of Fred and Ethel, presented me with The Stylish Blogger Award! I haven't received many blog awards, and so naturally I've told myself they don't really mean anything, blah, blah, blah, but I confess that deep inside I adore trophies and gold stars, so thank you, thank you, Ethel Mae! (Click the image below to check out her blog - she is so creative and funny!)

Awards in the blog world aren't just eye candy, though; there are always strings attached. I not only have to share the award with ten other stylish bloggers (easy!), but I have to reveal seven tidbits about myself to you here.
Truly "Confession" time! (I warned you this was wordier than normal!)

Despite the name of this blog, I haven't revealed much about myself here (I save all that for "Long Hollow" - kind of backwards, I guess...) so this part should be easy. Not "fascinating", but definitely "tidbitty"...

So here goes, off the top of my head:

1. I've been married to the same man for almost 30 years - pretty unusual these days from what I can tell. We even still like each other most days!
2. We met in a bar.
3. He proposed after just two weeks. Yep, you heard right... two weeks. We waited almost a year to get married, though.
4. He has 8 brothers! Oops, that's about him. Okay, here's one about me... I have 8 brothers-in-law! (Actually 9 plus one ex, if you count my side of the family, too.)
5. I'm a college drop-out, still trying to finish what I started years ago. Well, not technically; I was a chemical engineering major - now I think I just want to be a writer when I grow up. I think.
6. Um... I was a welder's helper for two months (see "college drop-out" reference above.)
7. I was a shift-working chemical plant operator (we called them 'technicians') for 13 years, through three pregnancies and my husband's college graduation, which means I know knew how to fight fires and drive a forklift.

Whew! That wasn't too bad.

Now, on to the sharing bit. This part is much easier - the tough part is narrowing it down to 10 stylish bloggers! But here goes... I'm going to follow Ethel Mae's lead and choose some of my newest followers so I can learn more about them.

1. Catherine of Corner of Cat's Mind.
2. JPick of On The Salt.
3. Dagmar of studio d.
4. Lisa of Lisa Gordon Photography.
5. Gail of Louisiana Belle.
6. Writer Lady
7. Merisi of Merisi's France for Beginners and Merisi's Vienna for Beginners
8. Betty of Bossy Betty
9. Eric of Ruminations of a Small Town Mountain Boy
10. Gina of This Moment (I actually went to high school with Gina! But you can always learn something new about someone, right?)

I urge you to check out their blogs!

And I'll be back tomorrow with my normal un-wordiness ... probably some flowers, Austin street scenes or perhaps the peacock photos from this morning... It was a wonderful weekend!

And now, prepare to gasp at the beauty of Jillsy's Color My World Board...