A Little Blogkeeping

I mentioned yesterday that I'm hung up on feeling like I can't blog until I'm all caught up with my blog reading. Well! The good news is I'm down to 248. I've purged a bunch, read a bunch, commented on a bunch, and only have 248 left to sort through. (ONLY?!)Well, another hang up I'm having is that I've been given awards and been tagged for a meme and need to follow up on those before I feel like I can get on my merry blogging way. (And these were from months ago...) So here we go!

Elaina tagged me for this ABC meme... so fun! Thanks, Elaina!

A- Available or Single: Neither - Available only for Gary!
B- Beach or Lake: Beach
C- Cake or Pie? Pie
D- Drink of Choice: Dr. Pepper
E- Essential Item you use every day: Cherry Chapstick
F- Favorite Color: Green
G- Gummy bears or Worms: Bears
H- Hometown: Highlands Ranch, CO
I- Indulgence: Ben & Jerry's Phish Food... I can down a pint of that like nobody's business!
J- January or February: February... it's a little closer to summer!
K- Kids & Names: Emmaline (Emma), Adeline (Addie), Brody... and Joshua
L- Life is Incomplete without: Jesus
M- Marriage Date: September 19th, 1999
N- Number of Siblings- Two sisters: Amy & Abby
O- Oranges or apples: Apples
P- Phobias: Drowning... not afraid of water so much, just the drowning part. Oh, and fish... not eating them, just the touching me while I'm swimming part. I have a story about that for another day...
Q- Fave Quote: hmmm... not sure... (That's not the quote, I'm just not sure what my favorite quote is. Got it?)
R- Reason to Smile: See "K"!
S- Season: Fall, hands down!
T- Tag 3 or 4 people: Loretta, Abby, Amy & Amber ... and anyone else who wants to do it. Leave me a comment if you do!
U- Unknown fact about me: I hate my thumbnails
V- Vegetable you don't like: Beets. Ewww.
W- Worst Habit: I'm a "late" person. I really hate that about me.
X- Xrays: Only for my teeth! Oh, scratch that. I had them for my stupid stress fractures.
Y- Your favorite food: This is hard... ice cream? licorice? french fries? oreos? What can I say... I'm a health nut.
Z- Zodiac Sign: Gemini

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On to the awards!

Next is the "I *heart* Your Blog" award, given to me by Meredith. Awww, thanks Mer! I'd give it right back to you if it were allowed.

The people that first come to mind have either already been given this award or are the recipients of my next award. But one blog I've loved for quite some time is Sarah's blog. I don't know her, and I'm fairly certain she doesn't read my blog, so she won't know she got this award. But if you've never visited her blog - although I think a lot of you read it regularly - I encourage you to go take a peek because it's wonderful. She is a godly woman who loves her family but puts Jesus first. She makes the most adorable projects, and it seems she always has several on her plate. She's always doing a million things, yet always seems to have her priorities in order. I'm always eager to see what she's up to and always leave her blog feeling encouraged and refreshed. I'm sure she's probably not perfect, but I certainly admire her and learn so much from her. I wish I knew you in real life, Sarah!

Natalie gave me this next award. It's called the Arte y Pico award.

When I first read that she had passed this award on to me, I thought, "But I don't even like salsa!" (I don't! Yes, I could hear the gasps.) But alas, it has nothing to do with food. In fact, it's about art. In Natalie's words, it's bestowed upon "women who are artistic in their own right."

So I'm passing it on to the following five blogs:

Michelle... she's a regular Martha Stewart, although I'm sure she'll argue otherwise. She's so crafty and ambitious in the things she tries. I love being her guinea pig with new projects! And she loves to try new recipes because she's a good cook. And basically, I just love her to pieces.

Kathleen... she's always been a good artist with her hands, but now... NOW! She's an actress, ladies and gents! Her art is on the stage these days. Plus, she's artistic with her words. Your blog always makes me laugh, Kath. Oh! And she's an HGTV superstar.

Molly... my cousin is stinkin' hilarious. Go read her blog - here are some of my favorites. Molly, your humor is your art!

Joanne... anyone who has read Joanne's blog for 2 seconds knows how artsy and craftsy she is. My goodness. She cooks, she sews, she writes, she speaks, she reads... I swear she has more hours in her day than most people. She's just good at everything she does, not to mention she always points to the Lord.

Kimmy-Cat... because you're crafty and funny and you know it. Now get blogging!

Now, the official rules:

To the recipients of the award...share this with five blogs you consider deserving of this award, whether for creativity, design, interesting material, or contributions to the blogging community, no matter what language.Name each nominee and link to his/her blog. Show the award and include the name (and link to his/her blog) of whoever presented you with this award. Link to the Arte y Pico blog so everyone knows the origin of this award. Post these rules.

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And just so you know... my Google Reader is back up to 260 unread posts just in the time it took to write this. Doh!