Blogger Recognition Award!

Holy poo. 

First I reach a huge milestone for followers, and now I've gotten my first award.

If somebody famous shows up at my door next I'm gonna freakin' lose it. xD

Anyways. 

This is a new award, from the fabulously talented Eve, over at Edge of Night. If you don't know her, seriously, skip along over to her blog and introduce herself. She's the sweetest little thing. 

She just made the Blogger Recognition award, and it's slightly different than the regular awards where you answer questions and then just pass it along to whoever you can think of, which in the cases I've seen, tends to be 2 or 3 blogs. 

Ha. Buckle up fellow people.

You can see all of the originally written guidelines HERE, but for this award, should it be awarded to you, you have to nominate 15 blogs who should then have it passed onto them. The point, as Eve wrote, is for us all to do some digging, and really acknowledge everybody. I think this is great. Much better (not that there's anything wrong with other awards) than just the occasional handing off to two other people. You can, I believe, nominate people who have already been nominated, so long as you don't nominate yourself again, or the person who gave the award to you. =)

The guidelines for the post of the award are as follows:

• Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you've nominated in the post. 

• Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image).

• Comment on each blog and let them know you've nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.

• Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing! (It happens LOL). (Note from Adi: I have already included the link above as you saw.)

Note: You can decline the award if you don't feel up to doing the above, but remember—you have to earn it by doing the work! :)

SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, ONWARDS. 

Isn't it purdy? 

xD

I have a really big, and tiring story of how this blog got started on my Q & A page but seriously don't read it. It's so long and boooooring... xD

So here's a quick, to-the-point story of how AG In The Shire came to be. 

I was not one of those people who wished for a blog and Bam! instantly got it. 

Nope.

I had wanted a doll blog for years.

Yes, you read that right.

Not days.

Not weeks.

Not months.

Years.

It started when I found sites like DollDiaries and AmericanGirlFan. I immediately knew that I wanted to blog about my dolls like them. I asked my mom about it, but at the time I was seriously young. 

She of course, said no.

Years passed, and I asked a few more times on and off over them. 

The urge to write and take pictures; have somewhere to actually put them, grew stronger. 

My friend (K) had recently gotten her own blogspot, and I was beginning to get saddened. Part of me was worried that by the time somebody would finally let me have a blog, dolls would be back in the closet covered with dust. 

So I asked again, and this time my mom took it seriously. 

She knew that this wasn't a passing fancy. 

So, she looked into Blogger, vaguely familiar with it because of her work. She found that everything seemed alright, and suddenly I had a green light. 

I could have a blog.

My very own blog.

The name of course, had been planned for ages.

Nerdy, Lord of the Rings loving me had long since wanted a name that combined both of my interests. 

I almost wrote loves there but if I had been thinking like that at the time the name would've been a long string of actors and musicians. 

*cough*

And thus, AG In the Shire was created.

I'm ecstatic to be in the blogging world, getting the chance to talk to all you wonderful people. 

Now, I'm a fairly new blogger, but I'm going to still share advice anyways. I'm a rule follower and I couldn't not do this without squirming inside. xD

So first off, I feel like a lot of new blogs are follower and page view hungry. They want followers galore, and then get upset when no one finds their blog. I'll never forget reading a post, long before I was even on Blogger, that said something about how you have to get your blog out there, comment on sites like DollDiaries (for the AG people) and just be a social person. Leave nice comments, ask to do button swaps, just be encouraging and make people seeing your name in the blog comments a habit. 

You would not believe the stats I have from just commenting nicely (and honestly) on DollDiaries. Lots of people scroll through the comments on there, I myself know that I always look for highlighted names because I may find a blog that I don't know about. 

So just get yourself out there. 

Have fun.

Just imagine that the blogging community is your neighborhood. 

You want friends?

Great. Get off the dang couch and go meet some. xD

The second piece of advice, kind of falls hand in hand with the comment thing. 

Brandywine Bridge , which isn't actually running anymore, I believe once did a post asking if you ever lie in your comments. 

I feel like that's an important thing for Bloggers to think about. 

We all appreciate nice things being said on our posts, but if you have to try really hard to come up with something that's not even how you feel about what you're reading, maybe you shouldn't leave a comment.

I know you're all probably staring at your screen like,"Okay, Adi's mentally unstable. The girl's lost it!" 

But no. Just listen to what I'm saying. 

Nice comments, they make a Blogger's day. 

Or at least, they make mine.

I read every comment as a reflection of the person's real feelings. 

If you hate my post but say,"Oh this is so great! I love it so much!" 

Yeah, you've made my day. 

But honestly, I don't want my day made if it means I can get somebody to comment honestly on my post.

I don't mind criticism. 

Heck, I openly accept it. 

I'm a person who is always striving to be better. 

Leave people your honest thoughts in comments, if they're nice or specifically asking for criticism. 

If they're not, then just don't freaking comment. That way, nobody's feelings get bruised, but at the same time, the Blogger may realize, "Hey, I didn't get as many comments on this post. Maybe this wasn't one of my better ones." Then the Blogger can then maybe see that the post isn't well liked, so they can change it and do something else. 

...

Did this make sense?

I hope it did. xD

Anyways. That's all the advice I have. Just be nice, honest, and get yourself out there. 

And now for my 15 lovely nominees.
*In No Order*

Kelsey

Maddie

Mint

Marissa

Ginny & June

Lydia Therese

Abigail

Zoë

Shelby-Grace

Hannah

Leah (ToDOLLy Awesome)

Leah (AG Chick)

American Girl Place

Jess Dunlap

Claire M

Okay. Whew. I'm done. xD

I'd really like to thank Eve for the award; it means so much to me! ^-^
Also, I apologize to anybody I didn't nominate. With the way this award is though, I'm sure you'll all get nominated in time. =)

And note for the nominees: You don't have to accept the award. Although I don't believe you get the lovely award picture on your blog unless you do... 

Crud. Should've asked about that. 

ANYWHO. 

Adi's done now. 

Continue on with your daily lives. 

Sorry this was so long guys. xD