A Moment of Silence, Please

I just finished our final entry for the Disney Cruise trip over at Traveling Spaz.

That was sort of exhausting... and sad to be done with. :(

But in happier news I got an award! Back in August, I was given this award by Every Day Baby Steps and it made me all giddy and happy. And then today I got it again!

This time Soccer Mom bestowed it upon me and again I got to feel giddy and happy. :)

Since I've already passed it along once, I'm going to break the rules and not pass it on again, but thanks Soccer Mom!!! That really made my day. :)

Now... speaking of awards... I have a little award that I've been giving away on my blog for a while now. You may remember it as the Little Fish award.

Unfortunately this month I got no nominations for the Little Fish award and actually, the past few awards were kind of tough to get nominees for so I guess, like so many fish in my past, the Little Fish has gone belly up.

I'd like to take a moment to recognize those who have won the award in the past:

Little Fish Hall of Fame
Life With Three
katydidnot
Melizzard
Morningside Mom
Me and You and Ellie
She Just Had To Say It
Be the Cake
Stop Screaming, I'm Driving!

All eight of you are superfantastic. :)

Let us all have a moment of silence for the fish.

*flush*

Arrrr! Here I be Announcin' th' Next Wee Fish!

Y'all... you have to go translate your blog, or my blog, or any blog into pirate speak.

http://www.syddware.com/cgi-bin/pirate.pl

I laughed out loud at my own darned blog.

So what be ye waitin' fer? Get t' 't!

Okay, but enough about the pirate speak.

It's the first Tuesday in October! That means it's Little Fish Announcement Time!

This month's winner with an astounding EIGHT votes, is Stop Screaming, I'm Driving!

Congratulations Carrie!

Here's your badge. :)


<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/07/little-fish.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

There are currently NO nominations for November's Little Fish, so please go nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs! :)

Little Fish Voting

Let's hope this poll thing works!

We have three Little Fish Nominees in the running for October's Little Fish award. Please take a moment to check out each of their fabulous blogs and choose the one you think is most worthy. :)

The three nominees are:
Antithete

Stop Screaming I'm Driving

Love Well

Please vote here!



If you're reading in a reader I think you have to click over to vote! :)

The poll will be open through October 6th and the winner will be announced on the 7th. Nominations are currently open for November's Fish!

Little Fish Changes

Hey y'all. I went ahead and changed the whole Little Fish nomination and voting process. From now on it'd be handy for me if everyone nominated to the same post and I'll have a regular old poll on there for voting.

Little Fish will be awarded once a month on the first Tuesday of the month.

You can read more about it all at this post and nominate some bloggers there, too!

You can always find this post from the footer at each and every one of my posts or in the Little Fish corner found in my sidebar. :)

Little Fish Award Time!

This week there were two amazing nominees for the award.

Be The Cake
and
Domestic Accident

It was again a tough decision. It absolutely always is. I am amazed at how many incredible blogs there are out there!

Domestic Accident is a laugh out loud funny type of blog. I mean, who can't relate to a mom with a thing for adolescent TV and rags on her man's tardiness in finishing home projects? It's definitely an add to reader type of blog!

But it was Be The Cake that stole our hearts and edged out the competition for the award. This blog has heart and humor, two things that put a nice bloggy smile on our faces during the reading. Besides, everything is better with cake!

Congratulations Be The Cake! Here's your badge!


<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/09/little-fish-award-time.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

There are going to be some changes to the Little Fish award! Previously the award has been given weekly, but that is going to change. The award will now be given on the first Tuesday of every month. I am also looking into changing the nomination and voting process to include more bloggers!

For now, nominees can still be made to this post.

Qualifications for the Little Fish award:
1. Nominees should not be featured on Alltop
2. Nominees should have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000 or higher. (Here's a quick explanation.)

If you're not sure if a blog qualifies, nominate them anyway! We'll check for you. :)

If a blog has already been nominated previously and did not win, nominate them again! If you won the Little Fish award, we hope you'll wear your badge proudly on your blog to spread the word about the award. We also hope you'll nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs.

Nominate blogs to the comments section of this post or tweet them to me on twitter!

And another Little Fish is crowned

Wow, I'm announcing the Little Fish of the Week way later than normal because I've been just so darned busy today! We're two days into our second week of back to school and I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet. What states do they do that "school all year round" thing? We may have to move.

Anyway... on to the Fish!

This week we had two nominees. They were:
She Just Had To Say It
and
Miracle Moments

These blogs are absolutely different. One is lighthearted and fun in a "just had your pedicure night out with the girls and a few bottles of decent red wine" type of way. The other is heartwarming and touching in a "curl up on the couch in your PJs and watch Lifetime with a box of Kleenex and a mug of hot tea" kind of way. So the decision was tough. Really tough.

