SipSwap

So have you guys noticed that little #SipSwap button on the left? For those of you who have no idea what that means, let me explain. The very awesome Jessica Love and Kelsey Macke decided that writers survive on caffeine. And what do you need to drink your coffee or tea? Mugs. Lots of cute mugs. So when I signed up for SipSwap, I was randomly assigned to someone (another writer), who would choose a mug for me based off what she knew about me (from Twitter, my blog, etc.). Likewise, someone else would be assigned to me and I would do the same. Sounds fun, right?

Now, I don't actually drink caffeine. I used to. Excessively, in fact. And it's been a long, hard road getting to this point, I can tell you. But caffeine gives me terrible headaches. So I can either a) be in pain all the time, b) take way more Advil than is strictly healthy, or c) just learn to wake up/stay up without it. After years of various combinations of a) and b), I finally transitioned firmly into c). And somehow turned from a night owl to one of those annoying morning people who smiles all the time. Who knew that was possible?

Okay, I've gotten distracted. Whether or not I'll use my new mug to caffeinate myself is not the point. The point is that I LOVE mugs. If you look in the cabinet in my kitchen where glasses/cups/mugs are stored, you will see a small collection of real glasses for my husband and guests, and a shelf and a half of my mugs. I drink everything out of them. So the idea of getting a new one in the mail, perhaps making a new friend in the process? AWESOME. Just as much fun was choosing the mug for the person I was assigned. I actually got one of the organizers, Jessica Love, and she had lots of adorable pictures of her dog on her blog. So I pulled the ones I thought were the cutest and put them on a mug for her (you can read her post about it here).

The person who drew me was Keri Gilles, and the mug she sent me was PERFECT. Like, seriously guys. I love every single thing about it. So without further ado, here it is!

I have absolutely no idea why the picture is sideways. It's not sideways on my phone (where I took it), or on my computer. But oh well. You can still see how wonderful it is. I immediately sent her a tweet when I got it, telling her how much I loved it and asking how she knew? Well, back when I first got my business cards, I posted a picture of them on Twitter. If you take a gander, you will see that they have adorable pictures of owls on them. From this, she guessed (correctly!) that owls are my favorite animal. So now I have the most adorable owl mug imaginable, in bright, happy colors (my favorite!) and covered in flowers! I LOVE IT!!!

I really hope SipSwap becomes an annual thing, because I will definitely participate again if it does.