Blogger Recognition Award

Messy Messy Fail - Made a delicious ham (bone-in) for our little Christmas dinner.  Lovely brown sugar and honey glaze courtesy of Liz of the Western New Yorker.  At my husband's request, he asks for a ham gravy which I had never heard of or had until I had been introduced by his family.  As I am using the drippings from the ham to make the PW's ham gravy recipe, I realize we may have a problem with the brown sugar in the pan.  As in it is burning as I am stirring in the flour and such to make the gravy over the stovetop burners.  Nothing like a burned sugar ham gravy.  Fortunately I added some more brown sugar and it ended up being okay, but this is not something I would recommend for those who may think for a fleeting second that this could work.

Tidy Victory - Going to see the new Star Wars movie at a Friday matinee show while visit my family in the mighty Buffalo, NY and we managed to borrow episodes IV, V and VI so we could be somewhat caught up and in the know for the movie.  Three nights in a row of Star Wars movies is pretty fun, I guess I never realized what great movies these were!  Any other Star Wars fans out there? :)

Back in the beginning of October, I'm sure I was losing my mind over something - getting ready for Halloween, upcoming concerts, getting my new beginning string students ready, what was I going to make for dinner that week.  Blogging had recently taken somewhat of a backseat to my family and full time job which actually inspired me to write this post a few weeks ago.

I was logging onto my FB account when I noticed a message from a blogger I had co-hosted the Happiness is Homemade party with.  At first it though it was just a nice "hello how are you doing?", but when I clicked on the link she provided and scrolled down, I realized that Amanda from Amanda Unfolded had nominated me for a blogger award.  

The smile on my face spread from ear to ear, and I made sure to tell her that.

Thank you, Amanda, for that wonderful smile you put on my face.

Oh, and for nominating me, too! ;)

With this award comes a little list of items I need to hit up:

How My Blog Started

While pregnant with the toddler and spending quite a few sleepless nights watching TV, I came across some fun blogs (although I didn't really know that was what they were at the time) talking about makeup, hair, baby nurseries, etc.  It was truly enjoyable to be reading something and not watching another horrible reality TV show or infomercial at 4 AM.  

It was so neat to see all these women publishing online about fun topics that I was interested in casually reading about.

Fast forward a few months later, the toddler was born and with having two children, time to myself was quite limited.  I was looking for some type of creative way to check out and share new recipes, crafts for the kids to create, etc. when BAM - the idea came to me, what if I started blogging?

I knew this would not be a source of income for me, but truly just a fun way to reach out to other people in what I now had read about as being the "blogosphere".  This would be cool, really cool.

And then one night, I just did it - registered my blog at Blogspot and wrote my first post here.  It's really fun to see how much I have learned between now and then!  But I am so glad I took the plunge, thought outside of the box and tried something new.

Advice for New Bloggers

• Don't be afraid to ask.  Every blogger started at the beginning at some point - we all remember countless hours trying to figure out why that graphic wasn't lining up correctly with the text - so reach out for help.  
• Don't be afraid to fail.  It's the only way to learn, and this is one of my mantras for this blog.  You may fall down, but get up again.  
• Keep yourself balanced.  It's very easy to want to spend HOURS editing your latest post, fixing links, etc.  Make sure you first attend to yourself and your priorities.  
• Enjoy!  You will get to meet the most interesting and inspiring people - soak it up, learn and make life-long friendships!

My Blogger Recognition Awards

It's my turn - I nominate the following bloggers and blogs for having inspired or affected me in such an amazing way.  Please be sure to check them out!

• Kate of The Small Things Blog
• Emily of The Freckled Fox
• Ree of The Pioneer Woman
• Erlene of My Pinterventures
• Rhiannon of Insolence + Wine
• Carlee of Cooking with Carlee
• Alli of Tornadough Alli
• Quinn of Dad What's 4 Dinner
• Cathy of A Peek Into My Paradise
• Lisa of Blogghetti
• Robin of Fluster Buster
• Sinea of Ducks N A Row
• Amy of The Farmer's Wife
• Anne of The Fab Life
• Tif of Bright On A Budget

Here are the rules for the new nominees:

• Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Attach the award to the post.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them & provide a link to the award post you created (you cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you).

* Thought it’s not a requirement to participate, I did want to recognize your talent, your contributions and the great content you put out to the blogosphere.

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of information about how this all got started and remember to visit my nominations - they are fabulous!

Special thanks again to the amazing Amanda of Amanda Unfolded for nominating me and spreading the bloggy love :)

Happy New Year everyone!

Click here to see where I like to par-tay!