Friday, February 27, 2009

Awards: Regrettably My Last Cerimony!

Call me an elitist snob, or fill in the blank with some other derogatory title, but I will be stepping out of the bloggy awards spotlight as gracefully as possible.

I am finding the time constraints in writing two blogs forces my hand in this situation. As I focus my writing on very specific topics for TAG and I sincerely enjoy my personal topics on this site, my time allocation is totally maxed out. I have no more time! Likewise knowing most everybody has similar time budgeting issues, I will not be sending out awards to anyone in the future.

I appreciate with no little gratitude the awards bestown upon me in the past few months. The ladies from who these awards have come are among my favorites and I visit each often, in fact most daily. Thank you for sending these my way and I want to recognize the kindness of each of these blogger's.

From KJamama and DiPaola Momma,


The rules for the Honest Scrap award: The honorees are to: A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! B) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap. See above.

1. I am a closet hypochondriac. I keep this well under control through extensive self counseling.

2. If I feel dirt or sand or other particles on the floor it freaks me out so much that I am constantly sweeping the floor.

3. I wore three sets of wheels off my roller blades my sophomore year in college skating back and forth between home and campus. It was about three miles each way. I wish I was as fit as I was then...

4. I played serious, competitive intercollegiate volleyball in college. After I finished I have not played since.

5. When my kids toys get mixed up it bothers me. Also, it took me about a year until I could let the kids combine different colored play dough together. The "gray matter" still irritates me but I have to let some things just go.

6. I skipped a grade in elementary school and went from 5th to 7th. I would absolutely not let my kids do the same thing. Academics were easy, but an additional year of socialization would have been to my immense benefit.

7. I quit working for my last employer due to unresolvable ethical differences. I worked for this employer for 10 years prior. When I quit it was a huge relief.

8. When I was in Jr. High I used to steal my brother's bike to go to my friends house. That was really mean of me.

9. The interior of my truck is a mess of gigantic proportions. It is my filthy little secret. It is where I am a secret slob. The toys, food wrappers, clothes and other miscellaneous garbage inside the back seat would astound you.

10. Since I have not been writing for a living for the past six months, blogging has been a most enjoyable change for me. Instead of writing technical, scientific reports I am writing creatively. I am dreading the phone calls to begin "real work" again.

Bonus Number 11. I refuse to shave my legs all winter long. Not until my husband threatens to divorce me will I cut the forest below my knees. I rather miss my leg hair all summer.


This "sweet and sour"award came from KJamama, Michele, and Kendra.


Do you know that special blogger that somehow finds a way to make lemonade out of the lemons life hands them? They are that certain blogger that is grateful for what has been given to them in this life?

This award was really appropriate since I made a trip to a nearby winery and they let us take as many lemons off their trees as we wanted. Coming home with two bags of lemons we actually made lots of lemony things including real live fresh lemonade at the time this award was passed to me about 1 month ago!

I am thinking that I have made symbolic lemonade out of my lack of work and turned my creative forces into writing this blog and starting The Apron Goddesses. This is my true application of lemons to lemonade in my life for the present!


And from Red Pine Mountain:










Thank you Red. This award has no strings attached and is a lovely symbol of friendship without reservation!


Finally, I am awarding myself this button. Go ahead and black list me. I am not afraid...well maybe just a little. But I hope that all the fabulous people I have met blogging and who's sites I regularly visit understand this one. I found it on Penniwig's Free Graphics Daily so I did not come up with this concept in my own little nut shell. By the way...she has several more styles to choose from. ;)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I understand perfectly. I also appreciate the awards but I just don't have the time to follow thru with them.
I hope you don't mind if I borrow that tag/award free button?
Have a great weekend.
Pam

Anonymous said...

I'm absolutely terrible about my award follow-through. I'm to the point where I'm just going to post them directly to my awards page and wipe the slate clean.

If you think you're safe because of that new button, you're probably wrong. If I have to make sure of it someday, I will. ;)

Anonymous said...

That's my girl!!! I am going to have to go look for one. I would like it too match my background.

Anyway, the awards and tags begin to make you feel obligated. And then if you don't do them, they make you feel like an ass.

I like just telling random things about myself without having to be tagged.

Debbie said...

I never follow through with awards and rarely do memes. I think you are onto something here!

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, black list! Lol! I know what you mean about awards, they can consume your blog! I have a few blogs out there in bloggy land plus a social network I run...so yes, awards are hard to keep track of!

I am a constant sweeper too.

Thank you so much for your donation to our Adoption Adventure Fund!

The Silver Age Sara said...

I know what you mean about awards. The people who give them to me are my blogging friends and I never want to hurt anyone's feelings but they do take a lot of time.
My solution has been to put them on my photo blog and thank the person for the award but I never end up following the requirements because I think all the people who take the time to visit are worthy of the awards.
One person explained to me that awards were started to create backlinks and thus higher page rank for blogs.
I'm stealing your tag free and award free button.
We are sisters in the unshaven legs :)

Mammatalk said...

I completely understand. I am sure I am on the awards black list. I appreciate all my awards, but I am terrible about keeping up. Just seems to be something I don't have much time for...even during this lengthy writer's strike. ;-)

Michelle said...

Congrats on the award. I completely hear you on the time issues. I'm bad about getting back to my award givers. I love the new look of your site. Very pretty. Thanks for the advice on the Google rank. I appreciate it. Hope you have a great weekend Julia.

Lisa said...

I used to roller-blade. I would love to do it again because I was in great shape back then.

Michelle said...

Hey I want one of these. I'm not a big fan of tags or awards these days. There's so much more I'd like to blog about besides accepting awards and tags. I'm I terrible?

The Day the Swallows Came Home

The tree swallows are here already.  They arrived January 30 much to my dismay.  Swooping and calling and chirping their merry song over my ...