Grannymar

The Irish Blog Awards team of judges have worked harder than Santa’s elves in Lapland.  The latter have a whole year to prepare and tap away with their hammers, while the IBA judges are restricted to a very short timescale in which to tap away on their keyboards, read, digest and make decisions.  So with much head scratching… the decisions were made and the Short Lists have been published.

If you are a regular visitor here you will be as pleased as I was to see so many who comment here have made it through to the Short lists.

The work is not finished.  Anyone listed in more than one category will now have to decide which one goes forward for the next round.  Well it is already too late to make that decision.  The cut off time was 3pm yesterday.  Failing to make the decision, the judging panel would randomly make the selection for the Blog owner.  Removing the excess names would reduce the numbers and again the judges adjust their thinking caps and this time the criteria will be a little different.

The judges are all volunteers and give of their time willingly each year.  We all read blogs and at times have difficulty keeping up to date with the latest postings.   Just imagine if you had to take a blog and work your way through it over at least six months.  The variety of topics are amazing and while some Blogs post once a week or less there are others that post once, or indeed several times a day.  The group blogs have several authors with very different styles.  Now multiply that one blog several times… lets imagine a judge gets a list of 10, 12 or even 20 blogs to work on… I imagine it is not an easy task.

So well done to all who step up to the plate and play their part.

Of course Damien, for whom the first quarter of the year means no sleep, is on hand to answer queries and hand out the headache pills.  Without him the Irish Blog Awards would not happen.  He organises and browbeats the Sponsors for each event.  They provide the trophies and gifts on the night, the hire of the event venue and all the the background items that we never think of, but are necessary to make the night the success we have come to know and expect.

I must give a special mention to: Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group sponsors of the Best Personal Blog category in which I find my name.  There are some wonderful talented bloggers in there, I wish them all well for the next round.

Thank you everyone for your support.

* The logo is with thanks to kmcgraphics.com

Would you like something to read?

How about 1074 Blogs all from Ireland.

You read that correctly.  There are 1074 2010 Irish Blog Awards Nominations, as Damien says “These are raw nomination lists with spam/junk nominations and some dead blogs removed. Yes we know some blogs in categories do not fit the category but this is what the general public has submitted”.

The Irish Blog Awards do not happen out of the blue, they happen because of the dedicated work and time given over many months by Damien Mulley and his team.  They are not Glitzy affairs where you buy your way in.  The whole process is voluntary, it depends on Sponsorship and in these difficult times finding sponsors for the twenty one categories and an overall winners prize is no mean task.  Without those Sponsors the whole event would not happen, so we owe special thanks to those who stepped up to the plate with the Geld!

Judging will begin early next week. Congratulations to all the nominees and a special thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate so many blogs, it makes for a very interesting time.  It is wonderful to see new blood on the block plenty of fresh talent to read and watch both now and in the months to come.  They deserve your support.

Every blog will be judged in round 1, then those who make it through to a second round and have nominations for more than one category will be asked to choose which one they wish to go forward for judging.  The final shortlisted names will be published closer to the event and category winners will be announced on the night of the Blog Awards. There is no public vote.

Actively blogging means the blog was in use at points between the date stamps mentioned.  I think that was from May to December 2009, but I stand to be corrected if that is not so.

Elly, George and I will be heading to Galway early in order not to miss out on the fun.  No doubt there will be a photo walk,  The guys will need time to spruce themselves up (or is that prop up the bar for an hour) while we ladies gather for the The Ladies’ Tea Party 2010 organised by Sabrina Dent.   This will be the third event of this kind and so popular that we had toyboys gate-crashing last year, but worry not I soon had them on their knees…

Thanks to sponsorship the  L’Onglex Ladies Tea Party will be held in the g hotel. The date is 27 March from 4 – 7 PM, this year’s event will include food, drink, tea, cakes and even gift bags and a DIY Nail Bar!   So are you listening Peter and Ben?  If you call in this year I will insist that you nails, both fingers and toes will be painted Bright red! Alas there are only 40 places but my place is booked and also Elly’s, so if you want to be counted in the other 38 get your skates on sharpish!

