Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Just one more thing....my 7x7 blog award and Beautiful Blogger Award

I thought my last post would be my LAST post before the end of the year, but then I was reminded by a friend of mine on her blog that I had some awards I haven't had time to acknowledge. I want to take care of that before next year or I'll lose all my blogger buddies and all their cool awards they pass out!

This first award is from @AMsupinger at Inner Owlet. She's one of my bestest buddies on Twitter and the best looking 98 year old I've ever known..lol. She reads my stuff and I read hers and we always give each other our first impressions, which is the most important thing, I think. I value her opinion and I trust her implicitely. She writes short stories on her blog which are always enjoyable, so you definitely need to go check out her blog. Remember that name. You'll see it on the binding of a book someday...just remember who told you first. :) Thanks for my 'One Lovely Blog' award Mrs. A.M! Love you girl!





So this next one is also from one of my bestest buddies on Twitter and facebook and in my writing/blogging life. @writercherie  of 'Ready.Write.Go' is a great writer, mom and friend. You can check out her blog and see that for yourself. Her talent as a writer goes on and on and I'm sure she will be published several times over because she is so creative. She could illustrate too if she wanted. She's that good of an artist. Love this girl as well! :) She bestowed the 7x7 award on me and I haven't had a chance to do anything about it until now. Thank you Cher-Bear for my award! :)

So the rules are: Go through all your posts on your blog and figure out which of them fit the 7 categories in the award. I know why it's taken me so long to acknowledge this award. This will take some time to do, and I knew it would. That time hasn't been available to me until now, so here goes....

1. Most Beautiful Post: I'm already weirded out by this because I don't think any of my posts qualify as 'beautiful'...so I'll have to go back and look at some of your comments to see what you readers who are smarter than me said.
After looking through some of my posts, I had more than one person tell me that this post was beautifully done. So I guess this one counts as the 'most beautiful'. It was my 'Memories of Sept. 11' post. I'd never written down my memories of that day and it had been 10 years this year, so I thought I needed to have some sort of record of it. 

2. Most Popular Post:  This one will be easy. I'll just check on highest traffic on which ever post..this might be kinda fun..:)
    That would be my 'Summer of Bloggerly Love' post where I swapped with the lovely and talented Michelle Simpkins at Greenwoman. I posted on her blog about love and she posted on mine. Her post was supposed to be about how much she loved going camping and it turned into the camping trip from hell. If you didn't get a chance to read it, here it is. She is such a hoot! Love her!

3. Most Controversial:  Well...I'm not sure any of my posts qualify as controversial. I'm not really a 'controversial' kinda girl, but I'll look anyway. After looking, I found the 'Meme's gone wild' post which involved the 'Evil Panty Meme' that Michelle started and evolved into the hazing ritual for the #goatposse...lol. So here's that one....it's pretty funny, I have to say.'Meme's gone wild. These Twitter people I hang out with.'



4. Most Helpful: Hopefully I have one that's somewhat helpful. I like to help people any way I can, so hopefully there will be at least one post on here that would qualify. I think this one was helpful to a few people as far as considering their teenaged audience. I'd been reading some YA novels while living with a 17 year old and felt like there were a few discrepancies. Teenagers was the name of that post.


5. Most Surprisingly Successful: It surprises me any time I look on here that people from all over the world have read this blog. It's sort of mind boggling that somebody in Lithuania or Germany would actually read something that I wrote. Especially someone I don't know. So I'll look, but to me, every post I have fits in this category. I think the Teenagers post also had the most comments. I felt privileged that an actual teenager (@rileyredgate of In the Jungle) yes, she has a blog, commented. Made me feel good about that one. :)

6. Most Underrated Post: Hm. Not sure about this one either...I'll have to check. I think one of my first posts called, "A Beautiful Day", is so descriptive.  I thought I did a pretty good job of going out in my back yard and taking everything in and then going back and writing it all down. It needs paragraphs, but the content is pretty good, I think. A Beautiful Day...see what you think.

7. The post I am most Proud of: My first instinct is to just say my first post. Because blogging wasn't something I'd ever done before and to jump into this new world was scary, but I did it anyway. I'll have to check. There may be one I'm forgetting about that I really liked.
Now that I've been looking at these, I think this is the one I'm most proud of. It was my very first short story that I wrote for Michelle's blog for her feature, "First Sunday Short Fiction" I'd never written a short story, but I looked at this picture on her blog for a contest and went for it. She had to poke and prod me a little, but with some encouragement from her, AMSupinger and WriterCherie, I did it. Then I posted it for all the world to see...which was WAY unnerving to me. The coolest thing was I got two compliments on my writing from complete strangers, which validated me even more than hearing it from my friends. Deep down you think...they're just saying that because I'm their friend...lol. But these other people...didn't know them at all, so that made this post really special. :)

Hope you've enjoyed this last blog post of 2011...in case something pressing comes up...I'll see you after New Year's.
Have a good one!
Suze

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Just a few days before Christmas

Well, here I am.

I guess you guys thought I'd drown in the sea of Christmas programs and preparations, but I did survive it all. The two weeks before we got out for Christmas were grueling though. They always are. And as I get older, it seems like the drain on my body gets worse, but I just have to say no to a few things in order to survive it.
This year it was writing. I had to put all of that on the back burner for two weeks because I couldn't get up at my normal 4:00 am to write in the quiet house. I was just too tired. I tried to write at night...but once again...couldn't hardly finagle (is that really a word?) a complete thought out of my spent body to get anything written down. I decided it would be best to just rest and then hit it hard as soon as school was out.
So that's what I've done. And it's worked.
I feel more energized and the words and scenes in my head are flowing much better now that the stress of three Christmas programs is  over. To me, I don't really get stressed out for the actual Christmas day. I guess because I have to spend so much physical energy in performing with my kids, that everything else feels easy.


So, with that said, I hope all you guys have a great Christmas , Hanukkah and Kwanzaa season and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. It always surprises me that the end of the year is upon us during the Christmas season. It's just so hard to believe the year is almost over. Overall, It's been a good one for me. I can't complain because I'm alive, walking and talking, with no major health issues for me or my family.All of that counts as a good year.

I don't really like making resolutions, but I do like to set goals.
I've been thinking about my writing goals for the coming year. I hope to get my first novel out there in the e-publishing world. I may try to query it, just to see what happens, but I think I'd just rather publish it myself. That way, all the people that have said, "I want to read your book, when can I get it?" Will be able to read it. Those people have supported me for a long time. I feel like I owe them that at least.
Anyway, thought I'd post a little Christmas cheer on here to liven things up a little. I like pictures and color on here..so this a good way to fill that need of mine.
Here are some Christmas-y pics from around our house.


 This is our house after a day of putting up lights. And having to buy more since some of them had gone out.


My new blingy stocking...my old one was stained and had seen better days.

Cassidy's pink Christmas tree in her room that her aide from elementary school gave her. It matches her pink walls! ;)


Everybody got new stockings this year. Shannon loves her pink zebra one!


So have a good one and I'll see all of you in the New Year!
Happy happy to you and yours.
Suzanne