It's time to thank Colene and Michael for the awards they gave us!

(um, apparently there's a glitch with blogger today because our saved drafts seem to be appearing as post titles in your sidebars-if you've got us there.  so you may have come here under false pretenses.  if the post you expected to see is NOT here currently, come back for it in a day or two when it is scheduled to appear...  if you have no idea what i'm talking about (since i barely do myself) then just ignore me and read on.)

Now that we're back to our regularly scheduled programming (whew), it's time for a TWOFER TUESDAY post and just your luck we've been given TWO awards to share.

Well, we've actually been given the same award TWO times by TWO amazing bloggers,writers and virtual friends!

These TWO are bloggers whose posts you don't want to miss out on and whose blogs are worthy of a follow!  So, please click on these links to pop over to their blogs:  Michael @ In Time and Colene @ The Journey


The Award(s):

Without passing out repeat awards to all the people we've ever awarded in the past (who we still feel are completely worthy), there are just a couple of bloggers we're passing this award on to.  This award, as far as we can tell, represents being True Blue, authentic, and speaking the truth.

The reasons behind our picks for this award vary.

Mike Wood @ Blog of Wood for this post about his leg lamp.  See it here.

Amparo Ortiz @ No Rest for the Lazy for this post on how writing can be discussed via taylor lautner's body (which may or may not totally fit our january theme...TBA).  Find her post here.

Jodi Henry @ Turning the Page: A Literary Ramble for hosting a queryfest which, IMO, was a super fab way to get feedback on one of the most difficult parts of a novel to write.

Brenda Drake because she had my favorite blog design for the holidays!

We'd also like to thank Abby Mindard@ Above Water and Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe for their recent shout outs to us on their blogs.  Please pay them each a visit and a follow if you arent' already.  They're superb!

Last, I'd like to stop for a moment and state how very blessed and happy I am to be a wife and mother who is also fortunate to teach, write and blog.  I "complain" a lot on here about not having the time I'd like to write.  I truly don't mean to come across as a whiner or to complain about my life.  Nobody has called me out on this or anything and that's not why I'm saying this at all.  As far as I can see everyone understands what I'm going through and has similar lack-of-time-to-write struggles in their life.  But, I did want to state, for the record, that being a wife and mother are the most important roles in my life and I absolutely love who I am and all that God has blessed me with.  Yes, I wish I were better able to "juggle" the daily activities I try to squeeze in, but that will come.  Mostly, I realize, I'm just not the best at time management.  I point fingers at everyone else in my life, but it truly comes down to the fact that when I do take minutes or an hour to sit at my laptop what am I truly doing with that time? 

Here's the breakdown:

10 minutes of checking emails

20 minutes of blogging, replying, posting, hopping

5-20 more minutes of emailing/blogging

5 minutes of rereading a scheduled blog post

5 minutes of looking for an image on google for a blogpost or looking for a link to post

10-20 minutes of rereading chapters 1 and 2 and 3 of WIP and striking overwriting

5 minutes of checking email/blog

5 minutes of rereading my "outline" for the upcoming chapters

5 minutes of actually writing the chapter I'm actually on.

Time's up.

Time management and using time productively will be discussed this upcoming year as I make improvements!

Have a great day everyone!!