Oh!  Now I am all excited about going to Galway, I wonder what will I wear?

*Thank you to whoever nominated me, I am up against some very strong competition: There are 118 nominations for Best Personal Blog and 52 in Best Humour Blog.  If I happen to make the cut I shall have to make the decision of which one to cull.  The full list of Nominees is available on the Nominations link above.

Good luck to all!

I love the little mini business cards from Moo.com and I have used them since autumn 2007.

As per usual I learned about them from Elly.  She has used them on many an occasion.  She has them for personal & business cards, she used them inside wedding invitations for details of Gift registry, as Christmas Cards and for change of address & phone numbers to notify her relations and friends when she moved into her new home.  For the latter she added a narrow magnetic strip so folks could keep the details to hand on the fridge!

When the young pair were gadding about Europe on their funny honeymoon I had to find ways to amuse myself since I did not have them to annoy talk to.  So I turned to investigate MOO.  The mini cards came in bundles of 100 and the more bundles you bought the cheaper the cards became.

So you pick an image from stock or a photo from your own collection and size it down.  It is possible to pick a different image for each of the 100 cards :!:  Now that was a little ambitious for me, so I picked one photo I liked from the day of Elly & George’s wedding and used it for all the cards.

You then add up to 6 lines of text on the reverse of the card, selecting your own fonts & colours.  The site walks you through the process and the order and payment are completed online.  Normally they arrive very quickly.  MOO is based in London, England, where they print and hand-pack everything for global delivery.  A recent newsletter announced the eminent arrival of an office in the US.

Well my cards were running out!  STOP LAUGHING DOWN THE BACK YOU TEKKIES!  I had handed out almost 100 mini MOOs since Podcamp 2007 and 09 Bloggies were coming up fast.  So I planned my order.  Alas I left it rather late and the cards arrived after my trip to Cork.

So did I repeat my previous order?  I ordered another 100 with a different image on the front!

So what do you think of them this time?

Now I wonder….. would the MOO card image make a nice header for my blog?  Maybe Magpie might teach me!

What a wonderful night/weekend we had at the Irish Blog Awards 2009. The Cork International Airport Hotel was a fantastic venue with surprises around every corner.  The staff treated us like Royalty and they were so very accommodating to our every need. I was thrilled to catch up with old friends and those who until that point, were just names on a page or twitter.  Already I am looking forward to IBA10.  Did I hear Belfast mentioned as the next venue??  I hope they are not thinking of Grannymar Gables as a venue, it is waaaay to small!

Thank you Damien and everyone who helped in the background to pull off a hugely successful Irish Blogathon*!  Sabrina, once again did a Fantabalous job organizing the Ladies Tea Party.  It was so good that two Toyboys gate-crashed to check up on me.  It is ok I kept them down on their knees - YES I DID!

Irish blogger Grannymar watches the infamous 2 girls, 1 cup - but what’s the twist at the end? This video was made to introduce the best Food and Drink blog at the 2009 Irish Blog Awards and features Lottie and Raptureponies in shot.

For more on the Irish Blog Awards 2009 please visit http://awards.ie/blogawards

Ciara Crossan suggests that we ALL dress up next year?!  Kind of a 5th birthday celebration - Blog Awards fancy dress?  Dress up in what they blog about - not sure I could go as a bottle of vinegar :!:  Or everyone could go along in what they wear while blogging….

I need to lie down…

get me my spray…..

I just had a vision of Ben Kenealy blogging in his altogether

Not sure this blogging is good for my heart.

Morning Everyone,

Only awake and about to hop in the shower.

We had a ball. No trophies to polish, but plenty of new friends made last night & sure that is what the Irish Blog Awards are all about!

