It's that time of year again...when we all go a bit MAD!

Last year, I had an amazing experience. I mean, this blogging experience all round is pretty incredible but I was nominated and became a finalist in the MAD blog awards, went to the awards ceremony - where I promptly lost. Did I mind? Not one bit! Why? Because it was an amazing experience all round - from being dressed by John Lewis to the trip down to London for the ceremony on the hottest late September weekend that I think I can ever remember. To be recognised as one of the best was enough for me - yes, I would have loved to have won overall but in truth, and to trot out that old cliché, we were all winners.

Thing is, you see, I had such a fantastic time last year, that I'd like to go again. So, if you enjoy reading the ramblings, wittering, mots justes, pictures (maybe not - I know I'm not a great photographer), or you just think I'm great (it's a long shot I know), I'd love it if you nominated me in any of the relevant categories. You can only nominate once and you have to nominate a MAD Blogger of the Year then you can nominate in as many award categories  - or as few -  as you like. Don't forget to copy in the full URL of the blog or blogs you're nominating in each category or in the case of Blog Post of the Year, the full URL of the post.

Click on the badge to get started. Choosing who to nominate is going to be tough in some categories and I'd like to wish everyone involved the very best of luck. I can't stress enough how fantastic it was last year to be a finalist so anyone that is lucky enough to get that far is in for a real treat. 

Thank you for reading if you've got this far. I'll try to shut up about it now. I've gone a bit MAD, I think.

Truly, MADly, Deeply

If you're a regular reader of this blog (and if not, why not?!), you will maybe have noticed a little badge that has snuck in on my sidebar in the last week or so. I've been wondering whether to mention it or not, because it feels very un-me - or should that be un-British? In one of those "oh, sod it" moments that we all have, I've decided to take the plunge and explain, in case you don't know what it's about.

The badge denotes that this blog has been nominated for one of the The MAD awards. These awards, now in their second year, celebrate the best of Mum And Dad blogging (hence the MAD bit - no, it doesn't mean we're all bonkers. Then again...). The awards recently opened for nominations. There are several categories, and weekly, lists of all blogs nominated in each categories are published on the site's blog. The five blogs with most nominations in each category will become finalists, and a public vote opened for all but the Blogger of the Year award. The winners will be announced in September, and there are some really brilliant prizes on offer.

To date, I have been nominated in five categories, which is just amazing really. Thank you to anyone and everyone who has taken time so far to nominate me for an award.

The categories I have been nominated in are:

Blogger of the Year
Best MAD Family Life Blog
Best MAD Food Blog
Best New MAD Blog (a category I qualify for by 4 days!)
Best MAD Blog Post of the Year for this post, that created a big reaction when I published it a few weeks ago.

If you would like to nominate me in any of the categories - there are others, but I don't qualify for some, like pregnancy blogs - visit the MADs website here to cast your vote. If you do, then thank you.

I couldn't have foreseen what effect starting this blog would have upon my life, as I noted in my Happy Blogoversary post last week. To be nominated for awards for my blogging as well is just thrilling.

I will now go back to being very British and not mentioning it at all. What's the MAD awards again?

I am a Twitterholic!

I have been considering starting a Twitter meme for a while and I'm just getting around to it now. That's the problem you have when you have too many ideas for blog posts in your head.

I decided to start this, because I love Twitter more than is healthy for a grown woman. I had a slow start but it's now reached fever pitch, and there is no hope for me; I'm hooked. I am a Twitterholic So, I have concocted a few questions about Twitter and you, which I hope will make for interesting blog-type reading. And of course, in time-honoured fashion, I get to go first. Eyes down, look in, ladies and gents, here are the votes of the kateab jury.

When did you join Twitter? (You can find the exact date at bwitterday.com)

28th November 2008.

Why did you join Twitter?

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I'd read an increasing number of press articles about it and was intrigued. However, I made the rookie mistake of assuming it was like Facebook (which I'd joined early 2008 having resisted for a long time) and so protected my tweets for quite a while. It did mean that I didn't get it at first. It was like tweeting into the abyss. I don't think I got my second follower until February! A few months later, I got Tweetdeck and was hooked.

Who is/was your first or oldest follower? Who did you follow first? Tell me all about them. (firstfivefollowers.com will give you this info)

These are one and the same person for me. It is Blaise Grimes-Viort who tweets here. I have known Blaise for 6 years or so, when he joined Handbag.com as their communities manager, which is now part of National Magazines. I was a regular on their discussion boards and was one of the volunteers who helped to moderate the boards - dealing with spam, abuse and so on. I also helped on a new discussion board which Blaise set up connected to some websites, aimed at mums-to-be and new mums, until NatMags decided to close it down. Gah.

I don't really use Handbag any more. I stopped visiting because most of the users I knew stopped visiting after an upgrade radically changed the boards for the worse. We all found new homes to go to, but I still kept in touch with Blaise via Twitter. Blaise tweets some personal stuff but mostly tweets information about being a community manager (and job vacancies, if you're interested). He left National Magazines last week and is now Head of Social Media Services & Engagement for Webjam.

The other thing I know about Blaise is that he has a famous sister. She's a supermodel - reckon that could be a bit of a conversation stopper! Her name is Benoit, better known as Ben Grimes. It means nothing to me as I am so not into fashion but she appears in celeb features.

Do you have any celebrities following you, or have you ever had a DM from a celeb? (This was inspired by Paula getting a DM from John Cusack - still jealous!)

