It's a Major Award! (and it's not a leg-lamp)

“You like me! You really like me!” (Wasn’t that Sally Fields?) I won an award!

My dear internet-fiance, Brett at the blog The Transformed Non-Conformist has granted me the Liebster Blog award! Wow. I’m so humbled. He was the first to follow my blog, and his blog falls into my favorites, too. Be sure to check him out at the link above. (my page greys out links, so scroll over it to see it.)

I take my Liebster Blog Award very seriously. Please bear with me through this intro. I think it’s an important distinction. [and your German tutelage for the day] “Liebster” is usually translated as “favorite” or possibly “dear” or “dearest”, but I took several years of German, and see the root “Liebe” which means love, so to me a better word is “beloved”. The suffix “-ster” means “most”. A something-meister is the greatest at whatever the “something” is. (think “maestro”=”meister”) Some bloggers are genuine “word-meister”s: masters of word-usage.

Liebe (love)

+ the superlative suffix –ster (truncated meister)

= “most loved”.

Ja wohl.

(to my German reader(s), correct me, please, if I’m out of line here.)

Who, oh who, are my most beloved blogs? First there are some rules.

1.       Link back to the person who nominated me. (check) Hi Brett!

2.       Award five of my own “Liebster Blogs” and notify them on their blogs.

2a. My five nominees must have fewer than 200 followers each.

I am a rule-follower. However, not all of my most-loved blogs post their follower-numbers on their page. What to do? Besides, those numbers may be skewed; I haven’t officially linked as “follower” to all the blogs I follow…actually, I don’t think I’m technically a “follower” of the Transformed Non-Conformist! But I keep a written list, check in regularly, and if I’m enjoying a blog consistently, I add it to my blog-roll. Although I have an awfully long written list, so my blogroll would probably sink the internet if I added all of you, my Liebsters! [German lesson II: That should really be "Liebschen" which means a person who is beloved, but I'm sticking with Liebster because it's funnier. Ja wohl.]

Of those blogs I check regularly, I first want to mention Sara’s blog Sarasaur-Tangled Skein. I’ve linked to her in a post earlier, just because I love her. Sara doesn’t post often, but the girl is a genuine nut – like me. Her posts are off-the-wall funny, or deeply heartfelt, or both. She doesn’t have it easy, but seems to deal with things through humor, which is always a good thing. As I said before, if I’m ever in her direction, I’m taking this Liebster out for coffee (or something). Stop by and give her some love!

I don’t know how I found A Holly with Follies – probably trolling ya’ll’s comment sections. Holly lives on a farm she and her husband are renovating, and she describes in vivid detail some of the pride and pitfalls that go along with it… in addition to general stuff about horrible winter weather and video games and pet-issues. But...CRACK ME UP! OMG you MUST read her recent post about the guinea-hens. p.s. she posts a warning up front that she swears on her blog, but she really doesn’t do it as much as some others I love.

I regularly check the blog Confessions of a Cornfed Girl to see what Johi is up to. I admit I feel a sort of kinship with her because I, too, was a Cornfed Girl from Iowa right up until the summer I turned 10 and my family moved to the other side of the world. (literally. Sri Lanka. Check it out on a globe – couldn’t be further from Iowa and still be on the planet!) But you don’t need to be a Cornfed Girl to get it. She writes about her life with her husband and sons in Colorado, continually poking fun at herself and the craziness around her. I enjoy her stylings, and obviously I’m not alone, since she’s pretty close to the max number of followers for this award.

Here, I get into a grey area. My next two nominees do not post their follower-numbers. I can’t believe their numbers are small, but perhaps just small enough. I leave it to the gods of the internet to determine if I am in violation of the rules.

Misty over at Misty’s Laws includes a lot of funny photos of crazy people/things she sees daily. She is the original cameraphone-ninja! Check out her Weekly Whacked, if you can’t get to her site more often than that. Also, I just double-checked to see if her follower-numbers were suddenly posted, and today is her birthday! Misty, since I won’t send you my killer-bunny stapler for your birthday, just know that you are one of my Liebster Blogs! (I hope it’s a better present than a stapler.)

And last but not least I nominate Kendall at This is Not That Blog. She’s one of those blog-artistes who draws her blog…with skill and humor.  The ideas that come out of her mind are best rendered graphically, it would appear. Go on, check it out…randomly click into her archives. You’ll love it. Especially with St. Patrick’s Day coming, find her “Leprechaun Bingo” and maybe we can get a blogosphere-wide bingo game going this year!

As I said, there are others that I check on regularly, too, but for non-professional writers with under 200 followers, these five are truly "liebster"! I hope you think so, too.