I mean, some times you're in a night out with the girls mood and sometimes you're in a Lifetime TV mood, am I right? One is not necessarily more worthy than the other!

But blast! We had to make a decision. Cause that's the rule (that we made up). Rules are rules...

We can't help it... we're social... we chose the night out with the girls.

She Just Had To Say It takes the prize. We love you, you have been added to readers, we think you (and your new tatas) are awesome.

Here's your button. :) We hope you wear it proudly!

<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/08/and-another-little-fish-is-crowned.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

About the Little Fish award:
The Little Fish award is a weekly award given to a blog that makes us giddy. Little Fish blogs are not the most popular blogs. They're not on every blog roll in the blogosphere, but they should be. Blogs are nominated by anyone who wants to nominate one and all nominees are reviewed by a panel consisting of some bloggers who decided they wanted to read some great blogs. One winner is picked each week and featured here on Domestic Spaz.

Qualifications for the Little Fish award:
1. Nominees should not be featured on Alltop
2. Nominees should have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000 or higher. (Here's a quick explanation.)

If you're not sure if a blog qualifies, nominate them anyway! We'll check for you. :)

If a blog has already been nominated a previous week and did not win, nominate them again! If you won the Little Fish award, we hope you'll wear your badge proudly on your blog to spread the word about the award. We also hope you'll nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs.

Nominate blogs to the comments section of this post or tweet them to me on twitter!

About Alexa

I get a decent amount of questions about the whole Alexa ranking thing so I figured I'd make a post to explain it.

Here's a not so brief explanation from the Alexa people themselves but all I really know is that it's a basic way to rank a site and "big fish" bloggers are all well UNDER the million mark and I liked it.

If you want to determine a bloggers ranking, it's easy to do.

First, go to www.alexa.com.

You'll see a screen like this:

Type the address of the blog you're interested in finding the ranking for in the search bar up top and click the Search button.

Then this screen will pop up. (I used Bossy for this example because I love her.)

The ranking will show up right there where I circled in the picture. :)

But for the Little Fish award? You don't have to do all that. Just go ahead and nominate a blog and I'll check it for you!

The Next Little Fish!

This week the panel didn't have too much reading to do as it was a two blog race for the Little Fish title. With all the mess of Back to School I guess that was a good thing!

The nominees this week were:

Me and You and Ellie
and
Bad Mom

Deciding which Little Fish to choose is never an easy decision and that didn't change this week just because there were only two nominees. But when push comes to shove, the little fish panel has to make a decision... cause that's the rule... that we made up ourselves.

This week's winner of the Little Fish award is Me and You and Ellie. If you haven't ever read this blog you're really missing out. It's unconventional and fun and witty and real. Written by three sisters (which makes me sort of teary eyed because I, too, am one of three sisters), this blog is about life. It's about sisterhood. It's about living.

And I love it.

That's right. LOVE.

Ellie has commented on my blog a few times and I've clicked over to Me and You and Ellie to show some bloggie love when she does but it wasn't until this week that I really read it. I'm so darned happy I did.

Go check Beth, Jacquie, and Ellie out. Grab a glass of wine and just read. You'll love them, too.

Here's a badge for y'all!

<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/08/next-little-fish.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg"></a>

About the Little Fish award:
The Little Fish award is a weekly award given to a blog that makes us giddy. Little Fish blogs are not the most popular blogs. They're not on every blog roll in the blogosphere, but they should be. Blogs are nominated by anyone who wants to nominate one and all nominees are reviewed by a panel consisting of some bloggers who decided they wanted to read some great blogs. One winner is picked each week and featured here on Domestic Spaz.

Qualifications for the Little Fish award:
1. Nominees should not be featured on Alltop
2. Nominees should have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000 or higher.

If you're not sure if a blog qualifies, nominate them anyway! We'll check for you. :)

If a blog has already been nominated a previous week and did not win, nominate them again! If you won the Little Fish award, we hope you'll wear your badge proudly on your blog to spread the word about the award. We also hope you'll nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs.

Nominate blogs to the comments section of this post or tweet them to me on twitter!

Little Fish Announcement Time!

It's Little Fish announcement time again! This weeks nominees were:

One More Fairy Tale
Confessions Of...
Motherhood is Not for Wimps
Morningside Mom
2nd Cup of Coffee

It didn't take any of us long to decided that Morningside Mom should take the prize. Her blog is down to earth and real and we could relate to her writing. Digging into the archives I found this post which brought tears to my eyes and then more recently this post had me nodding in giggling agreement after a summer with my kids. I've definitely found a new blog to add to my reader, so go check her out!

Here's your code, Morningside Mom! We hope you wear your badge proudly!



<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/08/little-fish-announcement-time_12.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

Please nominate your favorite lesser known bloggers to the comments section of this entry or tweet them to me on twitter!

