Blog of the year & holidaying too

I’ve left my pages open and peeked at them now and then, but lately, I’ve just been doing the holiday thing: Thanksgiving 1 at my sister’s house with my side of the family.  Thanksgiving 2 at Jeb’s mom’s house with his side of the family.  Thanksgiving 3 with just us and my daughter, husband, and their kids.  The boys, I know, will avoid that as they aren’t kid proof yet even though they were kids themselves just yesterday.

My brother Kevin & his wife, Tamra:

My sister’s lovely mantle decorations:

My granddaughter Vanessa showing off the pretty dress Jeb bought her:

My sister Gail peeking out from behind my mother in the kitchen & Vanessa steadfasting veiling her poor father:

Levi wearing his bear hat & my son and step son, Andy & Stephen, best buds forever:

In between all that feasting, we’ve been decorating for Christmas:

…even Jeb.

When I went to redecorate my page, I tried using this picture as a background…

I was pleasantly surprised at being able to use a gif image at all, but at only 100 pixels square, it’s really too small to use as a background.  So I deleted it and tried various other much larger pictures before settling on one.  But the falling snow, amazingly enough, didn’t go away.  It’s still snowing on my page no matter what background I use.  I don’t know why, but I love it!  How neat!  And it’s supposed to snow here in real life tomorrow too!

Anyway, meanwhile I’ve been off doing things away from the computer, my friend Lori Foroozandeh (author of Lori’s Song) went and awarded me blog of the year 2013!

I’m so flattered!  Thank you Lori!  Now on to the best part:  she says…

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2013’ Award.

Off the tippy top of my head, two come to mind absolutely without contest: http://muscleheaded.wordpress.com/ and http://countingducks.wordpress.com/ There are others I read and like of course and friends here I absolutely love, but these are my drop down favorites.

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there are no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ the blog(s) with their award.

Muscleheaded‘s blog is just so intelligent, colorful, and often very funny and full of great art.

I’m surprised about this blogger for a very unPeeCee reason.  You know how there are all these blond jokes floating about and the blond in question is supposedly an air-headed female?  Well, I’m not sure where I get this from, by I’ve always thought of men with big muscles as automatic meat heads… and this one isn’t!  Honestly, it’s probably an unfair assumption to begin with, but when a person pours a whole lot of their potential really strongly in one direction, you may expect them to be deficit in other areas… like the blond pouring it all into beauty and fun… or the man pouring it all into his muscles so to… impress the blonds I guess?

Well this guy manages to pour his all into potentials all over the place.  Yes he’s a muscle man, but he’s also a great writer, a connoisseur of art, social issues, humor, motorcycles and lots of other subjects, and he’s a really fun read.  Trust me on this.  You all know how picky I am.  Better yet, go and see for yourself.

Counting Duck‘s blog is just plain good creative writing: short stories written in beautiful prose, as much present day drama as occasional sci-fi, often with sly twists and humor built into them.

3 Let the blog(s) that you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the instructions with them – (please don’t alter the instructions or the badges!)

4 Come over and say hello to the originator of the ‘Blog of the Year 2013’ Award via this link –http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/blog-awards-2/blog-of-the-year-2013-award/

5 You can now also join the ‘Blog of the Year’ Award Facebook page – click the link herehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/BlogoftheYear/ and share your blog posts with an even wider audience.

I don’t do facebook groups.  They baffle me and result in way too many notifications in my inbox.  Does that make me a poor sport?

6 And as a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog … and start collecting stars…

Yes – that’s right – there are stars to collect!

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favourite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars! You can either ‘swap’ your badge for the next one each time you are given the award – or even proudly display all six badges if you are lucky enough to be presented with the award six times!

CONGRATULATIONS!

CONGRATULATIONS to the following, here is your first star (may be your second, could even be your third) but it is the first from me!  Each of you carries your own special talents and words of wisdom. Thank you for your inspiration, which always seems to arrive when needed. And do not pay any attention to the order the names are presented, God bless you all!

And now it’s nearly time for the kidlings to come over.  So I’ll talk to you tomorrow.