And the trophy goes to....

.....Me! Well, lookee here, i won me an award! A huuuuuuuuuuge thankyou to Steph of The Panic Room for sharing the love and telling the blogosphere that i am, indeed, brilliant. Now, apparently, i get the chance to share some blog love of my own. There are a couple of rules/guidelines to follow though:

1. I get to put the really cool sticker thingamajiggy on my blog. Please refer to the sparkly looking thing up there .

2. Set up alink to the person who nominated you. See the underlined bit up in that paragraph? Thats the link - go click it.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. Well, rules are made to be broken - i dont know if i read seven other blogs that havent already been nominated, but we'll see how we go.

4.Link to those blogs too. Yep, i'm getting to that bit.

5. Leave a message in regards to the blogs you've nominated. Spruik them up a bit hey ?

Alright, here goes. The nominees are:

1. Sheena from If These Walls Could Talk - if you dont already know Sheena, where have you been ? Living under a rock? This woman rules the SA blog scene and rightly so. She's smart, sassy and quite often shit-in-your-pants funny. If you arent reading her blog ( and looking forward to her book .... ) then your missing out!

2. Miss Em from Can You Point Me To The Bar? - tales and tidbits from a fellow 20 Something Blogger. Em has just the right mix of love, laughter and lunacy that I love in a blog. She's a fellow Aussie chick, so if you cant enough of feirce and fabulous Australian women, go to her blog now...

3. Paula from Insert My Blog Name Here - Paula rocks. Paula is like the edgy, funny, adventurous, crazy girl next door. Maybe -if you lived in a flat in the city. Reading her blog, you get the feeling that if you DID live in the flat next door to hers, she'd invite you over for a few drinks and some Guitar Hero at 1am in the morning. Yep - Paula rocks.

4. Rob from Dash Does Kathmandu - this is a relatively new blog written by a not so new blog buddy of mine. Young Rob has bravely uprooted himself from cosy Australian suburbia and planted himself in Nepal. Rob was an insightful kind of guy before he left, he could always be counted for awesome conversation, so just imagine whats going to happen now that he's living the Third World life. Clink on the link and go with!

And those are all the nominees i could come up with. So aside from feeling quite chuffed with myself and flattered that anybody even reads this junk - let alone LIKES it - i came to the conclusion that i need to be reading more blogs. I need to discover new people, new lives, and new adventures - reading a good blog is like reading a good book only you know someone is ACTUALLY living and breathing the story, the thoughts, the feelings.

So i'm handing it over to you. Yep, you. The one reading this right now.I want everybody to send me the link to one really great blog that you think i'd like. The author can be boy, girl, any age, from any country, i dont care. Just recommend something you think i should see.

This is going to be fun!

Wholeheartedly, I'm Grateful....

So i have had another productive day - cancelled my telephone service, cancelled my gas service, redirected my mail - in regards to moving house. And i know packing up your crap into boxes and running errands isnt exactly exciting but being productive, achieveing even on a small scale, puts a smile on my face. You know what else puts a smile on my face ? Testimonials like this :

Amy, you are a precious jewel, sparkling brightly out of a box of paste blogs. You are the real deal. Genuine and true. You craft words with an artist's eye. Your talent for writing is a gift you use with such natural ease, that you ought to make it your vocation in life. You are a sweet and beautiful person, generous with your compliments and encouragement, you know how to make people smile. Determined and strong, you lead by example, and have wisdom beyond your youthful years. You are inspirational.....and you're a hot chic with a wicked sense of humour!

In case you were wondering, that was written by the wonderful Steph on her insightful and very entertaining blog " The Panic Room " . This was in response to a meme i challenged her to which required her to say something nice about the person who sent the challenge ( namely, well, me ).

And, now,my turn to say thank you. Sincerely. A huge thank you to you Steph because i think you understand better than most of my readers just how much kind words can mean. I read those words whilst having a lunch break from packing, and it seriously almost brought tears to my eyes. Those few sentences are almost the most beautiful compliment that anyone has ever paid me and the fact that it came from someone i know only through this wonderful invention called the "internet" means a lot. It means that something of me, something of who I am and who i am trying to be, is shining through in my words.

Thats my whole aim here - to share who I really am. I know that sounds all mushy and frankly, kind of fake, but its the truth - there are things i confess to here that i dont tell anyone in my real life, usually for fear of ridicule or just that peculiar funny look people give you when they know you're innermost secrets. Isnt it funny that I, that we as a collective of bloggers, dont mind giving of our secret selves to a handful ( or few million.... ) of strangers, yet some of us cant even fathom cluing our nearest and dearest into the sordid details ? But its oddly comforting to me that some random person in some random place can know my thoughts, that things can be off my chest and floating around in cyber space instead of clogging me up, instead of giving me emotional constipation ( as opposed to verbal diarrhea, which is what i usually have ).

So thank you - yes, YOU - anybody and everybody who is reading this, no matter who or where you are, for sharing and for taking on board all my emotional, pyschological and sometimes egotisitical ramblings. Muchos gracias, muchos.....

Songs for all occasions: Part #1

So i'm going to borrow an idea from the wonderful Steph over at The Panic Room - she recently madea tongue-in-cheek post about what songs she would consider having played at her funeral ( because she couldnt picture ever getting married .... ). I, however, have actually considered these from time to time and am going to make a list of actual choices i would make, if anybody asks me in advance. It might be morbid, but it think i've mentioned to my mother once or twice " Hey, can you hear this song ? Play it for me when i die! ". To which she usually replies " I'll already be dead by then! " . Yep - morbid. Anyhoodle, here's my list:

• " It Can't Rain All The Time " - Jane Siberry
• " Dance With You " - Live
• " Hallelujah " - Jeff Buckley ( or the version by KD Lang )
• " Walk On " - U2
• " Don't Dream Its Over " - Crowded House

And thats about all for now. There are others I have considered from time to time, but nothing that i can remember right now from the top of my head. I'd want something poignant, something that people would listen to and go " Yep, thats Amy.... ", whether it be because if the lyrics ( whether because they literally remind them of me, or the ideas conveyed remind them of me ) or for the melody and kind of song it is.

I cant help that i've actually thought this thing through - its just one of those things that scrossed my mind before. You know what else has crossed my mind? What songs i would played at any future wedding ( if indeed there ever is one... )

Watch out for wedding songs as the second part of this post!