A Little Bloggy Gift for You – Thank You!

Peace.

I pray that you find it in it’s simplest, purest form.

The world swirls around us with anxious headlines, unimaginable violence and hate-filled rhetoric.  Or worse yet, good intentions wrapped in ultimatums and absolutes.

I easily hide in the anonymity of my blog and filter out the difficulties and stressful situations that I face, knowing that many of you face far more challenging circumstances than I ever will.  I find quiet and usually-happy place here and purposefully set aside my worries.

Does it make my blog sound stilted and unnecessarily cheery most of the time?  You betcha.  Is that somehow inauthentic or fake?  Ehhhh – maybe.  But don’t expect any apologies from me.

I am queen of my blog and I can do whatever I want.

In my bloggy travels however, I’ve found some truly authentic voices that touch me across the miles.  During this holiday, I’d like to share a few of them with you – inspiring, hilarious, touching and amazingly human.

So, as a little gift to you this season, here are my top Bloggy Awards for the past year (oh, and I’m sure that receiving my awards is an honor for the recipients – if they even know I exist.)

The Gamut of Human Emotion Award:  Please please please visit “Wisdom Comes Suddenly” written by my not-so-geographically-distant bloggy comrade-in-arms, Lori.  Her insightful writing about, well, you name it, makes me check her blog multiple times during the week for the next installment.  (Yes, I subscribe, but I still check to make sure I haven’t missed anything.)  Sometimes she’s silly, sometimes she’s hilarious, she’s often thought provoking but she’s always interesting. (Also the winner of the I Wanna Be Able To Write Like Her Award, but that sounded a little too needy, so we’ll let it go at that.)

The Most Amazing Teacher in a Blog Award:  Written by the amazing Lyric Montgomery Kinard, this blog award should be no surprise.  Some art blogs come across as preach-y or stilted , but not Lyric.  She is as human, selfless and insightful as anyone out there.  I read her blog, I buy her art through Etsy, I would love to take a class with her.  She’s out to change the world and in a good way.

The HeART on Her Sleeve Quilter Blogger Award:  Another completely inspiring fabric art blog is Daintytime, by Sherri Lynn Wood.  She has a completely different style of quilting as me, and I admit, I don’t always “get” her stuff, but she does something that few other blogs can do – she makes me think.  And think hard about the why and the heart of our work.  Worth checking out, and most importantly, going back to her blog library and looking at some of her “quilt alongs.”  I still want to make her I Ching quilt, and the Modern Mood curvy improv quilt and . . .

The “My World Really Revolves Around Food But I Need to Be On A Diet” Blog Award:  DS #2 turned me on to Punchfork.  He’s so totally into cooking (I am SO not ashamed to say that he is again in the kitchen working while I’m typing away in here) and this site is his, and now my, go to “what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this-package-of-frozen-chopped-figs?” site.

There are lots of blogs that are up for the almost-prestigious “I-Wish-They-Would-Post-More” Award, including this one and this one and this one.  (Sorry guys, but I can only post a link until you all start devoting more of your time to blogging and not so much to your craft.)

I do pray that you find peace, and fun, and maybe lend a friendly hand to be the peace in someone else’s world this season.  Thank you all for your clicks on my blog, for the occasional comment (Hi, Mom!) and for keeping me at the keyboard and moving towards my art-y goals.

All the best -

Chris