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Mr. Pibb!!!! (More on Mr. Pibb and our 11-hour odyssey to fetch him in tomorrow’s post. We were gone all day yesterday doing the fetching, so I haven’t had a chance yet to put that post together with all the photos.)
Meanwhile, the 2010 Bloggies are open for nominations!
Suzanne, why, why, why, are you doing this to us? Did we not already do enough with that dratted SAM-e thing? Yes, yes, you did. I hate to ask you to do something else! (Especially so soon.) The Bloggies competition is the longest-running, most prestigious blog awards program on the internet. Winners, and even just finalists, receive a good amount of exposure. (The winner receives $20, by the way. The real “prize” is the opportunity for exposure to new readers.) Last year, I was a finalist in the Best-Kept Secret category. The reason I want/need to do this again is because the exposure of being a finalist will help me continue to grow this website and work full-time on it. This website is my dream. The difference between voting in the Bloggies and voting in the SAM-e contest is that you only have to vote once to nominate me in the Bloggies. (No daily voting! Do it and you’re done.)
Here is how it works:
Go to the 2010 Bloggies page. The page scrolls sideways instead of down. A blog may be nominated in any category you deem fit. In order to make a nomination, you must nominate at least three blogs, so put some of your other favorite blogs in mind and have the URLs handy.
The URL for this blog is: http://chickensintheroad.com
If you believe my blog is worthy of nomination, please help me by doing so! (If you don’t believe it’s worthy of nomination, or you are offended by my request, you are free to not do so.)
I want to take a moment to say why I’m here and why I do this. There are two reasons. One is because I’m trying to make a living as a writer. My work is offered freely and this website is supported by advertising. (Let me tell you, when you write about how to live a simple, frugal life spending little money, that really reels in the advertisers.) I’m just a girl on a farm with a dream to make my living from this website. I work hard! Two, well, two is best summed up in this comment that was left here yesterday on a post several days back:
“I just want you to know that I have been a loyal reader of your site for close to a year now. Recently some major tragedies have occurred. I’m 28. I left my verbally abusive husband, in Canada two weeks ago. I rejoined my family in California after a three and a half year miserable marriage. The day before yesterday he informed me via email without addressing me by name that HE has decided the marriage is over. He’s a cruel man, but I loved him.
Last month I lost my grandmother and she was my best friend. I was her caregiver up until she died of metastasized breast cancer. All that to say that during this heartbreaking time in my life, your website, your blog, brings me so much encouragement. Your simple life gives me hope. I want to move to some remote area, surround myself with animals and be just like you. Your blog is like a little life line and I’m so grateful to you for dedicating yourself to it. It’s your ministry. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Writing this blog is a passion to me. It’s not just about making a living. It’s about making a difference. My little difference in the world. I receive many comments, and emails, like the one above, that’s just the most recent one. Every single one of them mean so much to me. I want to be here, doing this, for you. For some time now I have devoted full-time to this website. (There’s a lot more to it than “just” writing the posts as a website of this extent requires a lot of behind-the-scenes work as well.) As I said, this website is my passion so it doesn’t feel like work. I often think of it like a ministry because I know that in various ways it is meaningful to people, and that’s important to me. On other other hand, I have to support my family with it or go put in an application at Target because I have to take care of my family. Voting to nominate me in the Bloggies will help me keep doing what I’m doing. Please help me if you believe this website is worthy.
You may vote once per email address. (In other words, you may vote more than once if you happen to have additional legitimate email addresses.) Your vote to nominate my blog will not be counted until you receive the validation email and return your confirmation.
Categories my blog may fit into include Best Photography Weblog, Best Food Weblog, Best Humorous Weblog, and Best Writing of a Weblog. You can nominate a blog in one or multiple categories. My best chance of actually winning one would be if my blog were nominated in multiple categories, and if you all combine your efforts by nominating me in the same categories, it will give me the best shot at making the finals.
Nominations opened January 1st and will close at 10 pm EST on January 12.
If you choose to help me with this, THANK YOU!!!
P.S. If you don’t get your confirmation email, you can email the Bloggies coordinator to confirm.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on January 4, 2010
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Jubilantly I will vote for you!
Your such an inspiration, your wisdom is endless and much appreciated!
FYI: My DH loves the pepperoni rolls and asks all the time when I will make more!!!!
~~HUGS~~
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Will be more than happy to vote for you! Even if it was like Sam-e, I’d do it. Because I’m thankful for you just as you’re thankful for all of us!
6:20
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Hugs Granny Trace
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Mr Pipp is so cute. Cant wait to hear about his adventers with you.
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7:54
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I read your blog every singe morning and return off and on all day long!