Nominees for the Little Fish award must meet the following qualifications:
1. Not be featured on All Top
2. Have an Alexa ranking of over 1,000,000

If you're not sure if your favorite blog qualifies, that's OK! Nominate them anyway and I'll check to see if they qualify!

Special thanks to Apron Strings and Angst and See the Woods and the Trees for voting in the panel this week! Thanks guys!

Want to help pick the next Little Fish? Go here and sign up! Join the Little Fish Panel Group and you're in!

Now ya'll have me begging...

What happened, y'all? The first week I did the Little Fish award y'all were totally scrambling over yourselves to nominate your favorite blogs. That week there were twelve nomintaed blogs!

There were so many blogs that I could barely keep up with reading them and further decided I needed to reduce the amount of blogs allowed to eight.

But no one has forced me to keep that rule in place because no one is nominating any blogs. Last week we had three nominees and this week so far there are only two.

It makes me sad. Do I have to pull out the sad face again?

So please, please, nominate some more little fish before the day is up cause I have to leave the panel some time to read them. Please?

Qualifications for nominees are:
1. Nominees must have an Alexa ranking of over 1,000,000.
2. Nominees must not be featured on Alltop.

You can nominate them in the comments section of this post, or that post, or even tweet me a nominee on twitter.

Thanks!

*Nominations are closed, thanks y'all!*

Little Fish Announcement Time!

This week's decision was TOUGH. We only had three nominees but they were super high quality nominees. The Little Fish Panel deliberated and finally we chose the fish we thought stood out above the rest, if only just a little bit. :)

The nominees were
Backpacking Dad
The Jason Show
Melizzard

And honestly? Seriously? Go read them all. Subscribe to them right now because this trio of bloggers will have you captivated.

But alas, a winner must be chosen and therefore we chose.

Melizzard took the prize. We all found our hearts fluttering while reading her posts and being drawn into life with her family. She's got five new subscribers in the Little Fish Panel and hopefully a whole lot more with y'all. So if you don't already love Melizzard you're about to. Cause you won't be able to help it.

Here's some code for you, Melizzard! We hope you'll wear your Little Fish badge proudly!


<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/08/little-fish-announcement-time.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

We hope to get more nominees this week! I'll close the nominees out at a maximum of 8 so we have time to read them, so please nominate your favorite lesser known bloggers in the comments section of this post, or tweet them to me on twitter!

Qualifications for nominees are:
1. Nominees must have an Alexa ranking of over 1,000,000.
2. Nominees must not be featured on Alltop.

*bribe* Everyone who nominates and all the nominees get a link back from my blog in the sidebar! */bribe*

Special thanks to the Little Fish Panel! Bio Girl, Apron Strings & Angst, See the Woods and the Trees, and Mah-meee! If you'd like to be a member of the Little Fish Panel, go join up at The Place for my Peeps and join the Little Fish Panel Group!

*Nominations are closed, thanks y'all!*

A panel?

So I've been thinking... and usually thinking gets me into trouble, but we'll ignore that for the time being.

I was chatting with Bio Girl and Raising A & C about the Little Fish thingie. I was saying that I would really like a more impartial way to choose the winner.

I mean, how narcissistic is it that I just choose the blog I think is the best and that's the winner and that's the end. Yanno? So I'm thinking of putting together a panel of sorts of people who agree to actually read the nominated blogs for a period of a few days and then vote on their favorite. What do y'all think? Would anyone be interested in joining a panel such as this and helping out with choosing the weekly Little Fish?

I would probably limit the amount of nominees per week to 8 or less because it is difficult to read them all if there are too many.

*Updated* If you'd like to be a part of the Little Fish Panel, please go here and set up a profile. Once you've set up a profile, click "Groups" and you should find the Little Fish Panel! Put in your 2 cents there, but make sure you read all the nominated blogs first!

Introducing the newest Little Fish

So y'all nominated a bunch of awesome blogs this week and I really feel like the Little Fish idea may be a success. I've had the opportunity to read some amazing blogs that I might not have found if it weren't for your nominees and I'm so happy for it. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with all the blogs I want to read!

Here were this week's nominees:
Growing Older But Not Up
Aff The Fang
Deanna's Corner
I know where you can find it!
Muthering Heights
See the Woods and the Trees
Story Telling Mama
Our Moments, Our Memories
Girlymama
For Such A Time As This
katydidnot
The Jason Show

This Little Fish thing was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, honestly. I thought I'd just read some blogs for a week and be able to easily pick the one that would speak to me. That was NOT the case. Every single one of these blogs is worth subscribing to, I'll tell you that much. They are all well-written and real and I can see right away why they were all nominated.

However there was one that really sticks out. You know how there are those certain blogs that you just have to read? The ones that you click over to immediately when you realize there is a new post? This one is one of those blogs. I have laughed so much reading this blog and more importantly I found myself identifying with the writer.

