Thanks

Recognition? Are you kidding me? Thanks! (August 1, 2008)

I'm not sure if the best website news of yesterday is the fact that a fellow reader/reviewer/teacher, Megan at Read, Read, Read, has chosen to recognize Help Readers Love Reading! with an Arte y Pico Award or the fact that I know, I really know - with proof and everything - that people are reading my stuff!

So, yeah. I received an award. Peer recognition. It does make me a bit nervous that I can't read the majority of the Arte y Pico website. I don't see any blatant promotion of global warming, demands to trade Brett Favre, or anything else equally as offensive, so we'll roll with it. Arte y Pico. It's art...let's take a peek...apparently.

All kidding aside, there's like a bajillion (give or take a gazillion) websites out there. Thanks, Megan, for choosing to recognize mine.

On to the award rules, the paying it forward:

1. Select 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award, based on creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogger community. The blogs can be in any language.

2. Post a link to each blog so that others can visit.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and link to the blogger that awarded it.

4. The award winner and the one who has bestowed the prize have to show a link to the Arte y Pico website.

Okay, I'm going to be honest. If I'm reading, it's books. I'm not a big blog-o-phile. I'm more of a Google-what-I'm-looking-for type of guy, get the needed information, get back home. Sort of like when I go to the mall. I want to follow the rules, I really do, but I'm going to have to do it creatively.

Since I don't really have a fav-five, I'm going to search backwards through the links of the Arte y Places that have been honored before me and re-recognize the Arte y People who run them. So here are my five links, paying it forward...backward:

1. Read, Read, Read - Any teacher that reads like crazy and wants their students to do the same deserves a link or two. This would be two.

2. Author Deb Renner Smith - Writing and reading lessons from a former teacher...and current tooth puller, or so it would seem.

3. A Year of Reading - More teachers who read. A lot. (We'd all probably read a lot more if we didn't write so doggone much. Consarnit.)

4 .There is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town - An interesting name to start. Ruth is at a Christian International school teaching seventh and eighth graders. What's harder, teaching in a foreign country or teaching seventh and eighth graders? I know where my vote is.

5. Quill Cottage - I found a lot of scrapbooking and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I know more about one than the other. Guess which one? Oh! And the peaceful music has just loaded. Haunting and mysterious. Makes me want to go to the spa.

This is kind of fun! Sort of a six degrees of Kevin Bacon type thing. In six links or less, can you get from your website to one about scrapbooking? Done! Here's a bonus link:

6. Six Clicks: Devin Hester

That's all I got, folks. Whew! I hope I didn't break the rules or break the chain of goodwill being passed along the web. I'd like to thank Megan who gave me this award. I'd like to [sniff] thank Ernie and Bill and Jeff and Sheri and [sniff] all the good people at...

Recognition Again? (June 29, 2009)

Any sort of confirmation that someone is actually reading your stuff is cool. It really is.

But to receive an award from a reader, to have someone personally sift through the gazillions of websites on the Internet and select yours as worthy of recognition, now that's something different.

Even if it's pink.

Now, I'm not against pink in general. It's a legitimate color, worthy of roses, pencil erasers, and raspberry sherbet. I'll even allow for it's migration into baseball, but only with good reason. But as an award, I must take issue. Awards should be shiny - gold or silver preferably - and tastefully named. Awards should not, to the best of my understanding, contain either flowers or teacups, unless said award is for an individual's talent or achievements in gardening and/or tea consumption. (Neither of which I am especially adept at.)

The links above reference actual trophies. Since it is difficult to email trophies, and impractical for blog award winners to display three dimensional objects on their websites, I'd like to display something else. Something that says, "Yes! That's what I'm talking about!" And yes, I'm allowing attitude to trump shininess in this situation. So if it's alright with Ms. Houghton's Class, who awarded me this distinction, I'd like to display the following picture to represent a more "me" feel.

So whaddya think? Will that work?

The last time I received an award I admittedly bent the rules of acceptance, choosing to look backward at worthy recipients rather than forward the award, so to speak. This time, well, "bending" the rules would be a generous description. I'm giving great thanks and a tip o' the hat (or a pump o' the fist, considering the above picture) to Shannon from Ms. Houghton's Class ... and that's it. I'm using books to read and posts to write as (hopefully) worthy excuses. So I tentatively accept the One Lovely Blog Award, recognizing that in order to do so one should follow the rules and probably not disrespect said award's pinky icon, and I pray that some sort of e-karma doesn't come back to get me.