I received (for the second time) a Butterfly Award last week.  The first time I received it from my friend Rachel at AverageGalDotCom.   I was humbled and though I was thankful for the kudos, I was just flat out busy and it fell off of my radar.  So when the email RSS feed from Cash2Blog showed up in my inbox and I scrolled down, I was humbled yet again and put my self through a bit of a spankin’ machine for dropping the ball on Rachel’s nomination of TM.

No excuses here, folks.  Things have been a bit crazy since I started substitute teaching at the school district, but that’s no excuse.

So, I raise my glass to Rachel and Mitch and hereby declare the following to be the coolest blogs I know:

1. Cash2Blog – This is not just a brown nose recip link.  From the first time I went over to Mitch’s site, I was hooked.  The design is priceless and I have to say that although he does not claim to be a writer, he has one of the friendliest and most informative styles I know.  So there.
2. Men With Pens – I am in love with the take-no-prisoners approach that James and company put together.  If you’ve not had a chance to witness one of their drive-by site reviews, you are missing out.
3. Writing The Cyber Highway – I love the design of Michele’s site.  It is just plain cool.  I also like what she has to say, and she’s got one hell of a story behind who she is.  She is a role model for many.
4. AverageGalDotCom – There is no way that I could do a list like this and not include her site.  I had the same KAPOW with her site as I did when I first saw Mitch’s.  A quick funny story:  We did recip guest posts and when I announced hers, I put her url as AverageGirl.com.  Yup.  You guessed it.  Porn site.  Oh, man I STILL cringe.  And she handled it with such grace – Thanks Rachel!
5. Steven-Sanders.com – Man, I don’t know where Steven comes from sometimes.  That guy finds the coolest stuff.  He definitely lives in some back alley of cyberville.
6. SmallBizBee – I know it sounds kinda funny but one of the things I love the most about Smallbizbee is the avatar.  It is unique and just makes you want to smile.  Matt is also another one of those yay-hoos that is always finding cobscure yet appropriately cool stuff.
7. Blogging Without A Blog – Barbara has just the coolest concept going over there.  I did a guest post and the setting is ala classroom and I’m telling ya, I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun moderating comments.  The whole darned thing turned into a classroom behavior management scenario – some of the stuff still gets me to LOL
8. WebDesignServers – For the tech stuff, Ciara is the rockinest.  I always say I know just enough HTML to really screw things up, and the tutorials over there have helped me do some things that otherwise I would not have even attempted.
9. HowToMakeMyBlog – MetMarko’s site is one of my newest favs.  The info is top notch, the style is first class and the design stands on it’s own.
10. IHateMyMessageBoard - Ok, in terms of humor writing, Tracy O has got it goin’ on.  Get on with yo bad self, g’friend! Can’t explain it, you just gotta go see.
11. BloggerNewbie – Dee has always got so many things going on over there.  She also pulls nary a punch.  She will definitely call a spade a f’n shovel.

Ok, I have at least another ten or so I could add, but I’ll be a conformist today and stick to the rules.

Oh, and yes.  I know it’s 11.  Sue me.