Spreading Some Love
I’m submitting this post as part of Halftime Lessons’ Tuesday Tribute. Check it out here. if you’d like to join in on the fun.
I always feel kind of silly talking about blog awards. It isn’t that I’m not appreciative when I receive them because it is always nice to hear that someone enjoys your blog. They really do mean a lot to me. It is just that I’m uncomfortable with the whole “Hey look at my new blog award” post. I don’t like to toot my own horn. I also hate picking favorites from the blogs that I read. It stresses me out to know that I might be leaving someone out.
So, I do what I do best when something is uncomfortable to me. I procrastinate.
And procrastinate.
And procrastinate some more.
Then months go by and I still haven’t taken the time to thank the following bloggers for their sweet awards.
Thank you guys so much! It really does mean so much to know that you enjoy my blog. Please click over and visit these ladies because they all rock!!
Now, it is my turn to pass along some of my own bloggy love. I have a different kind of award today. It is called the star commenter award.
I made it up myself and I invite you all to take it and hand it out to your own star commenters.
It has been said time and time again on blogs how much commenting means to bloggers. I’m sure for those of you that don’t have blogs, it can be a bit annoying and it probably makes us sound pathetic and needy.
It is hard to describe to someone who doesn’t blog how important the feedback is on something you wrote. There is a certain kind of thrill that I get each time I see the little alert in my inbox that someone has left a new comment. I read and enjoy every single one of them and they really do brighten my day more than you know.
I don’t care if you tell me you hate Ryan Gosling and think Twilight is the worst book ever written. It doesn’t matter. It still makes my day to hear from my readers even if they don’t have good taste. Just kidding.
That being said there are some bIoggers that go above and beyond with their comment love. I see their names pop up on just about every post I have written this month and I just want to give them special recognition and let the world know how much I appreciate the time and effort it takes to visit almost daily. Here they are my star commenters in no particular order:
Shannon @ Welcome to the Nuthouse
Susan @ Life in the Psych Ward
Elaine @ The Miss Elaine~ous Life
Jenn(ifer) @ Adventures in Raising Boys
Katelin @ Gorgeous Footprints in the Sand
Carol @ Siswick Construction Zone
There are more but these are probably the most frequent. I hope I didn’t leave anyone out. I always worry when I do a post like this that I did.
Making the rounds and commenting on blogs is definitely time consuming. I used to make it a point to visit all of the bloggers that left comments on my blog but that got to be a bit overwhelming. So, I stopped.
I’m thinking of going back to doing this but if I don’t stop by every day, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to read your blog, It just means there are only so many hours in one day and I just didn’t have the time today.
While we are on the subject, I would love to hear your thoughts on commenting. Do you try to visit every person’s blog that comments on your site? Do you reply to your comments with an email? Do you like when people reply to your blog comments that you leave with emails? What is your general commenting philosophy?
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Anticipation, Apologies and Awards
Anticipation…
I thought in honor of the Twilight movie coming out that I would celebrate by having a Movie Madness weekend. It’s been way too long and I thought this would be the perfect time to bring it back.
If you are new to my blog and have not participated in Movie Madness, click here to learn more. I will put the post up on Friday so those of you crazy people who go to the midnight show will be able to link up right away with your review.
If you do not want to do a post, you may still participate by leaving a comment with your thoughts on the movie.
Just a reminder–PLEASE NO SPOILERS!!!
**Note: Your post does not have to be Twilight related to participate. Heck, I’ll even welcome a “Why I’m NEVER Going To See Twilight” post. Actually, any movie-related post is fine. Can’t wait!!
Apologies…
To everyone who gave me a blog award over the past couple of months, this is me hanging my head in shame:
I’ve been absolutely terrible about posting them and passing them on to other bloggers. It isn’t because I don’t appreciate the awards, because I do. Very much.
I just had this grand plan of doing one really big post and passing them all out at once, but the procrastinator in me just kept putting it off and now the thought of that is just way too overwhelming.
