I got a prize! In Italian!

Jen at “Confessions of a Secret Keeper” (which, by the way, is an awesome oxymoron) gifted me with the Premio Dardos Award. I’m going to lift her explanation…

Premio Dardos means “prize darts” in Italian, and is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.

Rules:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to other 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I’m actually not very good at darts. And I don’t speak any Italian that you won’t find on sheet music or on a menu. But hey – thanks Jen! I’m only about a month late in recognizing the award, and I do apologize for that. This post has been sitting in draft mode and I thought I’d published it already. Oopsie.

I’m bad about passing on prizes, I’ll throw that out there right now. 15 is a big number. But I do want to give this especially to Gretchen at Gretch-a-Sketch. She’s a lovely Mormon girl from Utah who has had her personal blog since 2007. However, Gretchen for recently left on her mission, and in doing so was required to unplug herself from all things Internet. But she’s still dedicated to sharing her stories with her many loyal readers, and now does so in the form of letters home that her parents post on her blog. I admire the way Gretchen shares stories about her work with her religion without ever coming across as evangelical or preachy – it’s just a love for what she’s doing with her life.

Rachael at A Sweetheart and a Soldier gifted me with the Neno’s Award for loving blogging!
The goals of this award..

1. As a dedication to those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging

2. To seek the reasons why we all love blogging

3. Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it!

4. Don’t forget to mention the person who gave you the award

5. Answer the awards question by writing the reason you love blogging

I love blogging because secretly, I think my life is interesting and I want other people to agree with me. I’m one of those sociopathic nutjobs who feels validated when people leave comments, whether the post is about pain, paint, or what dress I want to buy. I think I’m a better communicator through writing than through speaking (just TRY and have a conversation with me and see if you think I’m illiterate in 2 minutes or less) and it makes me happy when I can put on a screen the things I can’t verbalize when it’s time to tell a story in person.

And the blogging community. I lurves you crazy kids. I like being a voyeur into your lives and even though you don’t leave me many comments, I know that at least 75 of you per day are watching my life unfold too. In the last few years, bloggers haven’t just accidentally become a community, they’ve proactively  BUILT a community by starting social networking sites, planning meetups, sharing awards, and reaching out to one another on a personal level.  It’s great to be a part of it.

6. Tag and distribute this award to as many people as you like

7. Don’t forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post

Who loves blogging? Doot doot dooo… oh, let me think… this one goes out to my friends who blogged, stopped blogging, and came back due either to loving blogging (I hope) or continued harrassment from their loyal fans (quite possible).

Paige at Life Goes On, I Think

Sean at More Blitherings

There. Up-to-date on awards. )

Okay, I can’t be THAT uncool…

…OR CAN I?

Brand About Town has graciously asked me to hostess a party for their “Girlfriend’s Guide to Gaming” promotion of the new Nintendo DSi handheld. Some other lovely lady bloggers have done these in their hometowns and it looks like they had a blast. I’m really flattered that I was asked to host. And seriously? Nintendo party? Squee!!!

Tiny blip.

“Girlfriend’s Guide to Gaming” is obviously targeting a female audience; therefore, my invitees must be female. And I’m coming to the scary realization that even though I was born and raised in the St. Louis area, I don’t know many girls in this town anymore. Most of my friends are boys.* And complicating this is the fact that one of my two good girl friends has a wedding to be in that weekend and the other is on-call to work the All Star game.

And I’ve realized on perusal of my Facebook friends that the girls I actually consider to be friends (i.e.: I really care what their updates say) don’t live here.

I’m going to try and get the date changed so my good friends can come at least. The other little quandary is the fact that the girl friends I DO have come from different parts of my life and don’t really know one another. I might take the “bring a friend” angle to get the numbers up, meet new people, and encourage mingling. It’s also an awesome chance for me to try and gather some of the previously un-met St. Louis lady bloggers together and get to know them. And what better way to do that than with food, drink, and Guitar Hero?

