Owwww....Gwaannnn

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The Balance Beam has offered the DrawingIn Room the One Lovely Blog Award, as part of a continuing line of appreciation and encouragement from one blogger to another.  I did initially read it as one "Loverly" blog award, but that may be because I live in a musical most of the time -- though not usually Lerner and Loewe....

The rules of the Loverly Blog Award is that one accepts it humbly, Sally Field style, then recognizes other blogs they admire which may be out of the public eye.  I am a big fan of the Balance Beam, and of Charlene, so I am pleased to accept this award and say a few remarks before I bestow it on another.

{ahem}

Charlene notes that this was the first blog she discovered, which surprises and humbles your Narrator, especially after learning how Charlene came to blog herself, only to grow to 242 followers in 13 months.  The birth of our blogs is a meme making the rounds at the moment, so I will play along.  Some of this will be familiar to you.

Caroline Bender (my version, not Rona Jaffe's - please don't sue me) was born in June 2005 on the Business Women's Finishing School and Social Club.  I had been at The Mill about 6 months and was completely flummoxed by the culture I encountered there.  Caroline was exclusive to the BWFS for about a year, and I began to yearn to write about some other topics, in a different tone from Miss Bender's classroom persona.  Being a founding member of the BWFS, but not its owner, I launched DrawingIn in the first of many mixed metaphors that would take us to our present moment.

What it's all about
1. Caroline Bender: Protagonist of Miss Rona Jaffe's masterwork, The Best of Everything.
It's The Group for working girls.  As depicted by Hope Lange in the film of the same name, she is the face of this salon.
2. The Drawing In Room: Explained at the top of this page.  The area where I worked in The Mill had not, in fact, been the Drawing In room, but that is the work I did.

3. Why mix these metaphors? It's the way my head works.  You get used to it.

4. The Mill: Sorry. It's no secret, but I won't put it in writing. Maybe in art, where it is not searchable.

5. The topics:

Around town - when I am out and about in New England.  Or Texas.  Or Virginia.  Or the Yoknapatawpha of my head

BWFS - new and improved.  Still the source of my fountain.  I will not award The Lovely Blog to ourselves, but I must honor our Miss Minchin for her continued inspiration.

Childhood 70s style - We are not the Greatest Generation, or the Largest.  We are the Cynical Chain-Smoking one that came next.

Clip show - when I am lazy.  See earlier this week.  Or this one.  hahaha - gotcha

Fiction - too long for lunch reading.  In the beginning, I wasn't ready to post spontaneously, so I posted everything I had that wasn't Mortifying.

For the Booklovers - I'm a hoarder, she's a hoarder, wouldn't you like to be a hoarder too?

Hard to be Me - Sometimes I don't know why I tell you the things I do.  I have already second guessed this list, but now I am halfway through it, and it seems wrong to stop

I don't know art - seriously.  I don't.  But I keep trying

Jodie3 - any excuse to mention Jodie

Life in O-merica/Decision 09 - Too bad David Halberstam won't be around to explain this decade to me

Mill Update - now strictly a state of mind. 

Rants and raves - because I live alone and you wandered here without warning

Talk about the Weather - 22 years makes you a New Englander, no matter what the Old Timers say

The Lists - see... everything above.  It's the meta-meta post.  Just to be difficult, I won't categorize this post at all

Theology - Just when you think you have me figured out, I am going to throw some Jesus at you.  Try not to duck.

6 How it will end:  lawsuit, probably

I've been goofing through this mini-list trying to decide who should get the Shining Star--I mean, Loverly Blog nod from me.  I am worried about slighting anyone.  Each member of my Blogroll has a unique reason for being there, and the shared distinction of having a voice I like and a sensibility that gets me thinking.  Theirs are experiences different from mine in ways I will never attempt, and still intellectual soulmates.

I have decided to congratulate From the Garden Bench and Blogger "WEBB," for exploring her voice and deciding on a focus, and for staying commited to blogging and still enjoying it.  Since her recent post shouts-out to both this writer and Charlene, we extend this One Lovely Blog award to her and urge her to keep on writing.

Gardners in the readership, please bookmark From the Garden Bench, even if she is not in your hardiness zone.

"In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. "

~~ Chance