A week or more back, Bess tagged me with one of those "You make my day" awards. (No, not "make my day" in the Dirty Harry sense).

I didn't follow up right away*

But then I decided it might seem churlish if I didn't. So I'm going to. Not a full ten, and I hope no one feels slighted if I didn't specifically link them. (which is actually the main reason I didn't follow up on the award...too many years of grade-school experience of not getting a valentine's card from that boy I liked even though I sent him one, or not getting invited to a birthday party all my other friends had...) But anyway, here are a few blogs that I'm always happy to find new posts on:

Like the Queen (Hah. Right back to you.) I love this blog because it's not just one of those "Here's this thing I made" and "here's this other thing I made" blog - she actually WRITES about life, about what she's doing, and that makes it interesting to me.

Nanopants Dance. I think if TChem and I lived close to each other in real life, we'd have to be friends. She has a funny way of looking at life that I appreciate.

Lydia. Fellow academic and "person who some might say has had too many years of education." But she's in a different field so those little occasional comments about her career makes the blog all the more interesting to me. And she's more disciplined than I about doing knitting for charity.

BigAlice. (And yes, it sounds like she's having a crap week right now, so let's give her some love). She makes me laugh, and I like the honesty of her perspective. We might NOT be friends in real life because I fear she and I are too alike in personality and we'd probably both have crap weeks at the same time and tick each other off with our Gripey McGripersons-ness.

Knits with Cats. She knits. She has cats. She's the one person of these bloggers I've actually met in real life.

Yarnstorm. This is the one big, well-known, widely-beloved, highly-popular blog I'm going to list (nothing against you other folks but I tend to prefer the "undiscovered gems" where I feel like the blogger will actually read and consider my comment rather than its being buried under 2347 others). But I love this blog for the photography, and the (general) pervading sense of calm. It would be nice to have a life as well-balanced and smooth as the one Jane has (or, at least, the one Jane presents to the world).

Violins and Starships. Always something interesting there - a neat photograph to look at, or a funny link, or commentary from maybe a different perspective than I'd look at things from. The other thing I like about the blog is that it is kind. Even when she's disagreeing with people or presenting political perspective, Lynn is polite about things. It's nice to have those little islands of nice and polite in a blogosphere that often feels kind of like a fight in a pirate bar. Not on the blogroll but that may be because I just don't seem to have the right category.

And finally, not a blog but: Little Dee. I love this comic strip so much. (Okay, this week might not be the most representative week to start reading if you don't read it already - he's doing a slightly more eccentric storyline than usual). But it's funny and warm and cozy and just makes me smile. I have both of his books on a special bookshelf where I keep the things that I know will cheer me up when I'm really down. And I really value those things.

And no, I don't expect the people I tagged to continue extending this meme out; some of them may have been people already tagged, maybe multiple times. But I did want to share a few of the sites that I particularly like.


(*I have been going through one of those low-energy periods, where I was going to bed at like 8:15 some nights. I'm trying something new that might help, if it does, I'll comment on it later. It seems to be, but I want to give it a couple weeks to make sure)