Your blog has been a soothing balm to my wounded soul after losing my Mom this past April. I was her caregiver because she had COPD/emphysema/CHF and couldn’t do much at all. I miss her with every beat of my heart! But reading your blog sooths my pain because a lot of what you write about is just how I was raised by a wonderful pair of parents. Brings a little bit of childhood back into my days.
Deb
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Thank you for sharing your life with us!
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I guess for me your food, photos and stories are so wonderful….but if I were to narrow you down to what draws me here: it’s your stories/writing. I love your stories. The photography and recipes support your writing. For me, anyway.
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Mr pib is so darned cute! Can’t wait to see more about him!
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And I also have to say that you and your blog, Suzanne, inspired me to leave a disastrous, abusive relationship, as well, and to find my happiness. I’ve never been more content or more happy in my life! THANK YOU!!!
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My daughter of 14 also loves to hear what all the animals are doing on your farm, she will say to me “What are the Farm Lady’s animals doing today?” So I show her all the photos and she just loves it!
Thank you Suzanne for your inspiration everyday.
12:21
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Thank you for everything — I love it all!
12:25
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Oh, elcome home Mr. Pibb. Your going to love your new place.
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12:33
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Suzanne, I voted for you in multiple categories….Good Luck!
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Good luck!
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Nominated you in several of the catagories, and was happy to do so.
I can wait to see more of your new “kid”–just look at that face, dont to just want to hug him??? What a sweetie pie!
JO
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Hello Mr. Pibb!!
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Best Photography of a Weblog
Best Food Weblog
Best Topical Weblog (Country Living is topical!)
Most Humorous Weblog
Best Writing of a Weblog
Weblog of the Year (were you too modest to suggest that one?)
Good luck!
Please do me a personal favor and remind us when it’s time to go back and vote for the finals.
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Suzanne, I have re-read your post several times today, as well as comments left by your readers. I can honestly I am writing this with tears in my eyes.
You have such a great following, they all seem so kind and tender hearted. Like many of them, I to have found solace in reading your daily columns, not wanting to go into details, it has taken me to a new level in my life, and I thank you so much. We all have our crosses to bear and when we find something that can lift our spirts and give us a reason to create and do good things, we hold on to it.
You should feel so proud to have improved the quality of life for so many of us, there is a special place for people like you.
Thank you.
JO
8:32
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Voting done for today. Tomorrow is another day. Nice thing about owning one’s own website is you can make up as many email addresses you want. Discussed this with my horses and donkeys, and they all wanted to vote for you. But see, they have hooves and it’s hard for them to type, so I had to do it for them all. The deck cats wanted to vote, too, but I told them they can vote tomorrow. Maybe the ones with mitten-paws can type, I don’t know. They may need help, too. Just sayin’.
10:20
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Just some thoughts. Hope you are able to get it straightened out.
Could their e-mail have gone into your spam folder/mail box? Did you check it? Does that address by any chance automatically forward the incoming mail to another address?
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Your writing, photography and content are all superb and you deserve to win.
Mr. Pibbs is so cute sitting next to you on the car seat
12:36
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I use Thunderbird for email, so I can do my own spam filtering. The spam folder gets highlighted if anything is in it. Nope, not there.
And I have my ISP’s, Cox’s, option selected to send me all email, even what they think is spam. However, I know they throw some away that they “are sure” is spam without forwarding it to their customers. They have some perfectly legitimate sites blacklisted so I never see email from them, and their tech people are zero help.
I didn’t get any response from the voting site to my email asking about this, so either that got filtered out or they are backed up. It looks like I won’t be able to vote boo hoo.
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I don’t know if that email address is still valid or not, but I do know the same person is the coordinator this year.
11:33
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Would you please consider letting the RSS feed include your entire post? Like many people these days, I follow so many blogs I have to use a reader (I use Bloglines). Only a few lines of each post are sent from your feed, so I have to click and wait on each post. Sometimes, I have the time for that–but only because I follow just a few blogs that don’t include the entire post. And I usually only follow those that realllly interest me. I know from experience of another blog that I’ve read for two years that just finally went to full post feeds: I read almost every post all the way through now, while before I would follow the link only a few times a week (she posts about the same amount as you do). A lot of feeds include ads now, so you can’t go with the losing revenue that others used to claim as a reason not to. Please, please! I love your blog, but I’d love it more if I could read it all in my reader.
thank you!
11:53
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These are called “scraper” sites and can actually overtake your original content in search engine rankings–just one of numerous ways scraper sites hurt the original author. So, I’m sorry, I do understand your request, but I hope you understand my desire to protect my original content. I try to make my posts worth your extra click.
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Good Luck!
Mel