An Honor!

Tonight I got a message from my blogger friend, Mary Ann -up in British Columbia. (You may know her too as "Smalltown RN" and actually, she lives on an island just off the coast of British Columbia.)

Smalltown RN has been a regular visitor to my blog for well over a year now and we've become a tad more than just two bloggers who read each others posts in that time too - as I feel we've also become very good friends albeit of what others might call a "virtual"variety. That's ok - I feel very comfortable in talking to her back and forth about lots of issues and concerns of all types.

Tonight, she sent me an e-mail in which she told me she had a "surprise" waiting for me on her blog. Looking in there, what do I find but she has given me an award and a very, very nice one at that.

It seems that a mutual blogging friend of hers and mine - TC or Tomcat -of Politics Plus -had given this award to Mary Ann and she thought my blog -or I - deserve to receive it too.

Let me say this -I am not a "mentor" for bloggers in the sense of one to come to with technical questions because as I have stated here in previous posts, I am about as dumb as a doorknob about "how to" stuff pertaining to the technical side of blogging!

But, I do love blogging -very much - and in the past 18 months, have met so many people from all walks of life, from all over the globe too - Norway, Sweden, England, Australia - just to name a few, plus a goodly number of Canadians who I now call "friends" from British Columbia clear across the continent to Prince Edward Island with stops in between in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta -well, okay -coast to coast - to say nothing of now having a blogger friends in many of the 50 states of the union too! Such diversity is something I really enjoy about this blogging thing! To get to know these fine people, to see the beauty of the areas where they live as well - things I would never be able to see or learn about had I not decided one fine day back in September of 2006 to create my own place in cyberspace - my blog.

We come from all walks of life, all kinds of occupations, ethnic backgrounds, different races and none of it matters except that we are all friends. Many of us are pet lovers - some are really ultra-extreme in their devotion to the felines or dogs around them - like Magnetbabe in Florida who tries her level best to save as many feral cats as she can or Misty Dawn in Missouri with her beautiful dogs that she says "keep her sane."

Some in my blogging community are newspaper journalists, some are writers of books. Some are REALLY interested in the political side of life here in the US and also in Canada. Some love to Hike, others like dancing -some actually do lots more physical exercising that makes me tired and my legs and back ache just thinking about all the stuff they do to stay fit and trim - unlike me! There are a couple lawyers among my cyberspace friends, and people who work in various capacities too in offices all over the world. There are also some who are like me, retired or disabled and some parents who work from their homes, some parents who are "stay-at-home" types -those traditional type parents -if there is now, in this day and age, really a "traditional" type parent.

Some of my blogger friends -like my family and myself -deal too with a disorder called autism and quite a few of my blogger buddies -if you go exploring on my list of "favorites" you will find have very strong, first-hand knowledge of this subject. Those who read my blog all the time know that my granddaughter - my Princess Maya -is autistic and all signs point in the same direction too for her little brother, Kurtis. It's a topic that is near and dear to my heart because I live with them -or do they live with me - whatever -so I am around them, see the things that make them just like all other toddlers of their age as well as the little idiosyncracies that set them apart too from other children. Knowing there are so many of my blogger friends who also experience the same issues -some even more extreme than what we see here with my grandchildren - gives me a sense of comfort that I know I can talk openly and freely about my beautiful grandkids and learn ways to possibly help them improve over time too!

And, in blogging, getting to know so many people world-wide, of so many different characteristics -well if wanting each of you to get to know each other too from my suggestions here on my blog, then maybe I am a bit of a blog mentor that way.

And in that respect - each and every one of you - my readers -my friends - are also in your own way, a mentor to me as we walk, day by day, experiencing life, sharing our excitement over happy times, our sorrows too as they also come our way - and because of that feeling each of you brings to me, I am not selecting a specific person to give a "Blogging Mentor" award to but rather, I bestow this on each and everyone of you as you come by and visit, leave comments, e-mail me at times too.

Take it, display it with pride as you all are mentors in your blogging efforts as well as in many other ways too!

And keep coming back to continue sharing -to continue together in our journey as we learn more about our world in this way.