Champion For A Day

Patti, over at A New Day Dawns, nominated me for a Kreative Blog Award.  How cool is that!  It’s a a fun little thing and a nice way to pat each other on the back.  I’m a champion, at least for a day.  The rules are:

To accept the award, one is to share a little about oneself that might draw the interest of others (and encourage them to check out your blog) and then pass it on. It’s a great opportunity for community building; and to find others who are just as sane (or not) as you, is an added bonus.

I’ve shared a lot this year with everyone.  You’ve heard about my travels, seen my garden, heard about the dogs (and my cats), met my favorite boy toy and our child.  I’ve posted stories and pictures of my maternal grandmother, my Dad, my sister, and others.  I even played a prank on my readers when I used Photoshop to change the color of my new washer and dryer!

Through all of it, I used the words in the daily word challenge (see the tabs above).  Using a randomly selected word has stretched me creatively.  This week, the Wall Street Journal posted an article about how obstacles can actually improve creativity and I think it did help me be much more creative than I would otherwise.  Each week I think I cannot do this, and every week I do.

As for passing the award along, there are so many good blogs out there!  I don’t want to offend anyone, but I can’t list everyone that I would like to share with you.  Here are my choices:

Random Thoughts At Midlife – Christine is the author of “Dancing in Heaven”, a memoir about her handicapped sister’s life and death.  Christine has also shared her adventures in self-publishing.  She posts about so much more though, from coping with her father’s advancing Alzheimer’s to stories about her little dog, Arthur.

My Simple Inspiration – Chris Jones, the author of this blog, is actually a co-worker of mine.  I didn’t realize he was blogging until he was Freshly Pressed earlier this summer.  Chris write about disciplining our minds and habits in the home and workplace and shares how he does the things he writes about.  Chris is a big fan of Stephen Covey and his work reflects that.  He also speaks on a variety of topics, so keep him in mind if you need a speaker.

Good Life – Heidi is a recovering alcoholic.  Thankfully I’ve never needed a program like Alcoholics Anonymous, but while Heidi draws on that for her topics, her blog is full of help for coping with life.  She recently did a blog on retiring your inner critic; earlier she did a series based on Angry Birds about how to handle the people in our life.

Have A Beauty * Filled Day – Christine Young is a photographer and has inspired me with my camera.  The weekend she showed the dew drenched spider web pictures, I walked around my yard looking for one of my own to take.  A different time, she posted a series of pictures and invited us to write a poem about them, using one picture per line.  I love her ideas and creativity.  By the way, that poem is where I met Patti who gave me this lovely award.

White Feather Farm – I heard of Mary for a while before she started blogging, through the blogs of Jon Katz.  She shares her life as she gives life lessons.  I love how she drags topics out into the cold harsh daylight to show them for the lies they are.

KittyHere or There, Anywhere – Kitty was one of the first people to consistently read my blog and encourage me.  She does the daily word challenge with me and comes up with some great photos to match the words.  Her and her husband do a lot of travel and I love seeing where she’s been.

So that’s a little bit about me, my nominations for the Kreativ Blogger Award, and hoping everyone has a good weekend.

Here’s a picture my favorite boy toy took of me recently as I worked on my blog by sitting there, thinking what I was going to do next.

© 2011 dogear6 llc

Word for tomorrow – HAIL.  If you prefer to work ahead, see the list for the week under “A Word A Day”.