The Honest Scrap Award, with and without Stipulations

It has happened again: I've been honoured with an Award!

I think it is the third, and I never quite know what to do with them.

The first one I accepted gratefully, but could not fulfill the attached rules, because I was still fluttering about almost by myself out in the vast cyberspace, not having anyone to pass it on to. I made another promise instead, which I have kept. You can read about that here. I said I would continue to explore the blogworld and hopefully make some new friends. I did, and I have!!!

Since then, I've seen other awards floating about, and I have also gathered that some people just love awards, while others have quickly grown heartily tired of the vast set of rules they usually come with.

The next award that came my way I also appreciated because of the giver and the motivation, but I decided not to send it on, because again, I found I got stuck on the to-do-list that came with it. And in connection with that, I also sort of made a promise, that if I ever gave away an award, it would be without to-do-list.

Then, the other day, when I looked in at Rae's Us in Tejas blog, I found myself on her list of recipients of the Honest Scrap Award. The way she describes it, I understand this to be pretty much the blogworld's equivalent to the Nobel Prize, and that of course makes me extremely proud to be nominated for it - and especially by Rae, who is a truly worthy recipient of that award herself. I'd have sent it right back to her if she hadn't already just received it.

However. This award too came with a whole bunch of Stipulations. (Rae's excellent wordchoice, but I added the capital S to make it look even more impressive.) Rather time-consuming ones, too. This requires some thinking! Especially since it is the Honest Scrap Award, and I have recently been having very serious conversations with blogfriends about honesty and promises. Not connected to blog awards, but still!

My decision: I will gratefully accept the award from Rae, because I feel very honoured to have her as a faithful follower of my blog; and because she used the word Stipulations instead of Rules! I will also more or less follow the Stipulations for my own part. I.e. visit the blogs of the other people she chose to give this award to; choose seven new recipients of my own; and share ten things about myself. But: When I send it on, I will make the Stipulations entirely volontary for those friends. They have so totally already earned it, without having to work extra for it. I think that is the best compromise I can arrive at.

Most of you know some of the others already so the checking-each-other-out part might not be too overwhelming. Come back another day if it doesn't suit you right now. The list will still be here. What you choose to do with the award itself after looking at it, that I leave up to you!!!  Here it is:

Ahem... Silence please... My announcement:
I hereby present the Honest Scrap Award to the following people:

To Rose-Anne at Welcome to My World (who likes awards), because it was she who got me blogging in the first place. In Rose-Anne's world, you'll find some honest scrap-booking.

To Scriptor Senex for his Words, Words, Words and Phrases blog, containing scraps of interesting information about obscure words and phrases in the English language. (This blog however is only one in a long list of enjoyable blogs by same author.)

To GB at Eagleton Notes, because his very honest blogposts and comments marked by British humour always make me smile and sometimes laugh. If you don't find him at home there, try his New Zealand blog, because he is about to travel again soon.

To Dan at Wood and Pixels Narratives for his striking pictures, thoughtful reflections and steadfast faithfulness in encouraging and keeping up an honest dialogue with other bloggers (me included).

To Simply Heather, especially for hosting  the Soaring through the world in pictures blog, "where people become friends, as they share their findings with each other". Heather is the honest wonderwoman in the background who takes care of all those little details that make it all the easier for the rest of us. (Layout and such.)

To Raven at Raven's Nest for keeping up her weekly Saturday Wordzzle Challenge in spite of all the chaos going on in her house lately. She keeps her participants constantly torn between despair and inspiration in our efforts to make sense of those impossible word combinations. She is also a very honest blogger.

To the Dragons at Dragon's Lair who mysteriously also always keep watch over the Wordzzles and give astonishing insights into the world of Dragons. Did you know for example that Dragons can write poetry in imitation of classic poets? Dragons are also very honest in their opinions about humans. I'm not quite sure how they stand on accepting awards from us, unless the awards are edible. Maybe I'll find out.

To Dr John at Dr John's Fortress (who I know does not like awards with Stipulations attached), for his surprising combination of very honest sermons vs. enjoyable crazyness in his fiction.

Now the reader who has been paying attention will shout: HEY! That's eight, not seven! Well, since I'm not sure whether dragons really want to be counted as people, I found it best to be on the safe side!

Now, here are my ten facts about myself. Actually you will find more than the stipulated number here too. I thought I had better try and make up somehow for all my other Stipulation-breaking.
At the age of 5, I liked to draw pictures. Also periodically later in life.
At the age of 10, I liked to read Enid Blyton. I have enjoyed almost any book with a secret passage in it ever since.
At the age of 15, I was madly in love with Simon and Garfunkel. Still am. I also thought I was one day going to be a librarian. That plan changed.
At the age of 20, I moved away from home to another town to study, joined a gospel choir, made some wonderful friends (quite a few of them I still count as friends 34 years later) and generally led a very intense life with a lot of fun. (Looking back, I don't understand when I found the time to actually study.)
At the age of 25, I was working as secretary for the executive manager of firm of consultants within the paper industry branch; and some of my spare time was devoted to a Christian book-café.
At the age of 30, I had completed another three years of university studies (English and German), moved to the town where I still live, tried to earn a living as a substitute teacher, lived in a sort of Christian community (15 or more separate families/households but with a lot of common acitivities and interaction) and again made some wonderful friends who I still count as friends 24 years later (although we no longer live so close).
At the age of 35, I had given up my teaching career (chiefly because it got too stressful when I could not find a full time job in one place) and was working as medical secretary at an occupational therapy unit.
At the age of 40, I was still in the same job (with proper medical secretary qualification added) but in a different church (and also 4 years of part time academic theology studies added). I celebrated my birthday "big" (well, sort of) with family and friends from both the past and the present.
At the age of 45, I had an unfortunate kind of accident at work in which I pulled a muscle or two rather more seriously than it seemed at first, and ended up with chronic neck-shoulder-arm pain problems. That turned most of my life as I knew it before pretty much upside-down, and not in a good way.
At the age of 50, I had been in early retirement for a while already. I was not really in the mood to celebrate my 50th birthday at all. But then I was invited to spend it with a group of friends from 30 years back, in the town where I lived back then; and still having them as friends did feel worth celebrating!
Since last summer, I have moved to a new flat, both my parents' health deteriorated seriously last autumn, and my mother died at the end of May this year. In the midst of all, in January, I entered the Blogworld. And somehow gradually found all the above Honest Scrap Award-worthy people, "and then some".

Friends - this blogpost took me three days to write.
I did feel inspired to write it, or I wouldn't have made the effort.
But I honestly don't think awards should come with Stipulations.
Only pick those up if you feel really inspired to.

Myself, I'm going to put this award in my sidebar. I worked hard for it. I still haven't checked out all of Rae's friends (now wasn't that an honest confession to end with!), but I'll get round to that.