Inspired by a website I’m sad to say I’m only just now finding (thanks to postsecret), I’ve decided to try something a little bit different here in a post-CPAC atlimbo.com.

The site, 1000 Awesome Things – which has spawned two feel-good, fun books! – is a wonderful resource for light-hearted, daily, snarky ditties of the Awesome Sort. Started in 2008, it’s counted down 1,300+ awesome things already and is only going to keep on keeping on. And so, I’ve decided to do a little bit of my own…

I’m starting with 20 Awesome Things, in light of a lot of stress in my life these days (job hunting, planning to move 600+ miles, maintaining the first relationship I’ve been in in 2 years, daily life, long distance friends and family…) I’m hoping that taking the time to focus on the good, the funny, the tasty, will brighten what’s left of my time here in the 757. And so, my first Awesome.

Appreciation of the Awesome #1; Hydrangeas. [after the jump!]

I’ve considered myself a Southerner since moving from New England at 18. I know, most people think I’m insane for considering DC and Virginia “the south”, but growing up in Maine anything below Manhattan was “the south”. After two months at American University, my high school buddies accused me of having a twang.

In my last weeks as a Southerner before returning to my frozen north roots, I need to give props to one of my favorite bits of nature in the south.

Bright white, pink, blue, and purple bushels of hydrangeas are everywhere – wild, pruned, in vases – down here! Throughout sourthern VA, in gardens all over DC, and especially while visiting my parents in South Carolina, the heady scent of the tiny flowers by the hundreds makes breathing easier despite the heat and unfamiliarity of so much around me. Seeing a bouquet of hydrangeas just makes me smile. I can’t help it.

They’re also the flower of choice of one Miss Blair Waldorf, which makes them hotter than anything us mere mortals can touch.

And sure, I’m joking. A bit. Well, maybe half.

Anyway… What are your favorite flowers? Why are they? Are you a romantic who melts at the sight of red roses outside the metro after work? Do you love the simple value of forget-me-nots and tuplips? Do you prefer planted flowering trees or big bouquets greeting you on your kitchen table? What about fake flowers?

All I really know is that heading up a driveway in my convertible, gravel crunching under the tires, the perfume of huge bushes of hydrangeas enveloping me… It feels like coming home, no matter where it is I am.