Thank you (Looks at feet, shuffles back and forth awkwardly.)

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This award is for any blog that truly ‘measures up’.

Rules

1. Say one nice thing to a man in your life.
2. List at least six ways that you measure success in your life (or for your blog).
3. Assign this award to six other blogs and leave them a comment telling the blogger that you’ve assigned them this award.
4. Link back to the blog that you received this award from.

I groan a little with awards, preferring just to toil away on my blogs and put them out in the world; hopefully for the entertainment, education, and pleasure (or sometimes even irritation) of the reader. I find awards a little of a distraction. The two blessings with this one are that it is not pink and the spelling is all kosher; traits often lacking in award badges.

Now, to the nuts and bolts bits:

Item 4 is the easiest. The award was given to me by the lovely Diane at Diane's Addled Ramblings. She is always a good read, whimsically tackling life as she meets it. Curiously all of the Diane's (and Dianne's) I know and have known are lovely; must be a genetic disposition.

Item 1 is probably the hardest. Curiously most of my friends are women. Perhaps I will go part way with this one and give thanks to Fabrizio, a supervisor at the telephone counselling service where I do volunteer work. Gay, tattooed, with more scrap iron on his face than I have in my shed and a tendency to wear orange sandals and crimson nail varnish, he is a true character in a world sadly in need of characters. He is also the best supervisor I have had.

Six ways I measure success in my life:

1. The happiness of my family; although I acknowledge that I cannot make them happy if they are not. If they are forging out and doing things and happy in this forging, that is the best I can ask.

2. Getting things off my 'to do' list. I have a computer-based to-do list that pouts at me if I am not moving things along. Douglas Adams said "I love deadlines, they make such a lovely 'whooshing' sound as they whiz by". I find lists help me reduce the whoosh. I suppose that makes it a 'whoosh list'.

3. A big way I judge success is what I call the 'day after' effect. When I have finished something - writing, arty stuff, cooking, gardening - I like to return to it the next day, to marvel that I really did it. And to make sure it was not just a dream. OK, returning to the cooking bit is tricky. See #4.

4. Popular acclaim and cheering is always a good sign of success. Except with cooking, where the sound of contented eating is sufficient. See #3.

5. If I learnt nothing else from my studies in psychology, I learnt that happiness lies in the doing, not in the having. I like to keep various projects on the go.

6. Finally, success is getting into a nice bed at night knowing you have achieved something and getting up in the morning wanting to do more.

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Finally, I am supposed to nominate six other blogs for this award.

I'd rather not. It's like trying to pick favourites from your children.
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