I’ve been nominated for this unusual award by Charles French, who describes his blog as ‘an exploration of reading and writing‘. I can say that there are some excellent tips for writers on Charles’ site. Himself a writer, and someone who teaches writing skills, his expertise is passed on to readers through his many, varied posts. I recommend you all to take a look and see just how much Charles’ blog includes.
So, I’ll jump right into this one and list The RULES:
1. You are awesome; tell us why.
2. You are my friend; tell us about other friends.
3. Be creative, but it’s ok if you are having trouble with this one.
4. There are no direct questions to answer; let yourself run wild!
5. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
6. Notify your nominees.
I could say, ‘Oooh, er . . . where do I start wih this one?’ So I’ll just do my usual thing and ramble . . .
Now I’m ready to dive . . . 
I think of high mountains as awesome. Some reach up into the sky, well beyond the clouds before tapering away to nothingness. Oceans are awesome: seemingly bottomless depths. Outer space is awesome: infinity beyond our wildest imaginings:
The Aurora Borealis is awesome. Blue Whales are awesome. Life itself is awesome . . .
I think you’ll have got what I’m saying by now. Some things are totally, gobsmackingly awesome! According to the Oxford English Dictionary awesome means:
“Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring awe”.
No doubt some people are awesome, too – usually those people (past or present) whose lives have/ have had some beneficial effect on many of us on this planet, or who gain our admiration for their skills and achievements. Those people could be anything from scientists and entrepreneurs to great composers, musicians, artists, writers or athletes etc. (This list could go on forever, so I’ll leave it at that!)
Well, I’m of the opinion that there are different ‘types’ of awesomeness. Outer space and people can’t be measured on the same scale. In the blogging community we nominate for awards people whose posts we love to read; posts that impress us. Awards have so many different names – like Creative, Versatile, or Very Inspiring Blogger – all qualities we recognise and appreciate in people we ‘follow’ and like. I’m really grateful for having been nominated for a few awards myself. It’s an honour to be included, even though many awards are time consuming to respond to. This one, at least, allows us to freely ramble!
As for being awesome …!!??!! Apart from anything else, I’m only 5’2” – hardly awesome in appearance. But Epic Awesomeness is a wonderful title for a blog award. On the scale we use in the blogging community, it means so much to have been nominated for this one. But I can only mimic what Charles, who nominated me, said in his post – I have never considered myself to be awesome. I do a lot of different kinds of posts, and I know that different ones appeal to different people. I tend to have different ‘likers’ when I do Travel or History posts to when I write Flash Fiction. That’s only to be expected. I’m interested in so many things – and have learned so much from reading some wonderful WordPress posts since becoming part of this community sixteen months ago
In our blogging world, we become ‘blogging friends’ with each other and enjoy each others’ posts. Blogging lets us chat with people in far off places and we come to ‘know’ them. At least we come to know what they’re interested in and how they feel about certain issues. Sometimes, it feels as though I’ve known some of my blogging friends personally for years. I could list so many people I talk to a lot – but that may be simply because I talk a lot anyway (once a teacher, always a teacher… haha.). Some of those people I’ve ‘known’ since before last Christmas, others only for a matter of weeks . . .
There are so many lovely bloggers I’ve ‘met’ on WP. I wish I could say ‘hello’ properly to all of you (I’d bring a stool, so you wouldn’t need to keep looking down at me). For now, I’ll just have to be content with nominating people I think are awesome for this award.
I realise that some of you in the list may be too busy right now in the run up to Christmas. Others may well be ‘award free’ blogs. I’m just giving bloggers I like a mention. It would be great to see your posts, but if you don’t that’s OK too . . .
Aquileana at La Audacia de Aquiles
Bekki at Dartmoor Yarns
Draliman at dralimanonlife
Joy at Tales from Eneana
Amanda at Something to Ponder about
Joycelin at Tribalmysticstories
Chioma at lifehomeandaway
Frances at Loving Leisure Time
Freda at Aromatic Essence
Lina at Lin’s recipes
Inese at Snapshot Perspectives
Susan at Susan’s Creative Writing and Poetry
Suzanne at puginakitchen
All Awesome People . . .!
Millie Thom 
Thank you so much for the nomination Millie! ☺️☺️☺️
You’re welcome, Frances. I wasn’t sure whether you were an award free blog. It’s quite a quick one to do.(I wrote more than is needed, as always.) 🙂
Thank you, Millie! Well, you might not see it this way, but I think everything about your blog is AWESOME!
… and I wasn’t finished (humph, stupid typo fingers). Your history posts are awesome! Your travel posts are awesome! Your photos are super awesome! And your flash fiction is extra awesome, especially when you mix in the other elements too. Super extra awesome! Obviously I have no problem with the word awesome: spread that stuff around, there’s plenty for everyone!
