A Little Ray of Sunshine

I’ve been nominated for a Sunshine Award! I’ve never thought of myself as someone’s little ray of sunshine. Himself thinks it’s hilarious. Don’t think him unkind. You don’t have to live with me.

My nominator, Joanne took the trouble to research the award so rather than reinvent the wheel I will pass on her words to you.  “It is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogoshere.”  (Questionable punctuation is mine.)

Gosh. Thanks Joanne for the nomination. You are my little ray of sunshine with your wonderful blog http://mylifelivedfull.wordpress.com/

I am to nominate up to 10 blogs – hard to keep it down to 10 – and think of 10 vaguely interesting things to say about myself – horribly difficult.

I’ve read these types of lists on other blogs and admired the author’s imagination, ability for introspection, self-knowledge and sense of humor. I panicked and blanked at the very thought of it but here goes:

1. I was The Alien in England for 30 years but I feel like an alien in my own country now. I’m told things move on. Get over it.
2. I am the only person I know who likes cottage cheese. Isn’t that riveting?
3. I love words but fear my vocabulary is shrinking.
4. I’m sure I lived in France in a previous life.
5. I miss family and friends in my adopted country of England. And my garden. But the garden thing obviously isn’t on a par with family and friends.
6. I never take myself seriously.
7. I cooked on a charter yacht in the West Indies for two years. Walter Cronkite chartered that yacht. I can still hear his voice as he read to us each night.
8. I am easily moved to tears. Too easily. It’s annoying.
9. I can’t think of a single favorite food. I love everything I eat. I deserve to be fat(ter). As it is I always have that elusive 10 pounds to lose.
10. I am fascinated by the lives of my blogging friends around the world, most of whom I’ve never met.

My blog nomination choices are a combination of travel, RV travel, photography, history, poetry and humor. I am following dozens of blogs and would like to list them all and have agonized over choosing just 10.

Please visit these blogs and prepare to be amazed:

http://egghillphotos.com/

http://andieduncan.wordpress.com/

http://livelaughrv.wordpress.com/

http://pookypoetry.wordpress.com/

http://lowestravels.com/

http://judylindophotography.wordpress.com/

http://visitstothepark.wordpress.com/

http://gallivance.net/

http://myyearofsweat.wordpress.com/

http://unclespikes.wordpress.com/

I wanted to nominate http://multifariousmeanderings.wordpress.com/  for the Sunshine Award but she had the unmitigated gall to accept the self-same award from someone else first!

To accept this award please:

1. Display the Award on your Blog (nightmare scenario for me. Finally figured it out!)
2. Announce your win with a post and thank the Blogger who awarded you.
3. Present up to 10 Bloggers with the Award.
4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of they are being awarded with a comment.
5. List 10 interesting (printable!)  facts about yourself.

And speaking of sunshine, here is a favorite sunshine photo:

Sunset at Porth Beach, Cornwall, England

Calling all bloggers: The Results Show

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to comment on last Friday’s post Calling all bloggers and bloggees. Funnily enough I had second thoughts about posting it as it wasn’t exactly within the remit of Which Way Now 101 with sights and adventures along the way. However the response was very interesting and the post had many views from nine different countries! I frequently read blogger stuff but wondered what my readers thought.

This is what you came up with:

• No one likes to read white on black. The web page can look stunning but it hurts our poor old eyes (speaking only for myself, of course, not all you lovely young things). A color on a color is tricky too.
• A 500 word count is good, 800 is okay and 1,000+ is a bit much but content is key. We (almost) all keep reading if the blog is well written and interesting.
• Titles are important. They need to be attention grabbing.
• We like photos. They don’t need to be of a professional standard (thank goodness) but relevant to the post. (So apologies for the irrelevant photos on that post. I thought they kind of tied it to my travel theme. Okay, I just made that up) Photos are also useful for breaking up the text.
• Large blocks of text are hard to read, especially on a computer screen. Paragraph breaks make the post easier to read.
• Busy sidebars, especially with flashing graphics are distracting.
• Poor grammar, punctuation and spelling will not be tolerated! (Oops. I apologize in advance and blame any of my mistakes on my in-house editor.) That’s a bit strongly worded. We all make the occasional blunder but none of us want to read carelessly written blogs.
• One blogger always likes the post to end with a question to invite comments. Do you?

Bryce Thompson Arboretum. Another irrelevant photograph. So shoot me.

One more question. Well two for those of you who are counting. I find it difficult to keep up with bloggers who post every day. The sheer amount of reading defeats me and I have to skip some posts. Which ones? I fear I’ll miss that brilliant post that would inspire, humor, enlighten me. Do you feel under pressure to read, write, edit, post, snap, post, like, comment and read and write some more to not offend or ignore those you follow or who follow you?