A Toast: To Friends

My Blogger Buddy (and darned good friend too,) Skittles aka Barb, gave me a new award over the weekend. The "That's What Friends Are For" Award. Yep, that it, front and center at the top of this post.

What can I possibly say about friendship that hasn't already been said before? Probably nothing new, that's for sure.

But what I can say is that since I've been blogging -about 2 1/2 years now -I sure have met some terrific people and from meeting them, reading the many and varied blogs on my favorites list, I've also made some fantastic friends in the process.

Skittles is one of those people and one who is more than just a blogger, a blogging buddy, but a really great friend. She was one of the first to "discover" my blog and to comment on it. We exchange information via e-mail as well as through our blog posts and she's the only blogger I've actually spoken to on the telephone as well. One of these days -when she and her husband Mike -take off and do another "quicky" trip/tour, they're gonna come here, to good old Pennsylvania and we're going to have a chance then to meet, in person!

What's more important to any of us in life but our families and our friendships? Both of them beat money hands down, don't they? I suppose the only other entity as important to us as family and friends would have to be food. So there you have it -the "Three F's" that come together to provide most of the components necessary to having a good life.

Here is the preface of the Friendship Award:

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement.

Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more, and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award.

Now, I'm supposed to pass this award on to eight other bloggers who, in my opinion, exemplify the qualities and show exactly what friendship is, what friends and great friendships provide to us. Now, this is a tough thing for me to narrow my awarding of this to only eight bloggers. I may have to do this post again -several times too -in order to give this award to those on my favorites list of bloggers who are truly great friends to me.

Paige -of paigeofabook.blogspot.com -who was actually the very first blogger to introduce herself to me via a comment on my blog, a long, long time ago!

Vic Grace of Cariboo Ponderer's Pot of Gold -who is another "oldie but goodie" in my blogger friendship department. Vic's helped me through many a blog problem plus we often communicate too via e-mail and compare notes about all kinds of stuff going on in our lives. (Vic was my first blogger friend of the "international" variety as she lives up in British Columbia.)

Mary of Mary's Writing Nook - Another Canadian blogger friend. Mary, like me, is a grandmother and we often compare information and knowledge about autism because also like me, one of her grandsons is autistic too. She's a sweetheart who will do anything she can to make life not just nicer but also, to provide lots and lots of information about just about anything from soup to nuts!

Mary Ann at A Place I Call Home - Yet another Canadian friend and like Vic Grace, also from British Columbia. I met Mary Ann via Skittles well over two years ago now and at a time when she was actually considering giving up blogging too! Boy, am I ever glad she didn't follow through with that idea! She's a lovely lady, writes excellent posts, takes some beautiful pictures too of her little corner of the world and is also very interested in birding and as such, just recently started another blog too about bird watching. Check her out, and see for yourself how easy she is to get to know and how open she is with the things she writes about on her blog too!

Debo Blue at A Blue State of Mind -Debo lives in Arizona, works really hard at her job and is just about one of the nicest persons you could ever happen to meet in the Blogosphere! Right now, she's being a bit on the quiet side, not posting much at all but if you have never read her blog, go there, do that, check it out and you'll understand why I think so highly of her -not just as a blogger, but also as a very special friend. One very fine lady, that would be Debo for sure!

David McMahaon of Authorblog -David has one of the finest blogs around and is perhaps one of the greatest blogger friends too. Helpful -that should probably be his middle name! He's a terrific photographer as well as a published author of two books and he does two things that immediately come to mind that help the rest of us in the blog community to learn of great blogs and terrific posts with his features of "Post of the Day" and also, his "Sunday Roast."

Hammer of When Your Only Tool Is a Hammer -Need a recipe? Got a computer problem? How about advice on dealing with kids? Or just wanna read and get to know someone with a bit of an offbeat humor at times, then here's the guy to go to for any of that and then some! He was away from blogging for several months a while back but recently returned to informing and entertaining the troops and offering his own brand of solutions to various problems of just about any type. But, if you need a hand, and if he can help, he's there, ready, willing and able to help out!

Terri, Terri -of Terri Terri Quite Contrary - This Minneapolis Mom is also one of the nicest, friendliest bloggers around -plus being a very busy, very talented writer on the blogging circuit. She's been on my list too for a very, very long time now and is just an all-around sweetheart blogger too! Last summer, Terri also chose to have surgery so she could donate a kidney to help her Dad and organ donors are -in my book -pretty darned selfless people, for openers and that would be Terri!

This is just the tip of the iceberg of bloggers who I consider to be friends -and darned good, really, really nice people too! Feel free to check the bloggers on my Favorites list -use the old line "pick a card, any card, my little chickadee" and click on any of the blogs listed there and you'll find not just excellent and interesting reading but really nice, caring individuals all that I would readily say is a darned good friend and deserving too -each of them -for this Friendship award.

Some are really serious, some zany and crazy funny but all of them share the same qualities that make them easily, really great friends!

And if you read my blog you already know I wouldn't lie to you about something like that now would I?