Will write later today

It is still dark and the household sleeps…  

Lying awake at home in my own bed is bad enough, but lying awake in someone else’s house is different.  I know I have the run of the house and can go downstairs to make a cuppa; alas doing so silently is not an option.  Going downstairs leads to rather loud groaning on my part, caused by a sharp stab in my hip.  Roll on 12th March.

Well, ‘Bloggers’ day has arrived and soon the call to get in the car will ring out.  I have no idea how many of us will be on the flight at lunchtime but it should be fun.  It will be like a school outing!

I am not sure if my new toy fits into my baggage allowence so there may be no post in the morning.  In the mean time I want to say…

Yesterday saw the end of my year of Celebration and BOY was it fun!  An end to being a joint winner of the Best Personal Blog for 2008.  

I have often heard a ‘Miss World’ talk of her year of adventure, mine was just as exciting.  Thanks to blogging I have taken part in BarCamp, CreativeCamp & PodCamp, I attended the Slugger Awards and sat on Slugger’s knee seat!  I was interviewed for Podcasts and for newspapers, and asked to write guest blog posts from here to India!  I took part in a photoshoot for the Irish Times newspaper, attended a Photo Walk and a Geek Girl Dinner.

I appeared on Television, was rescued from floods of biblical proportions, and taken home to ‘meet mother’!.

Most important of all I have learned that far from being a temple of oddballs and potential serial killers, the blogosphere is full of lively engaging people - I am treated with respect & courtesy, the ‘geeks’ have not forgotten how to behave.  We’re friends not by location or luck, but friends with amazing similar interests and sense of humour.

The friends I have made from blogging are now some of the best friends I have.  We may be spread wide geographically, but I feel closer to you than to anyone I went to school with!.

None of this would have happened if my daughter had not introduced me to the world of geekdom and bloggry!  Thank you Elly for my wonderful life.

To Damien for his endless work over the past four years, in preparing for the wonderful event that the Irish Blog Awards has become.  To all those Sponsors for providing Awards, prizes, booze and anything else required to make the evening go with a swing, and to all who worked in the background.  I applaud you!

To the judging panel for giving of their time to read, mark and inwardly digest all the nominations I sing my praises.

I look forward to tonight and wish all the finalists well.  May the winners feel what I felt (and I don;t mean Grandad! ) on the stage last year!  Have fun and a wonderful year ahead!

I’m absolutely thrilled and excited to have made it to the finals of the Irish Blog awards in the category of Best Personal Blog.

The list has some great talent and I am amazed to make it through this year.

Best Personal Blog - Sponsored by Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group

• cackaloo.com
• headrambles.com
• annierhiannon.blogspot.com
• grannymar.com/blog
• fatmammycat.blogspot.com

Thanks so much to Damien Mulley for all the background work and the category sponsors Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group

Best of luck to all nominated:

The party continues….

UPDATE:  For anyone flying to Cork with Ryanair:  BRING YOUR PASSPORT all emails from them this week say that it is needed for check-in.  I had been told previously that my driving licence was sufficient!

Hails at Coffee Helps tagged me for a Photo-story.

The idea is to rummage around in your photo folders in the computer, dust them down and tidy up the shelf ready for inspection.  Then open folder number four and select the fourth photo. Insert said photo  here and tell the story behind it.

Since Today is not the fourth but the sixth of February, I cheated and chose the sixth folder.  It was still up there in the ‘B’ section.

Sixth folder… sixth photo… Voila!

I know some of you have seen it before.  It was taken post Irish Blog Awards in March of last year.  That is me - didn’t I look young?  The camera never lies! ;)  Now no rotten tomatoes please, you are supposed to be nice to old ladies!

On the table beside me are my computer hard-drive that George my Son-in-Law had updated for me, The Champagne I won at the Irish Blog Awards 2008 and some beautiful flowers that arrived the following morning - Mother’s Day.

