Arte y Pico

This is another one of those "nominate your fellow bloggers" award things, which I have a bad habit of forgetting to pass on whenever someone gives me one, so if you've previously awarded me with something of this nature and I've seemingly ignored it, I haven't really -- I've just forgotten it until the point where it seems too late to post about it. But this one's new to me (thanks, SamuraiFrog!), so here are the rules:

1) Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award which is here: Arte y Pico.

So here are my nominees, a few of which I've awarded before for stuff like this, but you know, I'm a broken record on a great many topics....

1. Lynn Sislo over at Violins and Starships has a terrific handle on what blogging's all about. (And she should, since she's been blogging for an impressively long time.) Music, SF, life in the southern heartland, the occasional "Wow, are our politics ever screwed up" observation, and enough linkage to sink the Bismarck.

2. Nettl at Life in Shades of F-Major is all about the beautiful things (although she can uncork an impressive rant when she needs to, as well). She recently linked John Williams in her ongoing "World's Most Beautiful Music" series, which elevates her even more in my view. (Also from Oklahoma. Must be something in the water there.)

3. And then there's Nettl's significant other, Steph of Incurable Insomniac. Music, wine, all kinds of good stuff.

4. Judith HeartSong is all about living a life of beauty.

5. Well...I just don't know what to say about Jeff over at Psychosomatic Wit right now. I haven't spent as much time reading blogs lately, so I hadn't checked him out in a while, but I figured as soon as I started kicking this post around that I should give him this award. That, of course, meant that I should go see how things are going for him -- and I discover that his life has completely derailed since I last looked in. This is a guy who blogs with his heart on his sleeve, and he deserves better than what dominates his front page right now.

So there we are. And as always, I could do this again and nominate five completely different bloggers, so maybe if this thing comes my way again....