Darren Rowse, awards, and a TV Challenge. Life is good (except for the TV Challenge)

There has been a lot going on in the blogging world this week. There was a huge anniversary party in my honor;  this week is the equivalent of Oscar week for bloggers; and the TV Challenge continues to torture me (and others crazy enough to follow Alex).

The anniversary party on Monday was fabulous. Mel and Lindsey were too busy to stop by, but Darren Rowse of Problogger came to visit AND LEFT A COMMENT. Then, because he is a big fan of mine, HE TWEETED WITH ME A FEW TIMES. As Nirvana Mamma accurately described Darren in a comment to me, Darren is the Blogging God. AND HE VISITED ME! Thank you to everyone for coming by to celebrate with me on Monday.

In case my one month milestone wasn’t enough, this was also a big awards week for bloggers. I am embarrassed to brag, but feel I must. The most auspicious award was actually awarded to ME! I won the award in the category of Best Blog Celebrating One Month on July 19, 2010. This award is given out to one blogger once a year and only to a person who has been blogging exactly one month on the date of award. Do you understand how difficult it is to receive this prestigious award? I didn’t think so.

BlogHer announced the finalists for Voice of the Year. Alex, the Fearless Leader of our TV challenge is one of the finalists. What is most impressive is that she is the only finalist to win more than one award in two different categories. Alex might be a complete lunatic, but hey, she is a great writer! Stop by her blog to congratulate her and check out her writing while you are there. Alex is a very talented writer and someone I am proud to follow, no matter how crazy the marching orders might be.

Sweet Blog Design won several awards in the design category for the BlogHer awards. I loved working with the talented ladies at Sweet Blog to design my site so I am happy to see their great work recognized. Queen of the Sweetney empire, Tracey, was a finalist for a beautifully-written piece as well. Tracey won a bunch of other awards for MamaPop, but I can’t remember them. Just visit Sweetney and you will learn more about Tracey’s empire and meet a really cool blogger too.

Congraulations to all of us for being absolutely amazing bloggers. I might have won the most prestigious award out of the group, but I think these other women are incredibly talented as well.

If you haven’t been following this month-long challenge, Alex the crazy chick at Late Enough decided that we should turn off TVs for the month of July.

Read these posts to find out about the challenge:

• Find out about my acceptance of the challenge.
• Read about the first week.
• Here’s what happened last week.

This week was a disaster. I did admit that I thought it would be a disaster. I am on vacation with my friend AC and her kids. Two kids have a TV time limit and two do not. How could this NOT be a disaster? I pretty much gave up. The kids have actually not watched that much TV, but I subjected myself to additional torture by adding playing video games as part of the challenge. And our rustic mountain/lake rental has a PlayStation 2 with a ton of games. I never would have thought there would be a gaming system here. Since none of the kids have PlayStation at home, I knew immediately that this week was going to be even more difficult than I ever imagined.

I considered conceding to Alex, but decided against it. Ever the optimist, I think there is a small chance I can pull from behind next week. I am not sure how, but I will be trying to figure it out.

If you have any tips for how to beat Alex, please comment below.

Victory is within reach. I just know it.