This one's all about other people. Makes a nice change doesn't it?! This post has been awhile in the cooking - sitting in Draft for a little while.. (and I'm thinking 'straw' and 'camel' with Blogger after finishing it, and publishing it, and finding it inserted in my blog way back on the date I first saved the draft! I mean, WTF?!!)

Anyway, what I am saying is, I've finally got round to finishing this post! (And have now put it in the appropriate chronological order, and moved 'Change to Wordpress and Get Own URL and Renovate Blog' higher on my list of Important Things To Do over the next couple of weeks.)

Firstly, there's this linky love award thingy... I don't actually know the rules for this one, so I'm not sure how many blogging buddies I'm supposed to link to. And I hate making decisions, because 'I love youse all'. So I'll keep it to one... and given it involves kittehs there was really only once choice. And while I'm sure she doesn't need anymore kittehs right at this moment, I know she's a sucker for them, and she can probably do with all the kitteh love she can get right now. So this one's going to Rootietoot over at Because it Really is Personal. Also because she's a classic.

I also figured it was maybe time to do a Top 10. So this is the rest of my Top 10 in terms of "mutual admiration" blogging. (Rootie is right up there with everyone.) I do read some of Those Really Popular Blogs, but a) they don't need the links, and b) they get outrageous numbers of comments, and so I don't comment (pretty much ever) on their blogs, and c) they sure as hell don't comment on mine.

And then Miscmum (see below) awarded me this...

... so all of the following can and should consider themselves 'awarded' with an 'E' because they are Excellent mutually supportive bloggers. And they should go right ahead and hang it up on the blog equivalent of their 'Atta Girl' wall, if they have one! (As per my real life, the few awards and certificates I've ever received tend to get lost in the filing cabinet, or on a desk, or in a pile or drawer somewhere. Maybe when I renovate, I can get them all out and frame them, and hang them up!)

On with the show! Not in any particular order, because I'm rebellious like that. I hate rating anything! These are my top blogging mates. Buddies if you will. (Which means thay actually all should, appropriately, take the kitty award as well - go on, guys ... take the kittens! Rootie won't mind sharing!)

Miscmum. Karen is a net friend from pre-blogging days, and whose home town isn't so far from us. So close in fact that we went to her wedding, which not only was an honour to have been invited, but it brought our friendship into the real world. She is starting to really 'kick-arse' with her writing and blogging. Coming in in the Top 100 Aussie Blogs, and around #18 of top 100 Aussie Women bloggers, she has a very exciting writing project (psst - it's a book!) she is about to launch. I just hope she has some fingernails left by the time it happens.

Jeanie in Paradise. I have forgiven her for passing within ONE KILOMETRE of my house and not letting me know so I could invite her to drop in! Well, I wanted to show her that I live in Paradise as well, and you know how parochial these Queenslanders can get, thinking it's all 'Beautiful one day, perfect the next' up there and nowhere else. ;) Plus I wanted to meet her!! I can't remember who found who first, but she has become a great blogging mate. Always there with a comment, support and words of wisdom. And seeing she made #64 on the Top 100 Aussie Women Bloggers, other people must have recognised something special about her too!

The Brave. Her motto is 'Fortune Favours the Brave', and I think that's what firstly drew me to her blog, because I really admire that spirit. 'Strauss' is an Aussie who was living over in Canada with her husband and two young kids when I first discovered her, but they came back home just before Christmas. Enough of us hassled her to keep blogging, so happily she has obliged, and I'm not alone in loving her wonderful way with words, this time as she describes settling in 'back home'. We are also a bit of a two-person mutual admiration society, as we each credit the other with inspiring us to get out there and give it a go with using exercise to make us feel better about ourselves.

Shishyboo. "This is me, like it or lump it." Shish is another Aussie that I discovered across the other side of the country. In the time I've been reading her blog, she's actually grown into her blog title as she's wrestled with the sort of extended family issues that make you realise your own 'parental' and 'inlaw' issues aren't so bad after all. Lucky she has the unswerving support of her hubby and a really cute little girl! And for a self confessed shy homebody, she does a mean Halloween dress up!

