Shauny Too

I realize after re-reading my last post several times that I need to add a bit to it. Mostly I want to say more about the bloggers I nominated for this award. I didn’t do a good enough job of praising them and I intend to try to remedy that now.

I chose them all for one simple reason – they all have excellent blogs that I have read a lot of and they all embody the tenets of this award really well. I want to thank them for what they’ve done for me personally and for the WordPress community with their work. They all engage me in their own unique ways. Each one of these folks has the ability to put their thoughts into words or art on their blogs so that they call to me and draw me in to read more. I have been stimulated, enlivened, entertained and had my thoughts provoked in good ways.

Some of these people are similar to me I think. Others are very different. But they all make me laugh or cry, or see the world in new ways or even confuse me and cause me to question my own views of reality and look at things anew. They all make me feel like I should honor them for their work. And I am so grateful that they are here to share their insights into the world with all of us. They’re the type of bloggers who makes this community so rich and varied and this really is a varied list of folks.

From herbal insight infused with Natural wisdom to Photos that startle and amaze me. From original art that inspires me, to funny stories or takes on difficult subjects, or how to grow a good food garden and have fun with growing things. From just plain silliness and fun to deep insights into the human condition, they all thrill me with the way they work with such grace and ease.

They all are unique and I hope that many people will visit their sites to see them and learn more about their worlds. In a word, I feel a Kinship with these people that transcends the ordinary and that’s such a treasure to me. I value these people so much and I hope you will too when you get to know them as I have. Many thanks to you all for your work and play with your blogs. You are very much appreciated!

I chose these particular bloggers with care, because of all the things I just said, even tho I knew that some of them don’t accept awards and others may feel this to be a burden to them. I apologize if the latter is true. If you don’t want to accept or deal with this award I hope you choose to say Thanks but No thanks, and not be offended by my award to you.

I may be making a fool of myself here but that’s OK. It’s more important to me that I try to explain myself and make any amends I need to make. I care deeply about these folks, especially a few of them, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that damaged or harmed our relationships. So if I’ve done that I apologize and hope you’ll still continue to come around and visit me and I’ll do the same with you, for sure.

I hope I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in re-framing this last post some and offering more reasons why I did it the way I did. Life means taking risks and I’ve just taken one I know, but it’s alright. Relationships take work and we’ve all worked at these and I don’t want an award post to challenge those efforts on all our parts. Thank you for reading my words and I hope to see you soon.

Peace and Love,

Steve

The Shauny Award

I’d like to thank Tamara of My Botanical Garden for my nomination for the Shauny Award. This is a new award and I’ll talk about it in a minute. But first a few words about Tamara. I’ve been following her blog for some time and I really enjoy it a lot. She has a philosophy I can really relate to in presenting her Botanical Garden. She sees them Everywhere and if it’s beautiful it’s a Garden to her. Or that’s how I see it in her posts at least. They are varied and beautiful and cover a wide range of plants as well as other topics. I highly recommend you visit her at: http://mybotanicalgarden.wordpress.com/ and see her work. I think you’ll be very impressed, as I am. I thank you so much for this award, Tamara, and wish you all the best in your future blogging endeavors.

This award was recently originated by Dr. Rex in late November of last year (see: http://hrexach.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/a-new-blogging-award-has-been-created-the-shauny-award-for-blogging-excellence/ ). She saw something in Shaun Gibson of Scotland that everyone who visits his site sees. A wonderful and generous man who researches his subjects well, covers a broad range of topics in his blog, and embodies the principles of this Award so well. You can see his blog at: http://prayingforoneday.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/the-shauny-award-for-blogging-exellence/. I hope you’ll visit these sites and see why this award was created and enjoy Shaun’s work. Shaun says this award is for Blogging Excellence and he chose the rules for this it. I’ll post them now. They’re quite unique:

