Z-Blog Award

I am shamelessly borrowing a page from Val over at Absurd Old Bird. I don’t mean to be unappreciative or disrespectful to my loyal followers. One of the things we learn, if we blog for long enough is that there appears to be a nearly endless supply of blogger awards floating around.

On the one hand, it is thrilling to be recognized by our peers. Blogger awards do expand the virtual territory of our work and expose us to many other fine blog sites that we might otherwise miss. For example, one of my recently discovered favorites is Nel, over at Directionally Impaired. She describes herself as: “a bookworm, a runner, an engineer, a writer, and a swimmer.” She jumped into the world of blogging as if she’d been doing it all her life. I suspect she approaches all her activities with the same zeal. Her beautifully designed site is already full of wonderful poetry, interesting photography, wise insights, and delectable prose. I expect to see her Freshly Pressed one of these days.

On the other hand, these awards all include an element of pay-it-forward. It is exciting to share our blog finds with other readers and to honor them with recognition. BUT, after the first few awards show up, the task of selecting new blog sites to honor begins to take on a Sisyphean aspect. You see, while I’m delighted to publicly praise a fellow blogger, like Notes from Rumbly Cottage, I am painfully aware of saddling someone with the responsiblity of keeping the award moving. I would prefer, actually to mention and link to my favorite bloggers in a post and also to honor them in my blogroll.

The expectations that come with the awards remind me of the old snail mail chain letters that I refuse to participate in__partly, because some of them are illegal. And the awards, as they proliferate also resemble the calls-to-action that clutter Facebook. You know the old, “Let’s find out who my friends really are. If you’re my friend, copy and paste this…” Pretty soon you’re copy/pasting all day long because the cycle keeps chasing its own tail.

So, I am honored should you consider my lowly blog worthy of an award, but I would ask that you pass me and move to the next person on your list. Or, perhaps you might think up some clever ways to spotlight your friends from within your own posts. Thanks, ever so much.

(In case you’re wondering about the title of this page – why ‘Z – Blog Awards’ –
I stole the strategy from Val to get this page to shift to the far side of my tabs menu!)