Probably but not Likely. Elizabeth hails from Canada, and has been an internet mate for quite some time. She's not old enough to be my mum, but she's much wiser and accessible and comforting than my mother! Favourite aunty? No...still makes her sound too old. Dammit though, can't I just adopt her as the family I wished I had .. somehow. Ever since she 'fell for' Australia I have looked at my own country with her in mind, and anywhere I go I take photos 'for E'. She loves her books (we 'met' through an author's bulletin board!), movies, and travel. One of the most exciting bits of news I've had recently is that she and hubby have decided 'stuff it, let's go visit Australia'. Much better to have them visit in real life than vicariously through a doll and alter-ego called 'little fang' !!

The Potty Diaries - Potty Mummy reckons kids have sent her crazy (aka 'potty') too. She's the one who passed on the kittens (see the bottom of this post) so I'll just say that she is a recent but delightful discovery in the blogging world. I confess to a fondness for that unique British turn of phrase and sense of humour (hence my preference for British TV) so I am really glad to have found her blog!

Brissiemum - Another Aussie; I'm not sure who stumbled across who first, but we've connected on an Aussie Mum basis ( Even though she's a Queenslander! ;) ) I think her kids would slot in between my kids' ages. If you click over to her site, don't jump - it's just she's left her music playing. OK, I jump everytime and usually turn it off because there's often too much other noise happening in the house! She's a busy Brissie mum, but you'll get a great insight into Aussie (and Brissie) family life. *Brissie being short for Brisbane, capital of Queensland - and yes, have you picked it? - there's a bit of friendly (probably football induced) rivalry between Queensland and NSW (my home state).

Daily Drudge - Jersey Chick may be a few things that I am not ('Christian', homeschooler, and capable of teaching her kids how to clean a loo!), but isn't it amazing how you can *click* across the world over your general attitude to life (and values when it comes to bringing up kids.) I have to say I admire anyone who has the energy to homeschool their kids along dealing with a few recent, tough household and financial issues along the way. She is a friend of Rootietoot, who admires her greatly, so that is a great recommendation in itself.

Northern Girl - She works so hard, I don't know how she finds time to sleep, let along blog, and if I've told her once, I've told her at least twenty times, I think she's a legend. She lives up in the northern parts of the US, not far, I gather, from the border of Canada, way up where they get extreme temperatures and one hell of a lot of snow. They live on property, but she works in town and also drives around one hell of a lot for her job, and still manages to run a household comprising her hubby, and two daughters - with all the challenges that having a teenager and tweenager bring.

Magic Bellybutton. She's got the proverbial (but creative) 'potty mouth', and tells it like it is, but this Aussie bombshell rocks. (And a bombshell she is!! - don't head over there if you have an aversion to swear words - well, I say that because of today's post in particular!!) Why do I love her blog? (Except for the new fluoro pink text on black that I've told her I struggle to read because my eyes are getting old and crazy with the rest of me, and consequently I would, most likely and sadly, click on through if I'd only chanced upon her now...).. Because she's got the guts that I don't to wear her views on politics and religious bigotry, her intolerance of morons, and the generally unfashionable habit of watching shows on the ABC, on her sleeve! Sometimes I wonder if she's a long lost baby sister that was given up for adoption or something, because our world views are so similar. (More similar than I share with my own sister.) Only she's so much more feisty than I'll ever be! (Oh yeah, and she's from Queensland too! I think it's a conspiracy!!)

~~~~~~~~~~

OK.. I've got to 10 or more - I lost count! - and I've gone waaaaay overtime in terms of minutes (hours) spent on this post. I've got a few other regulars (and new discoveries) I'd like to link to, and I will at some point down the track. But for now in terms of long overdue linky love, and mutual admiration society type posting, as they say in the business - "That's a wrap."

Labels: linkety link