So, I’m going to skip all the “tell 6 random things” and just get to the important part, showing off the awards and passing them on.
Ok, let’s get started.
Awards…
Jean @ Working Momma 247 and Tena @ My Therapy gave me the Kreativ Blogger award:
Susan from Life in the Psych Ward, Even the Nice Ones and Simply Shannon awarded me with this one:
Jen at Momma Blogs Alot awarded me with this cute little award:
Heather at Age 30 Books gave me this award:
Tyne at The White House gave this award to me:
Now for the passing along part. I know I’m supposed to pass out each individual award separately, but I’m just going to be a rebel and list 5 blogs that I love because they are cool, creative, brilliant and TOTALLY fabulous. If you are not reading these blogs, then you really should be. I’m going to call these bloggers the grand prize winners.
- Happy Meals and Happy Hour
- Gorgeous Footsteps in the Sand
- Momma Blogs Alot
- Siswick Construction Zone
- Jiggety Jig
Winners: The choice is yours! Feel free to pick any ONE of the awards above to place on your blog.
We Have a Winner! And It’s Me!
No, I am not the winner of the fabulous Movie Madness basket from The Obsession Box Company. Sadly, I’m going to have to part with it and send it out to one lucky winner.
(I did have to threaten my kids’ with the promise of living the rest of their lives without hands if they so much as even thought of opening it. Luckily, they are young enought to take these threats seriously because the basket is still intact.)
Anyway, I did a random drawing of all the comments on the contest page, as well as the added participants from Movie Madness. Here is what came up:
Here are your random numbers:
44
Timestamp: 2008-07-03 16:58:50 UTC
Congratulations to Bookroomreviews! I sent you an email requesting your address. Once I hear back from you, I’ll be sure to get this lovely basket out to you in the next week or so.
I would also like to mention that I was given this Arte Y Pico award from Two Dogs Running South.
How exciting! Thanks, Emily!
Here are her reason for giving me this award:
Jen at Daily Mish Mash because of her Friday Eye Candy. THAT alone is worth many, many awards. Remember Mateo’s BOOTAY? Yeah, that was Jen.
Well, since I am in no way responsible for the cuteness of Matthew McConaughey’s butt, I would like to pass this award along to the rightful recipients:
1. God 
2. His Parents (for having great genes)
3. His Trainer (See pic-right)
4. And of course, Mateo, himself!!! Keep on keeping on with your cute self!
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for Friday Eye Candy. It’s Jenny’sturn to pick the guys. And she has some really interesting picks and a few old favorites. You’ll see (If you visit tomorrow. I know it is a holiday and everything, but I say it’s your patriotic duty to come by and pay tribute to some really hot American men. Ok, a few are not American, but whatever.)
Good Things
Remember the post I did a few days ago about things that were plucking my nerves. Well, it seems that my luck is starting to turn around. Look what we just bought:
That’s five cases, which means 60 cans (not dreadful 2 liter bottles) of stomach rotting, bubbly goodness. And it was only 5 for $10!! Life is good!
And as if the universe was in a really giving mood– guess what we saw sitting outside our pyromaniac neighbors yard all day yesterday?
We were trying not to get our hopes up that it was, in fact, a moving van. I mean they could be just transporting their stuff to another location to have a giant bonfire. It’s possible. But once we saw pretty much everyone on the street sitting outside their houses in chairs, drinking mixed drinks and smiling from ear to ear we knew that they must be celebrating as well. The pyromaniacs are moving!! Hooray!!
And while I’m talking about good things, I have to mention this bloggy award that I received from My Friend Amy. It is an award that Memoirs of a Mommy made up to honor the donor who gave her son a heart. I’m all about organ donation, so I was super excited to receive this award.
Here are the official rules:
The rules of this award are: SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All I ask, is that you include a link to this post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same**
The only problem that I have with these awards is that I feel all Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls trying to narrow down all my favorite blogs to the select few that are worthy enough to sit at the cool table at lunch. I don’t know why I feel this way. I’m not delusional enough to think that there is anyone out there refreshing their page over and over again waiting to receive an award from me, but I still feel like I’m leaving someone out.
