Help me with my awards dilemma?

On 2nd June, I received the Illuminating Blogger Award from Two Black Doggies.  Isn’t it beautiful? You don’t have to be a dog lover to follow this excellent blog.  There are some wonderful travel features and photographs, which are right up my street.  Many, many thanks for considering me in this category, Sam.

On 8th June, I received the Very Inspiring Blogger Award from Megtravelling.  As the name indicates, Meg enjoys her travels, maybe even as much as I do, and I’ve spent many happy hours looking over her shoulder.  This award is very much appreciated, Meg.  Thank you!

On 10th June, I was pretty in pink with One Lovely Blog Award.  I’m fairly new to Grandmother Musings and very impressed with the humorous but practical approach to life that she brings to her blog.  Many thanks for nominating me, and I look forward to getting to know you better.

Do you have a time thief?  I suspect many of you do.  As a retired lady with “time to spare” I am full of admiration for those bloggers who are parents and work for a living, yet still find time to blog.  It’s a good job I came to blogging late, as I know I’d never have kept up.

I started blogging to enable me to do something that I love to do- write, with a little humour, about my travel experiences.  It has been wonderful, so far.  The warmth and support of the blogging community far exceeded my expectations.  I’ve learnt a lot (and forgotten much of it again) and made so many new friends.  Every day brings new and fascinating posts to read.

Do you see where this is heading, in relation to my six words?  When I received my first award, I was ecstatic!  Somebody out there loved me! Too strong?  “Liked my writing” is probably a better description, but I’m very much someone who needs approval.  Despite thinking I’m a bit of a free spirit, I’m often guilty of trying too hard to be liked.  So it is with trepidation that I say that the awards system gives me a bit of a problem. I understand and applaud the premise behind it.  It is a wonderful way of encouraging new bloggers and extending their network of followers and friends.

The difficulties arise in fulfilling the tasks imposed by the awards, and even more so, for me, in finding people to pass the award on to.  Very many of the bloggers I follow deservedly have every conceivable award in the book.  But it isn’t always easy to see who holds which award, and I’ve spent lots of time searching through blogs trying to find out.  Additionally there are those people who are averse to the awards system, some of whom display “award free blog” logos.  I respect that, and at least you know where you stand, then.  I find it quite embarrassing to pass on an award whilst not knowing if the recipient will be delighted, or not.

So where does this leave me?  Well, I intend to produce an Awards page for my blog, so that it’s obvious to anyone which awards I have collected.  But I don’t want to bore you all senseless with facts about me, when I’d so much rather spend the time on other things.  If anyone is kind enough, in the future, to nominate me for an award, I will receive it with hugs and kisses, and do my utmost to show appreciation.  What I don’t want to do is donate the time to finding candidates to pass it on to.  I would very happily share any of my awards with all of my followers.  Believe me, I am very appreciative of you all.  A nicer bunch of people I have yet to meet.  So if you’re reading my blog and find an award that appeals to you, I’d be delighted for you to take it up.  Please check out the blogs that have given me these amazing awards by following their links.  You won’t be disappointed.

I’m hoping that you’ll humour me with this, and not shun my future posts.  I did say that I need to be loved, didn’t I?  But that time thief is lurking.

Many thanks to Cath of Show My Face for enabling me to have this conversation with you.  I’ll be back next Saturday, when I shall be more succinct, I promise.

P.S Oh dear- already published and I’ve realised I’m remiss!  I was intended to include a link to the originating blog for the Illuminating Blogger Award.  Not good at this, am I?  Here it is:-  http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/