In Time for Halloween--And the Award Goes Too...

          It's an old scary story that I visited about this time last year in this post.   As though dressed in a fancily adorned Halloween costume my blog was once festooned with awards given to me by many of my blogger friends.  I even had a separate page set up for the overflow of the awards this blog had received.

          Then the malware scare that began sweeping many of our blogs at the end of August drove me to drastic measures.  I frantically wiped off awards from my main page and even tossed out the special page I had created for my awards.  I wasn't sure what I needed to do to clean up my blog of whatever links may have been responsible for the malware--if indeed there even had actually been any malware--so I decided to just start cleaning up the whole thing--period.

           I have often struggled with the concept of blog awards and the time it takes to acknowledge them.  First I leave a comment for the person who left me the award.  Then I add my awards to a post and include the  appropriate links.  And then, there are the various rules of the award which typically include listing some facts about myself or something of that nature.  Finally the stipulations usually request passing the award on to a certain number of bloggers which may be as many as fifteen.  But I probably don't need to tell most of you about this since you've received these awards yourself.

         So I've come to a conclusion for this issue I raised a year ago.   Awards will no longer be displayed on my permanent pages.  When I have time, I may still continue to acknowledge awards in my posts and I will come to your blog to thank you if you if I see that you've given me an award.  But I will not be spending much time adding awards and links to my site.  I hope all of you understand my decision and no one takes offense from it.

          I don't mean to sound sour about this issue, but I must prioritize my time and energy to do the things that are more relevant to what I am trying to do.   I truly appreciate the sweet attention that I receive from all of you and I hope that you understand my decision.   The biggest award that I can ever receive from any of you is that you visit, read, and leave comments.

          Keep in mind that I am always interested in having other bloggers as guests.  If you are looking for more exposure and greater opportunities to network, please email me at the address in my profile and let me know what you'd like to do.  I've been trying to have guest posters every Wednesday.  There's a place on my blog for you.

          Do you feel that I am being harsh about the awards issue?  What is your opinion of blog awards?  Are you ready to do a guest spot on Tossing It Out?

WE HAVE A WINNER!

The winner of the BlogWorld Expo pass is Beverly Diehl who can be found at Writing In Flow. Congratulations Beverly!  See you at BlogWorld.



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