A bloggy thanks giving

Honoring the U.S. tradition of giving thanks on this day, I'd like to express my appreciation for all you wonderful folks who regularly read and comment on this blog. The continued interest and very generous feedback have served as a great motivation and inspiration to my odd brand of creativity.

I'd also like to offer a special "thank you" to Jena and Deborah who have given me blog awards recently. From Jena, whose productivity on several blogs (including Gewgaw Writings) and Helium makes me feel like quite the writing slacker, comes the Butterfly Award. From Deborah, who is the motive force behind the Climate of Our Future blog to which I contribute, I received the lovely Lemonade Award.

I'm amazed (with musical interlude)

I was quite pleasantly surprised to find out recently that I was given the Uber Amazing Blog award by Neferiti at The Inspired Self. Reading the criteria for the award, was a bit humbling:

Uber (synonym to Super) Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:
~ inspires you
~ makes you smile and laugh
~ or maybe gives amazing information
~ a great read
~ has an amazing design
~ and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:
* Put the logo on your blog or post.
* Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
* Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.
* Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from

I like using these awards to shine the light on blogs that I read regularly, and find amazing in their own special ways. Having just given out another award to 7 favorites, I'm going to break the rules and share this with only 3 blogs (listed below, in reverse alphabetical order). I highly recommend that you check them out:

• Wonderland or Not - A passionately written site with acute political and social observations. Cooper also throws in some wonderful musical references.
  
• The Uneasy Supplicant - JD is a thought-provoking writer and an awe-inspiring photographer. He's devoting much of his time right now administering the MW Society Press, but still posts beautifully artful photos regularly.
  
• Le Chambre Noire - This is a very soulful site mixing atmospheric photography, music and lyrics. Gaëna always stirs the mind and heart with her compositions.
  

And now, if you made it all the way through the award-giving protocols, I share with you a musical interlude of one of my favorite bands: The Pixies. There's nothing to watch here (just the cover photo of their album Come On Pilgrim), so just close your eyes and enjoy. It starts out with some studio banter then shifts into their song I'm Amazed.