Blogging Community

Share Your World 2016 – Week 30

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Cee’s “Share Your World” challenges are a good way to get to know other bloggers better. If you’d like to participate just follow the link to her site and get the details.

GLOBE WITH SMILEY

Question # 1: Do you prefer a bath or shower?

A shower. I feel much cleaner after a shower than after a bath, and showers are quicker.

Question # 2: If you had an unlimited shopping spree at only one store, which one would you choose? 

Well, since we’re supposing/wishing/ imagining, I’ll have to say that the store I would CHOOSE is one that no longer exists. My favorite store in the whole world was a huge department store in Nashville, Tennessee for many years. When I was much younger, my family and I lived in Nashville, and one of our favorite treats was shopping at Harvey’s Department Store.

Naturally, they had some of everything — except foods such as fresh meat, produce, and dairy.They did have food gifts, however. And, of course, they had a ‘bargain basement’ for the shoppers who wanted merchandise that was more economical. We generally shopped in all the departments, depending on our needs or our current financial situation.

In the basement, they also had the most terrific lunch counter. It was a complete square, centered around the open kitchen area so that customers could watch their food being prepared. They had the best chicken salad sandwiches!

There was also another restaurant on the fourth floor, but it was a fairly high class place. Called the Carousel Room, it offered an enormous variety on the menu, and it was famous for it’s special recipe apple pie. The name was chosen because Fred Harvey, the stores creator, had a special love for carousels and carousel horses. In fact the carousel horse was his trademark. Gaily decorated horses, purchases from a number of retired carousel owners throughout the country, adorned the front of the store just above the awnings and also decorated several areas throughout the interior of the store.

Some of my fondest memories with my family are connected with our shopping excursions at Harvey’s, and I wish so much that it still existed so that I could shop there again.

Question # 3: If you could be one age for the rest of your life, what age would that be?

Forty-seven

Question # 4: List at least five movies that cheer you up.

  1. Desk Set
  2. It’s A Wonderful Life
  3. The Bishop’s Wife
  4. Christmas In Connecticut
  5. You’ve Got Mail
  6. My Future Boyfriend

    (I guess you noticed that 4 out of the 6 are Christmas movies. Can’t help it. Whenever I’m feeling a little blue, I generally put on Christmas movies and Christmas music. Cheers me up every time.)

Bonus Question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week ahead?

I’m very grateful for all the people who have been willing to give me rides to so many places while I am without a car. Even looking for a new car requires help from someone to take me from dealer to dealer. So the generosity of my family and friends is a great blessing right now.

This coming week I am looking forward to trying out a new hairstylist. Normally, the thought of having to change stylists and find someone new who will do what I want and need where color and cuts are concerned would make me a little edgy. But ever since I talked with the gentlemen who owns a new salon in my hometown, I have felt very positive about him. So I’m expecting good things. Who knows: I may actually be beautiful when I leave there!!!

 

 

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Special Award To Cee Neuner

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
CAMERA CLIP ART - PINK w. text
This post is specifically to give a special (no-rules-attached) award to blogging photographer Cee Neuner for her creative-fun photo  of a roll of toilet paper.
Now admittedly, I am presenting this award with “tongue in cheek,” but Cee is an extremely talented photographer, and if you have not visited her site, you should. Her work is fantastic, and I think she deserves recognition. Besides, the funny side of me just could not resist making special note of work that goes into realms most photographers leave untested.
You’ll find the photo, along with others, at the link connected to her name above.

And as stated in parentheses, there are absolutely no rules attached with this award. I do not believe in awards with rules, because the person receiving that honor has already earned it fully.

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LET’S TALK — ABOUT BLOG AWARDS

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

CLOSE-UP WEB - SANDY # 1Hey, Blogging Friends, I’d like to do some straightforward talking about blog awards.  During my time at WordPress, I have been the happy recipient of a number of awards and have gladly passed them on to other very worthy bloggers. And just this past week two other blogging friends graciously nominated me for new awards:
Gerry at http://cobbies69.wordpress.com/  and
LubbyGirl at  http://remissionary.wordpress.com/.

I had just finished the very involved tasks of following the rules of accepting an award two weeks prior to that, and I simply did not have the time — with all my other online responsibilities — to accept and follow all of the rules accompanying those two new ones. I felt bad, but — you know what — the truth is that I should not have to feel bad, because the problem here is not of my making.

I’ve found that several of my blogging friends are in the same situation. And most of those people have felt terribly frustrated because they do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings by turning down the award or by explaining their own feelings. A few have already determined to just turn down any awards at all because they know they cannot deal with all the work involved. So I’ve decided that it’s time we see these facts in black and white here on our WordPress platform.

It’s not that we are not honored to be considered so kindly by our peers. It’s just that there is an inordinate amount of work involved in acceptance rules: answering all the questions, determining who should be a new recipient, visiting every one of their blogs to scour them carefully to make sure they do not already have that award, notifying them, and then making sure to put a link to everyone’s site on our own. It is not that those bloggers are not worth that effort. That is not the case.  The point is, quite frankly, that the awards themselves are not worth all that effort.  And here’s why I feel that way.

While I understand that the idea of passing on the awards and posting the links is based on the attempt to help us get to know more bloggers and interact with them, the truth is that if any person is worthy of an award — for any reason — then he is worthy of receiving that award without having to perform any other tasks in order to accept it. He either earned the award or he did not. Period. And there are many other ways to encourage bloggers to interact with new bloggers. Some of us have simply posted lists of several blogs that we find worthy of attention and encouraged others to visit them. Or we re-blog articles from other sites. That accomplishes the same purpose without causing the bloggers themselves to have to “work” for the honor we’ve paid them. They have already done that.

I’m never sure who originated these awards. And everyone who receives an award feels obligated to keep obeying every rule, so the people we have received awards from in the past year probably have nothing at all to do with making those rules. It’s worth stating again that I feel sure that the original awarders had in mind trying to get more interaction among folks in the blogging family. But people who become very popular in that family sometimes find themselves with so many awards that they have no time for their own blogging responsibilities because of having to do all the work involved in accepting those awards. Well, I think it’s time we admitted that this situation is based on faulty reasoning and needs to be changed.

So — hoping that all of you can understand my heart in this matter — I am announcing that, as of today, I am not going to be accepting any more awards that require me to comply with a list of rules and extra work in order to receive them. The problem  has to stop somewhere, and for me it stops here. However, I fully intend to continue promoting blogs that I find a blessing and encouraging others to visit them. And, frankly, I have in mind a couple of awards that I want to grant to others in the future, but they will be in honor of the fine work they are already doing — without requiring anything else of them.

Please know that I am truly grateful to all of you who have considered me worthy of an award. And please be assured that, if I nominated you for awards, it was because I genuinely believed you deserved them. However, I will not be accepting or passing on any future award unless it is one that has no strings attached.

Please feel free to comment in agreement or disagreement and let others know how you feel on the subject.
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