pickingwildflowers: Blog Award

I’m honored that I received The Stylish Blogger Award from 3 different people! Ana @ The World Through My Eyes, Amy @ A Daring Little Life, and ABF @ College Girl gave it to me. I’m so lucky to have met this groovy little community of people in the blogger realm and I am loving it! This is a good game to sort of “get to know ya” – if you will, and I have been meaning to post it.

I keep seeing it float around out there, and I figured I better ‘get to it & do it’ before I forget about it!! I figured it’s a good time to tell you some random things about me (as if I’m not random enough) especially since I have so many new (and WONDERFUL) blog friends!

I am supposed to share 7 things about myself and then send this award on to 15 other people! I’m pretty much an open book, but here are 7 random tid-bits about me.

1. If I could wear one outfit for the rest of my life it would be a pair of comfortable (and cute fittin’) blue jeans with a “wife-beater” style tank! I joke about this being my “uniform” – haha! I match it with a scarf or funky jewelry and cowboy boots or a pair of gladiator sandals. I know how and when to clean up nice though! I’ve got a “posh” side, too!

2. My organizational skills are superb – NOOOT!!! My organization is WORSEthan my random scatter-brain! Scary (and cluttered) huh?

3. My “theme words” are: PASSION, HOPE, and UNIQUENESS. A lot of people’s first impression of me is that I am PASSIONATE FOR LIFE. I take that as such a compliment! HOPE is what keeps me grounded – no matter how bad my reality can be sometimes, the hope I have allows me to dream and by dreaming I am about to get through my ruts. UNIQUENESS is something I have always heard people say I embrace well. I am proud of myself for that because it is so important to be yourself, because like ‘they’ say, everyone else is already taken.

4. When I was a little girl I dreamed of being a sports reporter – think Erin Andrews. I loved writing and I have always been obsessed with sports. In high school, I was a sports reporter and held my own sports column in our school’s paper. I went on to college at the University of Alabama and was a Journalism and Public Relations student at the highly respected College of Information Sciences before switching my direction pretty entirely. Life lead me to continue my love for writing via my blog, “Picking Wildflowers” (found here) and on my high school sports column’s extension blog “Just Jones It” (found here), but I switched my field of study. The past couple of years I have studied Child Development, Early Education, and Family Studies. I have a particular interest in working with children with developmental disabilities and their families. Right now, I am very much in a transition phase and trying to find my bearings, stay grounded, and continue to dream big. We’ll see where life takes me next!!!

5. I basically grew up on the soccer field. I started playing the sport when I was 5 years old and I never stopped playing it until the referee’s whistle sounded the ending of an era my senior year of high school (2005). The end of my long-running soccer career was the end of a lifestyle and the ending of a love story. I loved (and still love) the people, coaches, and memories of all the glory days that filled my life on those soccer fields. I loved how GOOD it HURT to train for hours, how hard it was not to quit or give up at times when it hurt, and how I hated losing and loved winning. Soccer taught me about life and through that special sport I did not just learn how to be a team player or how to strike a ball into the back of a net, but I learned what Baily Jones was capable of becoming one day.

6. I have never had any other kind of dog than a BOXER. It is tough to say if I ever will. My parents have two: Jackson and Lola; my sister and her husband have two: Maybelle and Beau; and I have one: Mildred Jean (“Millie”)…. they are just the most AWESOME dogs! We also have two in doggie heaven: Sugar Ray and Macy.

7. I have so much appreciation for this blog! A lot of people may not understand it, or think I’m cheesy, or roll their eyes and wish I would “get a life” but I don’t care because, to me, it isn’t cheesy – it’s wonderful, and I have a life – it’s pretty wonderful, too! I think, and excuse me while I be a Child Development Specialist for a second, that we all have our four main self-domains: our physical, cognitive, emotional, and social selves all make up who we are. But I think there is a fifth domain to the self and that is the CREATIVE SELF. And in my honest opinion, I think it is the most important because it is up to us to find it, use it, let it make us who we are, and let it express what those four other domains do. Be who you are. And I’m a Blogger. My creative self has art, writing, and inspiration in it, along with a love for music, people, and new experiences. This blog is where I let those thoughts and ideas come to life and where I am able to gain more creativity. It is something I love & I am SO GLAD I found an outlet for my artistic intuitions!

Thanks again to Ana, Amy, and ABF for giving me the

Stylish Blogger Award

I'm tagging these darlin's...

Kathleen @ I Can Watch A Sunset On My Own

Amber @ I Love You To The Moon

Lauren @ The Underwoods

Amber @ A Little Pink In The Cornfields

Deanna @ Mellow Fever

Mimi @ What Mimi Writes

Lindsey @ It's A Wonderful Life

Alexis @ The Journal List

Kelly @ Life In A Small Town