Blog Action Day, Egel Award, Power of Schmooze Award, Halloween Treats, Blogging Buddies, No trespassing verse, and finally, they paved paradise

Before my thank you and more post, I want to mention that today is Blog Action Day and the topic is the environment. I didn't get it together today to participate but if you are interested, please click on the link for Blog Action Day Participants and see what various bloggers have to say about the environment. Although I don't have a post about the environment, I would like to mention an issue in the U.S. which I am concerned about and that is Mountaintop Removal. There is an organization called I love Mountains, End Mountain top Removal. You might want to check that out. I also thought I'd steer you towards, Treehuggers. They are a web magazine that covers a lot of environmental issues.

EtteY at Treasure the Little Things and Maiylah at Maiylah's Snippets and Picture Clusters kindly tagged me for the Egel award for blogs a few weeks ago. Brad Egel originated the award. I have enjoyed discovering EtteY and Maiylah's blogs through Weekend Snapshot as well as photohunters, another photo meme I enjoy. During the photohunt this week, Hootin' Anni kindly gave me a treat which I can pass on to visitors to my blog. I was also appreciative of Heart of Rachel who shared her treats with me. She is also a photohunter and weekend snapshot participant. I like the way the blogger awards and treats help us find out about different blogs to visit and it's nice to get recognized myself. I appreciate it and want to pass on the Egel Nest Award and Holloween Treats. After posting this, I found out that Sara at Farming Friends another blog I enjoy, who is also a photohunter, has nominated me for the Power of Schmooze Award. I appreciate that and thought I'd edit this post and add that in with my thank you post. There are so many blogs I've recently discovered and enjoy that I'd like to take these opportunities to mention them. However, nothing is simple with me. Rather than just tags some of the many blogs I enjoy, I start thinking.
I decided what I want to do this time is say thank you and hopefully later on my brain will function better and I'll figure out a way to play it forward. One thing I'd like to do is come up with some lists of blogs I enjoy and say something about them, but if I wait on that it will take me forever. That was my first idea with the Egel Award. Rather than name a few people to pass it on to I wanted to say thank you and then point to a page I came up with that would have some of the blogs I've recently discovered and describe them.
Prior to the photo memes, I mostly visited other melanoma survivor's blogs since that's how I got started on blogging. I do have a page with links to other melanoma survivors and cancer survivors. However, I've never done a blog roll to cover the other categories of blogs I've started to go to. I'd like to do that since I often find blogs through the blog rolls of other blogs I like. One of these days I'll do something along those lines where I have a page with blogs by category, such as, artists, photographers, gardeners, writers, medbloggers, nuts, ha. I do have a photohunter blogroll of sorts and will do one for weekend snapshot because I have found a lot of blogs through those photo memes. The problem is that I have to work, feed myself, and shower occasionally and somehow there isn't quite enough time for everything. The sanitation workers may take me out with the trash if I don't start showering.
In case anyone is interested, the photographs I used for this post were taken at my corner pharmacy which used to be a garden center. When the garden center got replaced by a large chain pharmacy, it was noticeable that the landscaping was a hang over from better days. The thank you at the top is on the other side of a Do not Enter sign at the Pharmacy Drive through. That configuration always makes me think of a verse from Woody Guthrie's song This Land is Your Land. The verse I'm speaking of goes: As I went walking, I saw a sign there, and on the sign it said "No Trespassing", and on the other side, it didn't say nothing, that side was made for you and me. So I figure if the other side of, Do Not Enter, says, Thank You, that side was made for you and me. Thank you and please feel free to enter. Since this is blog action day on the environment and they paved the garden center to make way for a pharmacy, I guess I'll end this combo post with Joni Mitchell's lines They paved paradise and put up a parking lot and my personal favorite verse from that same song - (Big Yellow Taxi)

They took all the trees
Put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

by Joni Mitchell