Since there was no designated amount of blogs to award, I’ve chosen three to bestow this award upon:
Auds at Barking Mad
Emily at Two Dogs Running South
Met at Prefers Her Fantasy Life
All these make me laugh, smile and generally just be in a better mood when I read them. I hope you’ll check them out.
Friendship
Make new friends
Keep the old
One is silver
And the other is gold
I’ve always loved this song because of the truth that is spoken in these four simple lines. While it is exciting to meet new people, there is just nothing that can compare to an old friend. These are the friends from childhood who you meet when you had all the time in the world to dedicate to just being friends. There were no husbands, children, jobs or houses to care for. You spent hours talking on the phone and filled a giant box with all the notes you wrote to one another in seventh and eighth grade.
(On a side note, do kids even do this anymore with all the texting and IMing? If not, that is kind of sad.)
These are the friends that you laugh so hard with over the silliest things that you almost pee your pants (and sometimes actually do). They know you almost as well as you know yourself. I’m talking about the friends who will agree to go on Ryan Gosling stalking expeditions even if they think you’ve totally lost your mind and have way more important things going on in their lives.
These are the friends who you can go months, and possibly even years, without seeing and when you finally reunite it is as if not a day has passed since the last time you got together. No matter how many miles separate you , you know there is a bond that can never be broken.
I am so grateful to have a couple of friends like that in my life.
I got to spend a few fun-filled days with one of these “forever” friends while on our vacation this past week. I think I laughed more in those couple of days than I have this whole year. Here are just a couple of reasons for all the laughter (or cackling as my husband calls it):
- After several failed attempts to re-create a Tequila Boom Boom shooter (The bartenders in Mexico that introduced us to this drink must have been wizards to be able to get the damn thing to turn blue) we probably spilled more than we drank, but ended up making a new drink in the process. (recipe below).
- My friend, the yard sale freak that she is, scored this totally awesome NKOTB board game for 75 cents. Is that a steal or what??!!
Again, we just about peed our pants laughing so hard at the game pieces. And to think we thought they were so cool.
(Speaking of NKOTB, they dropped their video for their new song “Summertime”. Yes, I said dropped. You can watch it here, but I’m forewarning you that there is an overabundance of half-naked girls dancing around on the beach with the Kids. They ruin the whole video and I had to turn it off half way through. I have decided to boycott their concert because of this. And also because I am too cheap to spend the money on tickets. But if one of the Kids reads this, it is because of the girls in the bikinis. They really must go.)
I could go on and on with the things that we thought were funny but probably weren’t, but I’m sure that they are those “you had to be there” to see the humor in them stories. Instead I’ll just leave you with our awesome new cocktail recipe that I’m sure will be the next trendy girlfriend drink (ie the Cosmo from Sex and the City). It is a tasty drink (possibly, but who knows after so many Boom Boom attempts-if you try it let me know) and will be the the perfect addition to your next Girl’s Night.
Crappletini
1 Part Sour Apple Mix
1 Part Vodka
Splash of Cranberry Juice
Splash of Ginger Ale
Shake with Ice and strain into martini glass
While old friends certainly deserve their fair share of praise, it is still a lot of fun to make new ones. Even if it is just online. I feel like I did just that with McMommy. She is one of my favorite bloggers. She is so hilarious that I stalk her just about everyday and you should too. From the moment I read this post I knew that we would hit it off in real life. Anyone sneaky enough to try to rid the world (ok, maybe just the kiddie pool) of girl’s wearing skimpy bikinis is someone I’d be proud to call a friend.
That is why I was so super excited to receive one of her awesome Bloggy Friends Forever awards.
My blog will wear your charm proudly, McMommy (although I’m unsure of whether I get the BE or the ST part).
If you are not already participating in her POW Carnival (Post of the Week), you should jump in and play along. It is a brilliant bloggy idea if I do say so myself. Basically, at the end of the week you go through your posts and pick your favorite to “show off”. It is a great way to discover new blogs, gain new readers to your own blog and you never know, you may just possibly make a new friend.
