Awards…

The lovely Scarlett over at From the Shores of Introspect and Retrospect has awarded me the Nice Matters Award! I like the little picture of the Cheshire Cat in the picture…if you’ll remember, the Cheshire Cat wasn’t truly nice, was he? I mean, he’s not mean by any real stretch of the imagination, but he does have a tendency to go off in his own little direction, and brings up philosophical points that may or may not be especially helpful to poor Alice. I’ve been known to do the same thing myself, though it’s been years since I’ve known anyone named Alice.

So…the crux of this award seems to be nominating someone who is nice, but not cloying. Someone who has a sense of whimsy and mischief, and isn’t afraid to use both at will…and yet would go out of their way to avoid hurting a friend, and perhaps even a stranger. This, my friends, is no mean feat, and not an honor to be taken lightly. I mean, to be nice, without being too nice? Very nice indeed, isn’t it? OK, so here comes the hard part. I’m supposed to nominate someone. I hate this part, because I love all of my bloggy friends, and I feel you all to be equally deserving. But I’ll try. Scarlett nominated 9 or 10 lovely folks, including Ally Bean over at Tangerine Zest. So. Hmmm. I’ll nominate 5 people, because, well, I feel like nominating 5 people. How’s that for arbitrary?

1. ML at Zee’s Space…She’s a very nice person, and yet has the ability to make the dramas of her life read like a sitcom, with just the right amount of sympathy and disdain for the folks around her…

2. Starshine at the Starshine Report is a lovely blogger that I happen to have met in person, and is a genuinely nice person. She doesn’t often come up with snark, which puts her in danger of being too nice, but every once in awhile, it comes out, and we can see her Cheshire Cat grin all the way up in NorCal.

3. Gina over at Just Another Day is another blogger that I’ve met in the real world, and she couldn’t be nicer. When it appears I’m in the dumps on my blog, she even emails me to check in. How nice is that? Pretty darned nice. But if you’ve read her blog, you know…she’s not too nice. She has her fair share of mischief and snark to go around. I mean, she had a post the other day titled “Crap”. Need I say more?

4. Jefito. He’s blogless at the moment, but no worries, he’ll be back. He’s got a snarky side a mile long for those he wishes to lambaste (aka, Jason Hare, and sometimes my beloved Py), but I knew the man before I knew the blog, and he’s a genuinely nice guy. I’m looking forward to his return to blogging, and I do know that he will have no plan whatsoever to responding to this tag by tagging others. The award stops with Jefito, I suspect. That’s OK. Wish his wife had a blog…I’d nominate her as well.

5. Laura, aka Mrs. Grumpy from I Promise Not to Laugh During the Seance. She’s going through absolute hell right now, and while my heart goes out to her and her children, I find her honesty and her lack of willingness to accept things quietly and move on refreshing. I wouldn’t want to accept it either. And beneath all of the pain she’s experiencing, there is a deep and real sense of a very nice person.

OK, that’s it for the niceness for today. Moving on to the other award I recently received, the Rockin’ Girl Blogger award, which I received from the gorgeous ML. And if you think I nominated her for the Nice Matters award just because she nominated me for the Rockin’ Girl Blogger award, stop being so darned cynical. 😉 Actually, I was nominated for this award back in July, but I’m finally adding it to my sidebar. Groovy, huh? I’m not going to tag anyone on this one..if you’re on my sidebar, and you’re a woman, please know that I consider you to be a rockin’ girl blogger…or else you wouldn’t be there. Capiche?