Erm, I have a couple of radio type people (the lovely Helen Blaby and Phil Williams) who have become followers somehow. And the lovely Dhruv Baker, winner of Masterchef 2010, got talked into following me.

I did once get a DM from a former Apprentice contestant, offering telephone numbers and an email address. They weren't for me, but for someone who is not on Twitter. I was just the messenger girl. Honest, m'lud.

I had a real phase of following celebrities in my early days on Twitter. I do still follow some but these days, I am more interested in interacting with people, which is hard for celebrities who get thousands of replies to every tweet. I keep some for banter, amusement and nosiness, because that's what following a celebrity is all about.

If you could follow anyone not on Twitter - alive, dead, real or fictional - on Twitter, who would it be?

I think it would have to be someone literary, just to see how they get on fitting their ideas into 140 characters. So it's between two authors. The first is Thomas Hardy, whose books I read as a challenge, because the language was so difficult. Most of his books are fairly depressing so I can't imagine his tweets would be a laugh a minute. The other is Kahlil Gibran, who wrote The Prophet, one of my favourite books. I could imagine him tweeting some great lines from that and his other works, all of them guaranteed to delight and uplift.

Which came first - Twitter or blog? 

Definitely Twitter. It is because of Twitter that I got into blogging, through "meeting" bloggers on there who got me to write, leading me to set up this blog. The same people regularly give me advice, offer their opinion or input, and for that I will be forever grateful. It just so happens that Twitter is the perfect platform for telling the world about my blog, so I can't imagine blogging without Twitter. Twitter also helps me find some great blogs, some of which are in my blogroll down the right hand side of the page.

So, that's me. It now falls to me to pass on this Twitterholic meme to some other great bloggers. I am therefore tagging to receive my wonderful Twitterholic award:

Garry at The Blog Up North
Wendy at Very Bored in Catalunya
Joanna at At Home With Mrs M
Karen at If I Could Escape
Kirsty at Gone Bananas

to have a go. The rules, such as they are, are:

1. Nick the badge at the top, and mention the person who tagged you.
2. Answer the questions. (Duh!)
3. Tag some other great twitterholics bloggers.

Alternatively, tag yourself, mention me in your blog post and link to it in the comments below. I'd love to hear about your Twitter experience.

The Five Fs gets an award!

I got given an award the other day, by Garry at Blog Up North. The award he's given me is a Blog of Substance award, although I've noticed, in the slightly obsessive way that I do, that the original badge/award is called "A Blog With Substance". To be honest, I am slightly amazed. This blog has only been going for a few months, and I didn't post on it for nearly a month so really, it's only a couple of months old. To be recognised by a fellow blogger of having substance is quite something. Obviously, he sees something I don't although it is his fault I started blogging as I wrote a couple of guest posts for him back in March and started this blog a week or two later after the second one.

I feel like I am still finding my way in the blogosphere and the blog is evolving as I go. Already, I've noticed that out of the five Fs I claim to blog about, I've blogged about food most, family next, football hardly at all (which is bad considering I've been watching the World Cup), fitness hardly ever, and nothing really fun. In fact, some of my recent posts could be considered quite maudlin and self-pitying and not really fitting into any of these five. But I've enjoyed creating them, and been thrilled with the response I have had from readers. I love the comments, so please, please keep them coming. We all need validation of what we're doing and people commenting positively on my writing really does that for me, and I don't care if it's good or bad, the fact it has generated a comment is enough for me.

So, thanks go to Garry for seeing something in this blog that makes it worthy of a read. (PS Your cheque's in the post ;) ) A condition of accepting this award is that I must sum up my blogging philosophy in five words. Five words?! Good God, have you read my posts? Five words is almost an impossibility for me! I haven't even thought about this until now. So, I've had a think and killed off some brain cells and come up with this:

Write it from your heart. 

My most popular posts - not just my opinion, I'm judging this by the number of page views and comments I've received from readers - have been when I have done just that. I've written some posts and been on the point of not publishing them but have decided to let the readers decide if they are worth bothering about. They've felt too personal to be of interest to others, but they seem to strike a chord.They have given me confidence in my ability to create something that others enjoy reading. I may not always get it right, but I do not expect to; I am learning. And it's my blog so I'll do what I want. ;)

Anyway, it now falls to me to pass on this award to other blogs of real substance. There are loads I enjoy reading (and I really should update my blogroll) but here we go:

Mrs M of At Home With Mrs M (great food, and better photography than me)
Joanne at JAG's Fitness Blog (inspirational, also with some great food)
Wendy at Very Bored in Catalunya (who rarely fails to make me laugh)
Christine at Thinly Spread 

So now they have to:

1. Thank the blogger who awarded it to them.
2. Summarise their blogging philosophy in five words (and share it with your readers of course!).
3. Nominate some other bloggers of substance.

I could have added lots of blogs. I find new ones to read every day and I'm rubbish at remembering to visit them all so sorry for not mentioning you all. (That's why I love Twitter - follow your favourite bloggers, and they'll let you know when they have published a new post.) Some of my favourite blogs have already nominated so it seems silly to do it all over again. Please don't be offended if your blog is not here. If you like, add a comment to this post, so we can all find you. Hopefully, soon, I'll get round to updating my blogroll too.

And so, I'm off to bed, clutching my award. I think I might, in the time-honoured tradition of celebs, put it in the downstairs toilet after I've slept with it, nonchalantly but ostentatiously so that people see it are moved to comment on a) the award and b) its placement.

And whilst I'm here, I'd like to thank my agent......