E is for Excellent and W is for Wordpress Makes Me Drink Lots and Lots of Wine
If you tried to visit my site today and came across some Funkytown error message, I apologize. I attempted to fool around with something on my own ( Oh dear Lord would someone please cut off my hands if I ever even mention that I may be doing this again). Well, I utterly and completely WRECKED my entire blog. I swear Wordpress is out to get me. Or drive me to drink. Or both.
For the most part, it is back up and running again, but the categories section is still a mess. (Click at your own risk but be forewarned that, as of this writing, you will wind up in 404 error hell.) If anyone is a Wordpress Wizard and could advise me on how to fix this, I’d be forever and ever grateful to you. You can even have some of the wine I’m drinking tonight, but you have to act quickly because it is going fast.
Ok, on to more positive things. Last night I opened up my comments to see that Amy from Permission to Peruse had given me an award. Not just any award. It’s the highly coveted “E Is For Excellent” blogger award.
To be completely honest, I hadn’t heard of it before yesterday, but who the heck cares. It is an award and it’s MINE ALL MINE. Oh, it’s not really all mine? I’m supposed to share it? That makes it even better! I’m all about sharing the love. Well, I’ll get to that in a second.
While I’m excited to receive this, I’m still asking myself why anyone would want to give little ole me a blog award for the absolutely absurd and irrelevant things that I post. (Case in point–I’m sure the world just about stopped spinning before I posted about Jason Castro and how he would look without dreads–these are important topics, ya know). Plus now I’m feeling all kinds of pressure to say something important. Or witty. Or at least not completely dumb. Oh yeah, I’m feeling all kinds of pressure. Is this normal? (no) Am I paranoid? (yes) Anyway, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, so thank you, thank you, thank you Amy!!
Now on to the fun part. I’m supposed to pay it forward and give the award to some other deserving bloggers. Oh, this is hard. All of the blogs I read on a daily basis would be considered “excellent”. Why else would I read them? Duh!
Alright, since I can’t pick them all, here is who I’m giving the award to:
Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry–She’s probably my favorite of my favorites. I’ve been reading her for awhile now and I have to say that I always look forward to her posts because sometimes they crack me up and sometimes they make me cry (this isn’t a bad thing, really), but they always make me smile. She’s been through a lot this year but still manages to try to keep a really positive attitude about things. I find that inspiring and uplifting. I’ll read her for as long as she decides to keep blogging.
**On a side note: Beth also just started her own blog design business that just launched TODAY!! Check it out here (there is a special sale of 50% off of all blog makeover orders received by THIS Thursday, May 15th). Because I blog with the evil, evil, EVIL Wordpress, I’m not eligible. They are only doing Blogger and Typepress for now. Damn you, Wordpress again for ruining my day!!
Amy at My Friend Amy’s Blog–Amy’s posts are always thought-provoking and well-written. She blogs about a lot of different topics, but one of her main areas of focus is on books. She is doing a Read One Book Challenge which I’m thinking that even a total slacker like me might just be able to do.
Carrie at Stop Screaming I’m Driving–I just discovered this blog and I’m really enjoying it. Carrie has a way of storytelling that is so entertaining. Definitely, check her out! Check ‘em all out. Go, on get out of here.
Wait, one more thing…while we are on the topic of awards (and because I’m way too tired to post a full Idol recap), I give the best of the night award to David Archuletta. I really thought David Cook would blow everyone away, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I really liked David A. doing My Boo. I know it wasn’t perfect and he doesn’t have the sexy edge that Chris Brown has, but I still thought he pulled it off. He’ll definitely get the teen girl vote. In the end, I’d bet my life that it is going to be an all David finale. Poor Syesha. Girl, what were you thinking with the penguin song? And if you are going to sing a penguin song, at least don’t wear black and white.
What did you think of the final three? Did you vote?
Check out more Idol Recaps over at Boomama’s.
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