Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award

I was nominated for a blogger award and I really wasn’t expecting it at all or the wonderful kind words that Genevieve from Gifted And Chilling said when she nominating me for this award.  Thank you so much, you are so wonderful! 🙂 ❤  Please do check out her blog she is such a lovely person with a wonderful blog and some really great writing so please do check it out. 🙂   I was completely blown away by being given this award, I didn’t even know such an award existed so I’m extra honoured and amazed! 😀  Here is the lovely logo of this award and below are the rules. 🙂

Rules:

Like with all awards there are rules to follow and these are:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to his/her blog.
2. Answer their questions.
3. Nominate up to 9 other bloggers and ask them 5 new questions.
4. Notify the nominees through their blog by visiting and commenting on their blog.
5. List the rules and display the “Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award” logo.
6. Provide the link of the award creator of Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award as Rising Star from https://idealinspiration.blog/

Questions asked to me:

1. What inspired you to creating your blog and choosing your niche?

I’m not a first time blogger and in fact started blogging all the way back in 2015.  Back then my online confidence was quite bad, I didn’t know what I was doing blog-wise and I was very shy, as a result I found it hard to just be myself on my blog and felt like if I shared my true thoughts and personality on my blog, people might not want to follow me any more, which of course was silly.  I also took on too much as a book blogger, promising to review books for anyone who gave me one regardless of whether I had the time or not (I know, bad idea)🙄🤦‍♀️.  I ended up amassing a huge list of over a year’s worth of books.  Eventually I burned out and because of this and a few other factors I left my old blog (or I should say: blogs, I started more than one in the past) and didn’t do any online activity for a long time.  One day though I felt like something was missing.  I missed blogging and missed talking with like-minded people about books and other things.  But going back to my old blogs just didn’t feel right, because for the few months/half year that I’d been away from blogging I’d gone through quite a change in my life circumstances.  I felt like a different person to who I used to be just a few months before, I felt more confident and my health (which had been getting worse) was now better too.

I started up this blog, The Strawberry Post, with the intention of being completely myself here, blogging about whatever I feel like (even if that’s really random stuff like videogames to what’s happening in the news).  After years of being in a bookish/poetry niche I’m sort of in a no-niche category now. 😮  Okay, I still blog about books and poetry a lot more than other things (and believe me I LOVE it! 😀 ), but I also feel I’m able to express whatever I feel like writing about.  And the best thing is that, as far as I can see, nobody minds.  I feel like I’ve made the right move with this blog and I’m so happy. 🙂

2. Which blogs inspire and entertain you?

This is tricky because there are so many amazing blogs that inspire and entertain and I’d feel bad for missing out some of them.  Perhaps you should look at the list of nominees below to see just a few of the blogs that I find both entertaining and inspirational although believe me there are many more amazing blogs and bloggers out there. 🙂

3. What is the greatest lesson you’ve learnt so far?

To be true to yourself and not let what others think bother you or affect you.  Being shy for most of my life, especially when I was a teenager at school, I found it so hard to be myself.  I’d been bullied a lot for being myself (for going on about videogames instead of makeup at school for example) and so I started to develop this sort of hidden personality where I’d be someone else at home and someone completely different around other people (except for my immediate family who always knew what I’m really like).  The shy ‘public’ me felt like I couldn’t be who I really wanted to be, with all my silly interests and silly quirks, but this only led to me having little in common long-term with the friends I made.  Many years later I have now realised that the only person who was hurt by this was me and I was making myself unhappy, not following my dreams or admitting to who I really was.

Being yourself and not being afraid of sharing who you really are with others is very important.  And doing what you really want to do in life is so important too, because when you follow your dreams and be yourself you feel this lift and lightness inside.  Once you start being yourself you’ll find others, who like you for who you are, gravitating towards you.  You start to find friends who like the same things that you do, who think the same way or at least accept and like you for who you are.  You can’t make true friends if you’re not being true to yourself so if there’s one thing I’ve really learned and I’d want others to learn too is to just be yourself. 🙂

4. How would you like your life to be different (or the same) in a year?

Leaving aside recent events which I hope will all be over and back to the real normal and not a new one🙄…In a year I’d love to be more settled career-wise, meaning I’d love to either be more established as a blogger, perhaps finding a way to be able to monotize my blog in some way, or more likely I’d love to become a YouTuber, although what exactly I’d ‘tube’ about is still up in the air.  I could do some book stuff there but I’m also inclined to try a range of things including gaming and even stuff with animals…Oh yes, if nothing else I’d love to get a new pet by this time next year.  I haven’t had one since my cat passed away a few years ago and I’m now feeling the urge, a massive urge, to adopt a new fluffy thing (probably a cat) and give it my love. 🙂 😍

5. What piece of work are you proud of the most and which are you itching to finish?

I’ve written a lot of different pieces of non-fiction which I’ve published on this blog but one article I’m extrememly proud of is this one where I talked about whether our civil liberties are being taken away with recent events.  It’s not the subject that makes me so proud of what I’ve written, but it’s more about how much personal stuff I’ve put into that post and especially when I felt worried that some people might not agree or even want to read it.  I put a lot of personal feeling into that post and also talked about a lot of what my family went through in Poland during the war and while it was behind the Iron Curtain.  I was very apprehensive of what people would think of what I wrote but I poured my heart and soul into the post and I’m so proud of how well it was received. 🙂  As for fiction I’ve only released one short story on my blog but I’m working on writing my first novel, though at the moment it’s more like a bunch of random scenes thrown together with a brief synopsis holding it together, lol.

Nominees:

I normally don’t like nominating people for tags and stuff because I don’t want anyone to miss out, but today I’ll make an exception as it’s a blog award.  Please remember if I haven’t nominated you it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it, it could mean that I either have a rubbish memory and forgot to include you or there are only 9 slots so not enough spaces to fit you in. 😉

1. nsfordwriter
2. bookcraic
3. hollylovesbooks
4. lilyfae
5. readtoramble
6. suzannerogersonfantasyauthor
7. invisiblyme
8. deepanilamani
9. victoriazigler

My questions to nominees:

1. Who in your life has been an inspiration to you?
2. What advice would you give your younger self?
3. Where do you hope to be/what do you want to achieve in a year from now?
4. What do you like to do to relax/unwind?
5. What do you love about blogging?

 

If anyone reading this wants to do this award but hasn’t been nominated then do have a go, and don’t worry if you’ve been nominated but don’t want, there’s really no pressure. 🙂  I hope you enjoyed my answers and my questions to the nominees and please do check out the nominees blogs too as they are all amazing people who are an ideal inspiration too. 😀

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What do you think of my answers to the questions?  What would you answer?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