Dirty Little Secret

Er, not trying to be conceited or anything (as shown by my modest title) but I got ANOTHER award.

Jill at Caffeine Court gave me this award for this post. If you haven’t discovered Jill yet, you should check out her blog. She’s really funny and she obviously has great taste (except for wearing her tennis skirts mid-winter, but then again, no one is perfect). This isn’t a pass the love on kind of award, it’s Jill’s list of great posts for the week. I’m so excited to be on it, I can’t even tell you. I don’t think I’ve ever made it onto a great posts list before. Thank you so much, Jill!

But I will say that as soon as I can figure out how to make a cool Jerseygirl icon I’m going to start my own favorite posts list. Because I love to steal other people’s cool ideas and all.

In other Jerseygirl news, I just want to report that I STILL SAW CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON TODAY. It’s February 1st, right? My blog stats calendar isn’t wrong, is it? Speaking of blog stats, how come no one ever told me how comprehensive and addictive the WordPress stats are? Blogger people, seriously, it is worth it to transfer to WordPress for the stats alone. Although I should probably stop checking them every hour, right?

So a new reader, LunaNik from Secrets of a Black Heart, has given me an award. I am so flattered. Especially since she compared my blog to heroin, which she totally meant as a compliment. She is cool like that. Anyway, here it is:

I so love getting awards. Not only does it mean that at least one person out there likes me, it also means I get to pass the award on. I get to spread the love. . .just like my award says! (Yes, I know I just said I was passing it on, but much like a former Miss America clinging to her crown, there’s a part of me that wants to show off just one more time) Anyway, there are so many people I could give this award to - I read a lot of blogs and pretty much all of them deserve this award. But then I realized the work involved in giving the award to everyone I know in blogland and decided to narrow the list down a bit.

So then I thought about giving this award to the blogs that are my heroin. But I pretty much always give those blogs awards. And it’s not that I don’t still love all my favorites, but I thought maybe this time I would share the love with some newer reads.

So Many Birds, Just One Stone A fairly new blogger, but any young woman with a crush on Gene Kelly has got to be cool.

Diary of a Modern Matriarch Thought provoking posts mixed in with lots of humor.

I could keep going. But these are my two newest favorites (that I think will actually appreciate the award, I know some of the big-time bloggers get awards all the time and find them a challenge, not a pleasure).

I have more to write about our trip to KC but I really wasn’t feeling it today. I wasn’t planning on writing at all today. And then I got this:

The fantastic and prolific Wordvixen tagged me with it. Probably simply because she knows that I need a lot of validation and that I thrive on awards and memes. I am flattered. Actually. . .wait, what’s better than flattered? Honored? Then I’m honored. Because this is a WRITING award. From the amazing Shameless Lions Writing Circle. After receiving it, I am supposed to give you three writing tips and then pass it on to five other bloggers.

I don’t feel qualified to give anyone writing tips, to be honest. But if I waited until I felt qualified to do something before actually doing it, Ironflower would still be in the womb. So without further over-explanation:

Writing Tips from Jerseygirl

1. READ. READ. READ. Read anything and everything. Magazines, newspapers, blogs, novels, essays, short stories, poems, comic books, graphic novels - they all count. Though I recommend finding the best of anything and everything.

2. Read your writing OUT LOUD. It’s probably better to read it out loud to other people, but since I have a hard time with that I don’t feel right suggesting it. So I’ll just say, read it out loud to yourself.

3. Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within .

And now for the fun part. . .passing the love on!

1. Leslie at My Mommy’s Place. C’mon, you knew I was going to tag her, didn’t you? I think she’s an amazing writer. And she needs a little pick-me-up today anyway.

2. Anglophile Football Fanatic. She always makes me laugh. Her post about her in-laws? Hysterical.

3. Life As I Know It. More funny stuff that I love to read.

4. Karly at Wiping Up Snot. Yep, more funny. I like funny. And Karly’s attitude is VERY funny.

5. I can’t NOT tag Merry at Mom and More. Because she is a great writer. (and sometimes she’s really funny, too).

Sara over at Suburban Oblivion (you read her, right?) mentioned the 2007 Performancing Blog Awards on her site and I thought I would do the same. Not only because it’s the perfect excuse for a short post, either. Once you register, you can nominate any of the wonderful bloggers you know and make someone very happy this Christmas season. For free.

Go here and nominate your favorite bloggers.

Jess from The SUV Driving Bitch Your Mother Warned You About (yeah, I totally started reading her because I thought her title was AWESOME) gave me an award last week. The SUV Bitch award, to be precise. I’m so flattered, especially since I only drive a Subaru. Anyway, you should go check out her blog - she’s got a a great dry wit and she always makes me laugh.

Thank you, Jess! I love awards and memes and stuff - especially when I’m sick. It cheers me up immensely and gives me a blog topic. Yay!

So, I didn’t post here yesterday. I’ve decided, for my own personal happiness, that as long as I post in at least one of my blogs each day I’m still keeping to the spirit of NaBloPoMo. So there. I have NOT flaked out.

Anyhow, the reason that I didn’t post yesterday is that I’ve been feeling sort of unmotivated. And I was reading Alison Weir’s new novel (she normally writes really fascinating historical non-fiction but she now has a fictional account of Lady Jane Grey). I highly recommend Alison Weir to any history dorks out there.

And then, this morning I was even more grouchy. I stayed up too late finishing the Weir novel so I am both tired and sad that I’ve finished the novel. I check my email and find a note from the fabulous Leslie at MyMommy’sPlace; she has something for me on her blog. If the blogosphere were a neighborhood, I SO would have skipped over there.

Anyway, not only did she say wonderful things about me in thanks for me giving her an award, she also gave ME one. It’s this one, which I have to admit is one that I never expected to get.

Though I guess I am nice to other bloggers. But that’s ’cause I actually like other bloggers. Possibly because I can imagine them all having stains on their shirts too, instead of being all perfect and aloof like people seem around here. Or maybe it’s because people who choose to blog tend to be my kind of people. Anyway, Leslie is definitely my kind of people and I really wish I could go to playgroup with her.

*Sigh*

Anyway, I guess it is now my duty to pass this award on. Since I can’t just turn around and give it back to Leslie (though tempting, that smacks of laziness and clique-i-ness, and I hate that), I would like to present it to Silken. I think she really is one of the nicest people on the web, plus she has a lot of interesting blogs. I always learn something new when I read her blogs. She is also really sweet and kind, so that totally makes her deserving of this award.

I feel so cool right now. Marci from The Myriad Musings of Marci has given me this award! And considering that she’s the creator of the award, I think that’s pretty damn cool. (Not that I’m opposed to accepting awards from people who haven’t actually created them, of course, I pretty much embrace all awards, except for the ones with “worst” in the title). Anyway, if you’ve never read Marci, you should go on over and check her out. She’s an amazingly upbeat person with a great perspective.

Now, one of the things about accepting this award is that I also get to pass it on.

There are so many wonderful women on the web. I could just copy every one in my “Blogs to Read” folder, and I would, except that I’m lazy. And my folder is HUGE. Please know that if I read you, I do think you deserve this award. (Unless you’re a guy, in which case you’re outta luck, sorry) But I’m officially giving it to:

Leslie at My Mommy’s Place. She is one of the funniest women on the web. She is also one of the kindest. If you haven’t read her blog, head over there RIGHT NOW. (But don’t forget to come back here some time).