1. Show humanity, show love, be yourself, don’t be others, don’t gossip, and then share with 10 others.

I try my best to embody the tenets of this award in my life and in my blogging. I hope that this is seen in my work here on WordPress and to those who know me in my life outside of cyberspace. I think these are maxims to live by and they aren’t always as easy to pull off as it might seem. But it’s worth the effort to do so because what else is there if we don’t love, and show our humanity and honesty to others? What’s the point? Being oneself is critical to my way of thinking if we want to be real, and that’s always been a big goal of mine. It’s a constant bit of work but that’s because we’re all complicated people and have many facets to our personalities. I tend to show different parts of myself to different people, depending on the situation. I’m very versatile in that way. That’s why I have 2 blogs on here, one for my world of Gardening, and one for my inner world at Naked Nerves, which is much more intense and deeper in its portrayal of my energies and ways of being. In both of these blogs I try to follow Shaun’s advice to show humanity, be myself and be real, not to gossip and to show Love most of all, towards myself and my topics, and towards those who visit me and read my posts. I dunno if he wanted us to talk about oursleves but it seems necessary to do so if we want to show how we’re following Shaun’s rules. I hope I haven’t blathered on too long but I felt it was important to say these things. Now, on with the program, more or less…

There are a lot of people I could nominate for this award. But in the last 2 months I’ve already received 3 awards and the folks I most want to award this to have already been nominated by me for other awards and I really don’t want to overwhelm anyone, or give an award that’s not desired. No offense meant. In fact I mean it as a compliment to you. I’ll make my list but I won’t be contacting people as I usually do. So if you see your name here and want to accept this award please do. If you don’t want it then that’s fine too. I just want, as always, to honor you for your wonderful blogs and to thank you for being so good to me and to the overall community for your excellent and continuing efforts to make this place interesting and alive with thought and possibilities. I think all these blogs show excellence. They make me feel good about blogging. I know there are many people who deserve this award and hopefully it’ll continue to spread. I hope I help do that even if my way is a bit different. So here are my 10 nominations and I do hope you’ll go to visit them and see their diverse and inspiring blogs:

1. White Rabbit’s Gallery: http://hakescafe.com/

2. Apothecarys Garden: http://apothecarysgarden.com/

3. Palm Rae Urban Pottager: http://palmraeurbanpotager.com/

4. The Belmont Rooster: http://thebelmontrooster.wordpress.com/ (deleted, but I love and miss it… and he deserves the honor)

5. Mix and Match Meme: http://mixandmatchmeme.wordpress.com/

6. This Time, This Space: http://thistimethisspace.com/

7. Cancer Killing Recipe: http://cancerkillingrecipe.wordpress.com/

8. Jane Adams Art: http://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/

9. The Jiggly Bits: http://thejigglybits.com/

10. Bipolar Codex: http://bipolarcodex.wordpress.com/

I sincerely hope that the folks I’ve nominated for this award are pleased to receive it, even if they don’t want it or feel overwhelmed by too many awards, as I seem to be feeling myself right now. I think the awards are a very good way to meet new bloggers yourself and to introduce them to your circle of followers and friends. They help to build the community here by our connections and interactions. I mean no dishonor to them by my way of doing this award. Maybe I’m overreacting but I doubt it. I’ve talked to some of these folks and I know they feel similarly, as do many others I’ve been in contact with recently. I’m very grateful for being nominated for these awards but I think maybe I’ll take a bit of a break from them now. If I get another one I will do my best to honor it but I may just say Thanks but no thanks as so many others do. I understand now why they do that. It makes me a bit sad but I came here to blog about my life and garden, not to be honored for it. I get good feedback from the people who read my blogs and I’m very grateful to all of you who are reading this now. I hope you’ll be back to visit me again, and I promise to get back to blogging about my garden as soon as I think of a new topic… 😉

All my best to Shaun and Tamara and to the incredible bloggers I’ve named above.

Peace to you all,

Steve

PS. Please see next post for more information on this Award. Thanks…