Thank you so much for the nomination! Now I’m officially three blog award posts behind, but I promise to get to it as soon as I can!
There’s no rush at all to get the posts done. I’m the world’s worst at doing them quckly. I’ve never done one as soon as this one before. It was a much easier and quicker one than those that ask us to write lots of facts as well as answer questions – and write questions for nominees. They take ages. This can be really short, if you want it to be.
I’m a bit overwhelmed by your praise of my blog! Thank you so much! You already know now, that I think your blog is awesome – and your efforts on NaNo say a lot about your sheer determination. I’m truly impressed.(And you don’t make nearly as many typos as I do). 🙂
The problem with putting off responding to one award nomination is that they start to pile up, which is wonderfully flattering and yet… Yep, better get on it. And thanks so much for saying nice things about my blog too, that makes my day! Which reminds me, now that NaNo is over, I’d better start actually *posting* on my blog again, or it won’t seem very awesome for long. 😀 That’s the problem with diving into the novel, I’m doing that (and real life) instead of short stories. Hoping to find a nice balance. Yeah, in December. Ha ha ha ha ha!
December’s a ‘write off’ (excuse the pun) as far as much witing is done for any of us, I think. I know what you mean about things piling up, though. It becomes quite daunting, doesn’t it. Big breath… 🙂 Just do what is manageable or you won’t enjoy the buid up to Christmas at all. 🙂
Thank you, Joy! And I think the same about yours!
Thanks so much for the nomination Millie. In this case, I’ll have to decline. Since the beginning, I’ve kept my blog award-free, mostly because I travel so much and often have so little internet connection. You and your blog are so awesome that I know you’ll understand.
Yes, I had a feeling that might be the case, Peggy, as I couldn’t find an award page on your blog. I just couldn’t see anything that said ‘award free’, so i thought I’d go ahead and nominate you. No doubt I missed something obvious, and it says ‘award free’ under my nose. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. 🙂
Thanks for thinking of me and thanks for understanding. I guess I need to make the award-freeness a bit more obvious. 🙂
I know that awards are not something everyone likes to do, Peggy. I’m sorry I didn’t see your notice about being award free. I do think you are awesome though, so that still stands! Happy globe-trotting. 🙂
No worries. Like I said, thanks for thinking of me, especially in terms of ‘awesomeness’. 🙂 And your list of nominees has given me other blogs to visit, which is always a good thing.
Thanks, Peggy.
Oh Millie, thank you so so much for this epic and totally awesome award. You and your blog are both epic and awesome and I am so grateful and happy to have been nominated. I will try to post something it’s kind of crazy busy right now but this is such a cool award I will do my best to get something up soon. Thank you again and I totally appreciate this.
I know, it’s a terrible time to be doing award posts! It really wouldn’t matter if you left it until after Christmas, you know. I’ve left some I’ve been nominated for for weeks, simply because I haven’t managed to find the time to do them. But this one really is quite quick to do. You don’t need to write much at all. I always write too much!
Thanks Millie, I will get it done may not be until after Christmas but will definitely do it It’s a fun award and thank you so much.
I’ll look forwad to reading it! It is a fun one to answer – just let it flow however you like. Enjoy the run-up to Christmas. It’s such a lovely, but busy, time when you have children.
Congrats Millie
Thanks, Lynn. I know you’re not happy to do awards, so please know that I would have nominated you, otherwise. Your blog is definitely awesome!
Oh thanks dearest Millie! 🙂
Congratulations and big hug Millie for the award. Thank you for nominating me…. Stay blessed and happy writing. I will try my best to write a post on this one😀
Having read many of your stories, Shivangi, I think you could write something really interesting for this award post. It’s a nice, quick one to do, unlike many others with lots of questions to answer etc. But if you haven’t time before Christmas, you could always leave it for a few weeks until the new year. 🙂
I will try my best Millie. Thank you of considering me capable. And I loved your answers in the post. Stay blessed😀
Thank you for accepting, Shivangi! And thank you for liking my post. I’ll look forward to reading yours, whenever you manage to do it. There’s no rush at all. 🙂
Thank you Millie. Big hug😀
I much enjoyed reading your musings … Thanks a lot for the nomination, dear Millie… It means a lot coming from you… I really appreciate it and will be posting on it soon. Have a great rest of your weekend. All the best to you!, Aquileana 😀
If ever someone was awesome, Aquileana, it’s you. Your posts are absolutley wonderful – and I think I still have one to read. I’m still trying to put some of my older posts back to normal since I wrecked most of my blog a few weeks ago. I’ll be over to read it as soon as I can. 🙂
Thank you for accepting the award! 😀
You are awesome dear Millie. Thank you for nominating me for this award. I have learned so much from you, your writing and travels Awesome indeed
Thank you so much for being my friend, Ineke. I really hope we can meet up one day. I was a bit worried about nominating you, knowing how busy you are at the moment. But this one is quite quick to do, compared to other awards. A paragraph would be enough. No facts to write or questions to answer or ask. I really enjoyed thinking about the word ‘awesome’. It was a bit like doing one of my WOW posts! 😀
I a also glad I stumbled upon you too. We have so much in common. I think when we meet one day a day won’t be enough to catch up. I’ll do the award as soon as I can. Thanks again for your friendship too.
