I’m sort of speechless.  Steaming mad at my teenage son right now (different story), but still speechless and very grateful for the blogging universe.

My “Register to Vote” post, which was Freshly Pressed, has opened the doors to hundreds of new readers and followers and the wonderful blogs that belong to many of them.  I love visiting these blogs. I can’t believe I got an ounce of my real work done this past few days because I have been so obsessed with checking my blog and visiting others who visited mine.  So many great comments and likes, I just wanted to eat it all up at once.  My head almost got bigger. I am officially off the Freshly Pressed page now, so things are starting to get back to a new normal of sorts.

I so appreciate all of my new followers and readers who found me through Freshly Pressed.  Also my loyal followers who knew me before my three days of fame. I invite you to continue following and reading, as I promise to entertain you on some days and make you think on others.

More gratitude (I’m sounding like a broken record here) – I have also been honored with two awards from fellow bloggers whose blogs I truly enjoy and whose feedback is always positive and fun.  One award is the Addictive Blog award given to me by http://fortyteencandles.com and the other is the So Sweet award, given to me by http://thefurfiles.wordpress.com.  You should check them out. This blog award thing is new to me so I’m not exactly sure if there is something specific I am supposed to do or reveal, so someone let me know if this is the case. For now, I am simply expressing my gratitude for these awards, for my readers, my followers and the great blogs I get to visit each day, and paying it forward.

I close by giving a shout out and the award of their choice – either Addictive Blog or So Sweet Blog – to a few of  blogs I am loving.  Here are just a few (please accept either award):

http://janetsnotebook.com -Who found lifeonwry through my Freshly Pressed post.  While visiting this UK blogger’s site, I learned how to make the cool ‘word cloud’ graphic above.

http://j-bo.net/ – Looking for love in a litter box post was freaking hilarious.  So many awesome visuals.  Laughing is good.

http://imissyouwheniblink.com – ‘Four Ways To Stop Mean People by Creeping Them Out’ made me spit out my coffee laughing.  Again, laughter is the bomb.  I’m going to start randomly hugging people when they piss me off.

and http://transformedbythejourney.com/ – who has encouraged me from early on and whose thoughtful posts make me think.  Thinking is worth every minute of the time you spend doing it.

There are so many others but I will share more later.  In the meantime, I am grateful for all of this, and, frankly, for you reading my post this very moment.  I am one grateful gal.  Now, if only my oldest son could follow suit a little more often (although I did just get an apology from him, so there is hope).