Towards the end of February last year I wrote the post Flower Power, it was inspired by Eamonn of Flowers Made Easy who was hosting a bloggers competition with a prize for ‘the best blog post about your mum‘.  Since my mother was dead, I told the story of another mother’s great love.  My post was not a winner but I was!  Elly wrote a post about me and told dreadful lies said nice nice things about me.  Honest, I didn’t bribe her… I didn’t know she had written it.

Well you can imagine my surprise when on Wednesday last I had a new comment on Flower Power.  It was from Eamonn telling me about another competition, this time for St Valentine’s Day.  All the details are below.

So, on with the thinking caps, and out with the pencils… if you are not in then you can’t win!  Stop and think for a moment ,about when you first realised that you were truly madly deeply in love with the light of your life; then sit and write about it.  Wouldn’t it be worth it to win the 12 Red Roses, a Bottle of Bubbly and a box of Chocs!

Now if only I had a Truelove… well I might have had a go myself!

I am busy counting my money.

Not that money, the other kind.  The toy stuff they use down south. Euro!

Euro are like sheep; same singular or plural.  My Elly told me years ago - and she knows everything - never use the term ‘EUROS’ because it is a naughty word in the Greek language.  It must be very bad since she would not translate it for me!

So I am counting my Euro

My little purse that holds them from one visit to another is feeling old, tired and empty.  It has served me well, first used many years ago to keep foreign currency from one years holiday to the next.   French Franc, Deutsch mark, Irish Pound, Italian Lira, Portuguese Escudo, Greek drachma, Danish Crown, Spanish Pesetas & Maltese Lira all found a resting place between holidays.  Today languishing in th bottom are a few Euro.

Now let me see… Twenty… twenty two…twenty four… five, six seven…50c…

No need to go any further  I have enough

The Ladies Tea Party is safe.  I have registered.  I have my money and I am all set…. now what to wear!

The Wonderful Sabrina Dent came up with the idea last year and it proved a wonderful ice breaker and opportunity for lady bloggers to gather for a chat, a tipple and a giggle before the Irish Blog Awards.  Once again Sabrina has organised everything for us but..
Registration is limited to 30 people. You need to complete a registration form for each person attending, and it’s first come, first served, so go on and do it now

Who: You. A pre-event mixer for Ireland’s women bloggers.
When: Saturday, 21 February from 4 - 7 PM
Where: Cork Airport Hotel, Apartment 201 (NOT room 201)
What: Food, drink, occasional knitting, general merriment
How much: €17 per person.
Registration: NOW OPEN. Go for it

I knew it would be momentous.

I hadn’t allowed for the fact that I would spend most of it in a fog.  Elusive sleep last night was no help.  At 5.00am I gave in and made a pot of green tea and toast.  Taking it back to bed with me I listened to the Shipping Forcast on BBC Radio 4.  I suddenly realised that it was the third forecast that I heard in 24 hours without a wink of sleep.

It was much too cold and early to get up so I snuggled down once more in the hope that sleep might overtake me.  Toast in bed was a bad idea, crumbs manage to get everywhere no matter how much I try to keep them on a plate.

I struggled through the morning planning to relax and follow the Inaugeration of President Barak H Obama late on this afternoon.  I gave in eventually and went back to bed, this time sleep took over and I woke just in time to hear the swearing in of both The Vice President and President Barak H Obama.

What a wonderful speech!  I felt it hit the right note and had I been an American my chest would have burst with pride!  Now please stop comparing him to his predecessors and mentioning his skin colour, and allow him to be his own man and get on with the job in hand.

Does it matter the colour of the cat, so long as it catches the mice!

~+~+~+~

At lunchtime the Nominations for most of the categories in the the Irish Blog awards 2009 were announced.  With so many new and talented blogs out there I was surprised and delighted to see my name on the list for Best Personal Blog.  There are about 80 blogs listed in this category with some amazing talent, and yes, I feel humbled to be there among them.  To those who took time to nominate me I say a BIG thank you!

May the best Blog win.

The Logo is thanks to Eolai