Tonight I’m going to holler at the girls in the St. Louis group on 20-Something Bloggers to see what they’re up to the weekend of July 11th.**

Still feeling uncool, though.
——————
* Because I heart boys.
** Join my group! Join my group! LOVE ME!

Well, shoot.

My sister’s bridal shower is the last weekend in June. Same as the 20SB Meetup in Chicago.

*mumbles expletives*

I’m probably fired as a sister if I skip the shower. And my mom might amputate my head if I miss it, even if my sister said I could skip out.

But I want my trip. I am selfish and awful and I want to see my friends and make new ones and go shopping and drinking with them.

Doooooom.

Update, 3 hours after original post:

My sister is so cool. I didn’t even ask her about it but made the mistake of posting on Facebook** that I was bummed to miss the meetup. She read that and texted me, said I can absolutely go and she doesn’t mind if I miss the shower. But… I can’t miss it. She’s my sister, my (taller) baby sister. And even if she doesn’t mind that I want to go on a trip, I WANT to be there. I’m really feeling pretty dumb because I knew when the shower was – except in my head, I “knew” it was the weekend before the meetup. So I kind of set myself up for it. Boo on me.

But it’s the right thing to do, and I’m okay with that. I’ll make sure there are swag bags at the shower.

___________________________________________

**Accidental Facebooking? Yeah, and I know I’m not the only one.

I just registered for the 20-Something Bloggers meetup!

(I thought I’d point that out for those of you who can’t see the ginormous picture in the sidebar. And can’t read the post title. You know who you are.)

I very nearly went to BlogHer last year but waited too long to sign up. Registration was closed when I finally clicked over there, and I was pretty disappointed in my lazy self. Everyone came back with such squee-filled posts about days and days of blogger fun. I felt like I’d really missed out.

I’ve met a few of the lovely Chicago bloggers and am pretty stoked to see them again, but this will be my first biggish meetup. Not only do I always love a trip to the great state of Chicago,** but anytime someone gives me a t-shirt with a logo on it, I get pretty worked up. And the thought of the swag bag makes me a little warm around the edges.

Confession: This meetup actually looks a lot more fun than BlogHer. Who wants to go to lectures and speeches when you can go on a cupcake crawl and a Gold Coast night out? 40 bloggers have already signed up, and there’s plenty of room for more!

For info on the 20-Something Bloggers 2009 Meetup, go to the official blog at http://20sbmeetup.wordpress.com/ and read more. The links are there to register for the event, see the proposed schedule, get hotel deals, roommates, and so on.

_____________________________________________

** Yes, I said that on purpose. Google Dan Quayle.

It’s time for another shameless plug for Wordpress!

to Wordpress without having to mess with your FTP. How awesome is that? From your dashboard, just go to the Plugins drop-down and click “Add New.” You’ll be taken to a search screen where you can click on popular subject tags or enter a search term and look around that way. I must have spent 30 minutes on there the other day, just kicking around the index and finding plugins I’d never even thought of before.

My current favorite is called WPhone. It’s a plugin just for you, the administrator, and it makes your Wordpress software work beautifully on any mobile device browser that doesn’t have full internet like the iPhone does. I used to try to work on posts from my Sidekick, but it was freaking impossible. Nothing fit right on the screen and a bunch of background scripts took way too long to load. This handy plugin gives you access to not only write and edit posts, but to manage everything from your posts and pages to links and plugins. Just search “WPhone” in that plugin search box and you can be up and running in two minutes.

Check out my new Guidespot Guide about the next round of plugins!

Over the holidays, I worked with my friend Jenn on moving her Wordpress.com blog over to self-hosting on Wordpress.org. I did a few graphic-y things for her (and I am VERY proud of that header!) and she’s all over the easy user interface that makes it simple for her to customize. We used the same basic Mandigo theme that I use here, and futzed with it a bit to make it a different setup, different bullet graphics, etc. It’s very pink.

CLICK!