As many of you have noticed (aka my mom and my friend’s grandmother) I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks. The reason is because I am battling mono. I am awake for a couple hours a day and out of it when I am. BUT, I did push through to come up with a few lessons I’m learning along the way for my avid blog readers…

I feel I must admit I do not look as cute as this stock photo when I’m sick but I sort of want you to think I do.

Here are 12 Things Mono Has Taught Me:

I used to be single. During that time, Super Bowl Sunday often meant an opportunity to be around single men and try to see if any possible relationships could exist. Over the years I learned that it helps to at least pretend that I like and understand football in such a setting. Now, as a married woman, I still find myself creating a cheat sheet for big games just so I sound impressive.

I figured I could share this year.

Here are 10 tips for clueless women watching the Super Bowl:

That’s right. I said it.

I hope you hit rock bottom.

Why? Because I’m here now. And it’s best place I’ve ever been.

When I was in kindergarten I thought I had to show all of my teeth when I smiled for a photo. It didn’t matter what clever technique my mother tried to use, I wasn’t going to grasp the concept of a natural smile. Needless to say, she didn’t have to worry about spending a ton of money on school pictures that year.

But as I got older, I actually became pretty good at smiling. Scratch that. I became great at smiling.

In fact, I became so great at smiling that I eventually decided it had to go hand-in-hand with my Christianity. I believed in God with every fiber of my being, and I knew He saved me. So how couldn’t I smile?

If I wanted others to know this God, they needed to see how happy He made me…right?

Then freshman year of college hit.

And my world fell in on me.

It was pouring outside and the temperature was dropping so I knew I needed to get on the road soon, but my roommate and I couldn’t seem to stop chatting. I blew off my dad when he called and told me the weather forecast and that if I was going to make the trip to Ohio I better go now.

I figured I would get on the road in a minute.

An hour later I finally made my way to my car to begin my two-and-a-half hour trip to see Brandon. Long-distance dating was the worst.

I drove on that same highway like I had driven a million times before, but this time was different.

I guess the temperature finally hit freezing as I was passing that semi. My car suddenly spun out of control and I saw myself heading sideways into an 18-wheeler at 70 mph.