Thank you, Ineke. I value your words highly. We do have so much in common, including age! No, we’ll have to make it more than a day, when we meet. Hugs to you, my friend.
Loved reading this post..thanks for the nomination ☺☺
Thank you, Lina. I’ll look forward to reading yours! It’s one can be answered in so many different ways. 🙂
Yes..very true
The nib of this award, so well named and deserved by you, has allowed you to reveal much of yourself in your response. I am happy to follow you !
Oh, thank you for that kind comment, William. It was a very different kind of award to respond to, compared to the usual ones. It’s one that invites individual styles of responses, which has to be good. Some award questions are just run-of-the-mill things like, ‘Who is your favorite actor/singer/author?’ They do become boring to reply to. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve explained which my favourite genre is. 🙂
Thanks for the nomination, awesome Millie 🙂
This award is a new one on me, I’ve not seen it before!
Hi, Ali. This award isn’t one I’ve seen before, either. I don’t think it goes back very far beyond Charles, who nominated me. I thought it best to ignore the spelling mistake on the logo! It’s quite a quick one to do – thank goodness and I thought it would really suit your style of answers. Like me, you enjoy a good ramble.
Congratulations millie, I agree your blog is awesome
Thank you! That’s a lovely comment. 🙂
Congrats Millie!! I love your awesome blog, I really appreciate that you thought about me for this award , Thanks so much:)
Thank you, Freda.It’s a nice one to do. just let your mind go where it wants! 🙂
Hi Millie! Thanks for the nomination/mention. This was a lovely post to read. What an interesting question – tell us why you’re awesome? We are all, of course, awesome in our own way, but also mostly very modest and, beyond that, it’s not always easy to pin down exactly why we think someone is awesome. As for sitting down and chatting, I was thinking only yesterday how nice it would be to sit down and have a cuppa with you 🙂
It is a strage post to do, but I really enjoyed doing it. It does leave us free to ramble, as I said. I’ll be interested to see how you respond to it. Awesomeness is a strage quality, and not one we can attribute so easily to just anything or anyone. Unfortunately, in common usage, the enormity of its meaning tends to be lessened. (Just my opinion, of course.) But your’re right that all people are awesome – at least the human body and how it works is awesome. We don’t all do awesome things, though. Oh dear, this word makes me ramble, so I’ll stop now. 🙂
And yes, sitting down to a cuppa and a chat sounds lovely (or perhaps I should say, ‘Awesome!’) 🙂
Ha ha! Your awesome quality would appear to be rambling 😉
Oh yes, I could ramble for England! 🙂
https://adivir.wordpress.com/2015/12/12/the-epic-awesomness-award/- here is my response Millie. Thanks a lot😀
Hi Millie, My notifications are all over the place at the moment and I am missing pingbacks, comments and more. Some get through and others don’t. No rhyme or reason. So I finally found your nomination of my blog too! I was away when you posted this, so only getting to reading older emails now. What a strange name for an award but equally how lovely that you thought my blog worthy enough of a mention. I will post about this asap.
I’m glad you found the pingback, Amanda, but there’s no rush to get it done at all! I noticed that someone I nominated for this award has nominated you, too. (It could have been Shivangi?). So you could refer to both nominations when you do write it up.
Ineke nominated me and I have done the post. I’ll have to check about Shivangi???
It could have been Ineke I was thinking of. I had nominated both Shivangi and Ineke at the same time as you, and I’d just read both posts. I was just thinking that you could mention in your post that you had been nominated twice for it, but if you’ve already posted, perhaps not. 😀
But I did do just that Millie! So don’t worry!!!
That’s good to hear and I’ll look forward to reading your post.
A well-deserved Award,dear Millie!Glad to see you accepted the nomination,I enjoyed your response to the questions and your thoughts.I have missed so much of your recent work.Off to your next post 🙂 see you there …
I wanted to nominate you for this, too, but, as I couldn’t see any awards on your blog, I had a feeling it was ‘award free’. Perhaps I should have just asked you!
Thank you dear Millie for being so thoughtful!Yes,you are right,it’s “award free” as I don’t have enough spare time.You see,I am always the last one that arrives to comment on your wonderful posts.Anyhow,many thanks,my dear friend 🙂 xxx