Liebster means Dearest

Wow. This has been a pretty hectic week what with us participating in the "Social Media for Social Good" (SMfSG) holiday event campaign, Pet Fiction Theater's "A Blogville Christmas Cabin" (I make no apologies for my goofy love of the creativity behind these shows :), Bella's agility class and the normal blogging schedule.

Add to that a big project at work and oh yeah, Christmas preparations(!) and I'm so stupid tired right now it'll be a miracle if this post makes any sense at all due to my failing-by-the-minute cognitive skills.

Breathe, Leslie, just breathe.

First I'd like to welcome all our new visitors (and Facebook followers) that found us via the SMfSG campaign. Lovely to have you here. I hope you'll poke around and join in the conversations.

Today I woke up to a very nice surprise on top of all this fun (2 somethings, actually, but I feel it's important to cover them separately to give appropriate attention):


Bringing up Bella won our first award!

Jet from over at Jet's Furkid Palace chose us as one of their recipients of the Liebster Blog award. I am very touched. And they called Bella gorgeous, too! (We agree, thank you!)

So here's how it works:

"Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award.
3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs."

Now onto the fun part.

I have really enjoyed discovering lots of awesome blogs over the past few months. Being new myself, I like to specifically search out smaller blogs that are either just getting started or for some reason or other haven't gotten the attention I think they deserve. This "Liebster" award with its "less than 200 followers" requirements fits nicely into that and I hope the blogs I've chosen will end up on your regular reading list, if they're not already.

Our 5 blogs (in no particular order):

1. A Coonhound's Tale - Prudence is a beautiful rescued Coonhound living in NJ and entertaining her mom. She shares her adventures with us with lots of pictures of the pretty dog. Being a big fan of hounds, I can't resist checking in to see what Prudence has gotten up to in any given week.
2. Doodling Dogs - I have to admit, I was surprised to see this blog didn't already have, like, a thousand followers. Emily and her pup, Leila, offer up a variety of dog-related topics including a "Breed of the Week" spotlight that can leave even canine fanatics like me stumped on occasion.
3. Two Collies and a Mutt - Marquie is a lovely young blogger with a penchant for Collies. Her blog is full of wonderful photos and commentary about her mutt, Ella, and 2 Collies, Petal and yes, Lassie. How can you not check that out?
4. Pupparoos - Continuing in the Sheltie category (Editor's note: Edited to correct breed. I'm a dolt, I know the difference between a Collie and a Sheltie - ack! Sorry Ellen! See "cognitive skills" above. ;), Ellen from Pupparoos blogs about Stewie (not the Sheltie) and new pup, Tucker (the Sheltie). Blogging about a fantastically adorable puppy certainly ensures this blog's success but we're kind of infatuated with Stewie here.
5. Pauley James, Former Foster Baby - Pauley's Mr. and Mrs. are those incredible kind of people we all probably aspire to be: they're fosters. Pauley, it would seem taught them the meaning of "failed foster". ;) The blog is full of the fun-filled adventures of their 3 dogs and 5 cats as well as the heart-warming, and sometimes heart-breaking, stories of animal rescue.

I hope you enjoy visiting our "Dearest" selection of blogs. And once again, I'd really like to welcome everybody and to thank Jet for thinking of us when selecting their award recipients. It made my day.