I LOVE blog awards and have been very fortunate to have received a number of lovely awards from some fantastic bloggers! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! It means so much to me to know that you read and enjoy my blog!
I’ve happily passed on the blog awards I’ve received each month for a number of months now. But I finally realized that, as much as I love the awards, I need to stop passing them on. Here are my reasons:
- Even though I (and many other bloggers) love blog awards, some bloggers don’t. I don’t want to pass on awards to bloggers who wouldn’t want to receive them.
- Some bloggers who love blog awards feel overwhelmed at the thought/time of finding bloggers to pass them on to. Blogging can become overwhelming time wise, especially for busy parents, and I don’t want to make life more difficult for anyone.
- I have a really hard time deciding who to pass the awards on to each month. My problem is that I love so many blogs and keep finding new ones I love. I’ve tried to pass blogs awards on to specific categories of bloggers – and sometimes the rules require that I pass the awards on to blogs I’ve recently discovered. But with all the research I do online, I still always want to give out way more awards than the rules call for!
- Sometimes I miss a blog that I think I’ve already given an award to but haven’t – and then I feel bad about not awarding a blog I love. If I haven’t given you an award, it doesn’t mean I don’t love your blog – I might have simply missed it. And what about all the blogs I love outside the categories I’ve designated to give the awards to???
So, what I’m going to do from now on is:
- If I receive an award, I’ll continue to thank the blogger who gave me the award … I really do appreciate blog awards!
- I’ll add each award to my Awards page with a link to the blogger who gave me the award.
- Instead of having an awards post each month, I’ll save that day for an extra link post. I think I can typically showcase blogs better by linking to specific activities/posts anyway. You’ve probably noticed I love linking to blogs in my Activity of the Week, Living Montessori Now Facebook page, and Living Montessori Now Community. So this will give me an extra opportunity to link to activities, resources, and/or blog posts I love!
You, my readers, make blogging worthwhile. I can’t thank you enough for your comments and support! Always, to you goes the Sweet Reader Award!
Congrats on your award! I completely agree – blog awards are truly wonderful, but they can be a bit overwhelming. Last April I created an awards page as well for the same reasons. I hope you find it works well for you, too!
Thanks, Mari-Ann! I’m hoping this will work well. I had fun organizing my awards page and really look forward to having extra time to write more link posts. My readers seem to find my link posts on various topics helpful, so I hope this will be a good change for everyone!
Thank you for posting this just when I needed to read it! I just received my first blog award. I was so excited I stayed up til 1 am preparing my response and awarding it to other bloggers. Imagine my dismay when not one of the seven bloggers posted their award. The chain was broken. I felt a little rejected. Maybe this is how they felt and just didn’t say it as clearly as you did. Now I know!
Thanks for your comment, Misty! I had noticed the same thing. Here’s the discussion thread I read at Blog Frog that really made me realize some bloggers didn’t like blog awards and others felt overwhelmed at the time involved: http://theblogfrog.com/757946/forum/73505/do-you-like-blog-awards-or-not.html.
congrats! It is fun to receive awards but it can also be overwhelming! I’ve been bad about following through with awards myself for some of the very reasons you’ve listed. I had good intentions but you can’t always do what you had hoped. I think that this is very nicely written, thanks for sharing this. I find it very encouraging.
Thanks, Michelle! How true that as wonderful as blog awards are, they can be overwhelming. I found myself spending hours deciding which blogs to award, but it wasn’t until I read the Blog Frog discussion I just posted in the answer to Misty’s comment that I realized lots of bloggers were having difficulty with the time involved.
I do the same thing!
It does feel wonderful to receive them, I just wanted you to know that I love all your reasons that you listed!
(hugs)
Thanks for your kind comment, Jody! It helps to know we all struggle with the same things. Have fun with your birthday bash and all the amazing giveaways you have going on right now! (Hugs) to you, too!
I totally understand the need to stop passing on the awards…. And, btw, you deserve all the awards you receive!! You are a sweet, bright light in the blogosphere!!!
Thanks so much for your very sweet comment, Michelle! I really appreciate it – and you are definitely a sweet, bright light in the blogosphere!