Awards!

The divine Madame Meow at A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm, one of my favorite blogs, presented me with two blog awards, and these are the best kind, the kind you pass on. I want to thank Mme. Meow, who honors me more than my sporadic blogging really deserves, but I will use this moment as an inspiration to be good, bloggily speaking.

Brilliant Weblog is a prize given to sites and blogs that are smart and brilliant both in their content and their design. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogsphere.

First, here are the rules:

1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back.
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog'.
4. And then we pass it on!

I don't know if I even read seven blogs these days, since a number of my friends no longer maintain blogs. But this is a good opportunity to mention all the bloggers in my blogroll, in alphabetical order by blog title.

Arrow Through the Sun is a blog by my friend Ben, who is a Christian and a biology professor. He writes book reviews and posts about his (very cute) sons, but the main focus of his blog is about the intersection of science and religion, and he writes the most thoughtful things on that topic I've ever read. I still have to go and read all the way through his Eight Days of Creation, but you should race me to it.

Bleisenblog is a fun, witty, and well-written blog mainly about adventures in raising a two-year-old. It gives me some idea of what life will be like 13 months from now. For example, from today's entry it appears we should not bring our daughter out in public. Well, Justin's 3L should be fun.

Blue Words is a new addition to my blogroll, by a grad-student-turned-law-student (hmm) and a fellow accessory junkie.

Deanna's Corner is by my friend of 15 years and is one of the quintessential mommy blogs. It gives me some idea of what life will be like when I have two of these kid-creatures. Deanna also gets special props for consistency, a quality I notably lack.

De Re Coquinaria doesn't count because it's the long-neglected cooking blog I share with Deanna, but it's on the blogroll and you might wonder why if I didn't mention it.

Pastoral Musings from Rain City is by the pastor of my old church in Seattle. I miss Seattle, and my old church, and Pastor Richard.

Honorable mention to Aufhebung, by Scott Becker, the former assistant pastor at my old church in Seattle, who passed away from cancer last year. The last few posts are amazing, especially "The Madman of West Covina." I guess I have never been close to anyone who died who was not, you know, old and supposed to die rather soon, so it is something to read a blog by someone who is dying and has profound thoughts about what that means (being a pastor and an ethicist, as he was). And honorable mentions also to my friends who no longer have blogs, and others who blog anonymously. You know who you are. And if somehow I forgot someone, I apologize and please do not take it personally that I included people who are not currently blogging and not you.




This one speaks for itself, doesn't it? Since it has no set limit of recipients, and Madame Meow gave it to everyone to whom she gave the Brilliant Weblog award, I will do the same. Because you are all awesome. Yay!