Memes! Awards!

Due to a half million tutoring appointments, two torturous car rides, a wedding reception, a presentation, an online training class, and all-around general laziness, I've been negligent in my blog reading. Yesterday was relatively calm, though, and I managed to knock around 500 unread blog posts (yeah, pathetic) off my Google reader, and I also poked around the blogs of people who've left comments here recently.

Imagine my surprise when I saw little ol' Future House being talked about all over the place (okay, five places).

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First up, that other Meg from Vintage Flapper to the Rescue gave us the Thinking Blogger Award. Dude! That means we're way smart. Right?

Also, it means that we get to pass along the award to five other bloggers who make us think. Hmm.... How about:

One Straw Revolution
Sugar Creek Farm
Bifurcated Carrots
GardenPunks
Fast Grow the Weeds

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And then, Frugal Mom and Melinda of Elements in Time gave us this super sweet Excellent Blogger award:


Oh wait, not that one. This one:


So now we have to pick ten people to pass this one along to. Here goes:

Green Gringa
In the Toad's Garden
Hedgewizard
Life at Dogfight Cove
Vegmonkey and the Mrs.
A Thinking Stomach
Her Able Hands
The Back Forty
A Homesteading Neophyte
Dirt Sun Rain

Of course we think you're all excellent, but we did intentionally exclude blogs that we know have already gotten this thing. If we missed you and put you on our list even though you already have one, tough. You're getting another. Or, you can take the Mr. Burns version.

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Angie of Children in the Corn tagged us for the Archive Meme. This one is tricky since we haven't been blogging for that long, and pretty much a full third of our posts have been about the chickens. I'll do what I can.

The family post: Gotta go with Grandpa's German Tomatoes, which we've since learned are called Howard Germans. Either way, it's kind of cool that we can personally trace our seeds back a few decades.

The friend post: Is there a better garden related friend than Steveo? He mows, he digs, he babysits the chickens and cleans the pool. He helped us put together the rain harvester, he lets us borrow his kickass tools, and he chopped down this damn tree.

The post about us: Hmm. I guess this one fits the bill well enough.

The post about something we love: Pasta for me, and hot peppers for Kelly.

And the random posts: Those damn chickens.

Now I'm supposed to tag five people, but I'm too exhausted. So you're all tagged. Please tell us in the comments, too, so we can check out your posts.

*Archive Meme Instructions: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you've written. ... but there is a catch: Link 1 must be about family. Link 2 must be about friends. Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are... what you're all about. Link 4 must be about something you love. Link 5 can be anything you choose. I think this is a great way to circulate some of the great older posts everyone had written, return to a few great places in our memories and also learn a little something about ourselves and each other that we may not know. Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better....and don't forget to read the archive posts and leave comments!*

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That was rough.