I hope you'll all click over and read katydidnot because she is a well-deserved winner of the Little Fish award. It seems to me that she won't be a Little Fish for long.

Here's your code, katydidnot! It's not a requirement, but I hope you'll wear this badge proudly. I really enjoy your blog. :)

<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/search/label/little%20fish" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

Please nominate new Little Fish in the comments section of this post! I can't wait to read some new blogs this week!

Qualifications for Little Fish:
1. Must have an Alexa rating of over 1,000,000
2. Must not be listed on Alltop

Nominees are closed now! Thanks for nominating.

I love my dripping pots

This week I'll be showing you one of my favorite things about my kitchen. Every time I use this particular feature of my kitchen I'm just so happy about it. Here it is:

No, it's not my sink. It's the hooks those pots and pans are hung upon right above my sink. When we bought a new set of pots and pans The Man put these nifty hooks up there so I wouldn't have to stack them on top of each other in the cabinet and scratch them all up.

I LOVE it and I thank him for doing it frequently. Now I can just wash the pots and pans and stick them right up there to drip dry into the sink. It's FABULOUS.

Totally works for me.

Bonus to anyone who can point out two other things in that first picture that I've blogged about before! I don't know what the bonus is... how about a long distance pat on the back?

BEFORE YOU GO!

OMGOSH - isn't that the most annoying thing ever?! But seriously, if you know of any bloggers you'd like to nominate as the Little Fish of the Week, please let me know here. I'm really hoping to be able to feature a lot of smaller bloggers like myself but I need to know about them from you! So please, please go nominate someone!

Last week's winner of This Body for the Book A Week Giveaway is Dawn from Snakes and Snails and Sugar and Spice! This week I'm taking a break from the give-away but I'll be offering something else up next week so come back to check. :)

Just a bunch of little fish in a big old pond

So last week some time I was chatting with Michelle at Life With Three and we threw around the idea of having a place for the "little fish" of the blogosphere. You know, "little fish, big pond", and all that. There's so much excitement surrounding those big bloggers, you know, like her and her and her and them, too. Then there's All Top which every time I turn around some other blog I read is being added to and I just want to know... what about us? What about us little fish who have great blogs - even better blogs sometimes (well, not better than any of the aforementioned bloggers... seriously, I love them all)? What about us?

I realize there is All Mediocre and I'm totally not trying to steal the thunder that is All Mediocre. I just want to do it a little differently. I'd like to feature a Little Fish blogger every week but I'd like you to nominate the fish. Because I want to read some new blogs that I don't find all over everyone's blogroll, yanno?

And the traffic wouldn't suck, either.

To qualify as a little fish, blogs should have an Alexa Rating of over 1,000,000 and not be featured on All Top.

I'm going to start out by giving the first Little Fish award to none other than Michelle at Life With Three. Now, Michelle is going to think I'm in looove with her after this because it wasn't very long ago that I bestowed upon her the Arte y Pico award which another blogger gave her around the same time, as well. All the more reason she's a worthy Little Fish, don't you think? That and she helped me come up with the idea in the first place. So really, she should get the credit.

Michelle's constantly making me laugh. Have you checked out her most recent post? I swear, I was actually laughing out loud while reading it. Not only that, but she posts some really helpful stuff! Michelle's blog is never filler. When she posts, there's content there. Michelle rocks. Go check her out and give her lots of comment love.

Here's the code for your Little Fish button, Michelle!
<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/07/just-bunch-of-little-fish-in-big-old.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

OK, so please, nominate some blogs you think are great in the comments here (they don't have to be mom blogs) and I'll pick at least one to feature next week. If it works out well this week, I'll keep it up. :)

**Nominees are closed for this week! Thanks!

Little Fish

About the Little Fish award:
The Little Fish award is a monthly award given to one blog that is selected by a voting process. Little Fish blogs are not the most popular blogs. They're not on every blog roll in the blogosphere, but they should be. Blogs are nominated by anyone who wants to nominate one and all nominees are checked to see if they qualify.

Qualifications for the Little Fish award:
1. Nominees should not be featured on Alltop
2. Nominees should have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000 or higher. (Here's a quick explanation.)

If you're not sure if a blog qualifies, nominate them anyway! I'll check for you. :)

If a blog has already been nominated a previous week and did not win, nominate them again! If you won the Little Fish award, I hope you'll wear your badge proudly on your blog to spread the word about the award. I also hope you'll nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs.

Nominate blogs in the comments section of THIS post!

Voting begins on the third Tuesday of each month and the winner is announced on the first Tuesday of each month.

Little Fish Hall of Fame
Life With Three
katydidnot
Melizzard
Morningside Mom
Me and You and Ellie
She Just Had To Say It
Be the Cake
Stop Screaming, I'm Driving!

Vote for October's Little Fish here!
Nominations are now open for November's Little Fish!