Thank You

Thank You

Last Thursday February 27, I was honored by the members of Tudiabetes with two best of awards. I was floored and I am still a bit overwhelmed about winning. The two awards were the most creative and the second was Tudiabetes Comedian of the year. I cannot decide which award I value more. I have never thought I was especially creative, and while I often think I am funny, I know most find my humor a bit dry for their taste. Anyway, I do love both awards and all I can say to all of you how eternally grateful I am.

I am told that the reason for my good fortune is my blogging over this past year. I am very flattered by that mostly because the reason why I decided to started and keep blogging is that I have never believed I write very well. Starting in Middle school I was told by those in charge that my writing was poor. In college, I struggled with writing, and as a professional I never trusted what I wrote to be good enough to pass muster. There is an old axiom in public administration that one need not know how to lay to asphalt to build a street. Instead it is better to hire those who do know how to build the street, in order to build it. The same was true of writing, as a professional I was able to hire people who wrote well to do my department’s important external writing. It was not ideal but it allowed me to avoid the most important writing for external purposes that I needed to be done.

When I started my Doctorate program the one serious reservation I had about completing the program was of course my ability to write at a high level. As classes progressed, I gained confidence, and by the end professors gave me their approval but almost always with the notation that my ideas were sound but my writing could be better. That of course reinforced my long held belief that my writing was substandard. While my dissertation was approved academic writing is different than writing for real people in the real world.

So after obtaining my doctorate, I had a goal. I wanted to drastically improve my general writing. I had to decide how to go about doing that. That is until about one year ago when I discovered the blog space on TUD. There is another axiom and that is that if you want to improve something nothing beats doing it. The blog space offered me a chance to practice my writing and enjoy the freedom to explore how to write with few consequences. So I decided I would take a shot at it.

On April 29th 2013, I made a decision that I would try to write 200 blogs in one year. This is my 175th blog so given my current rate, 4 blog’s per week; I should finish in mid-April perhaps one week ahead of schedule. My purpose was and is to improve my writing. I hope I have done that but along the way I learned to love blogging. So this is less a chore and more something I look forward to doing it.

Of course I did not just learn to like doing it. A person doesn’t just decide one day that he like’s writing when others have been criticizing his writing for years. So I was fortunate to have some fans who helped out and I owe them a debt of gratitude for keeping me going. Chief among these are Barbara JRTPUP who encouraged me to keep me going with her positive comments. Somehow she knew just when to step in and give me a kind word. Barbara even suggested I form the blogs into a book so someday my grandchildren can read what I had to say this past year or perhaps form the best of TUD blogs into book which could be used to raise money TUD. What a great compliment.

Marie helped me advance the blog subjects to twitter. She thinks my writing is good enough to be shared with people outside our community and that is a measure of enormous pride for me. Especially when amazingly to me, someone actually read a few. Wow talk about a rush.

Of course it helps that my wife Sheryl has enjoyed the blogs and has said so. Since I had to stop working and finished school, having something to drive toward is important to me and that gives purpose to my life.

Then of course I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to the people who read my dribble. Many of you have read and commented on my blogs and I am so grateful for each one of those comments. I am also thankful for the number who just read the blog and who often comment later that you enjoyed my blog. It means a lot and has kept me going through this past year.

Several have asked what I intend to do when I reach 200. Will I continue writing or stop? Frankly I doubt I can do either. My intent right now is to keep blogging, but not at the same level I am currently doing. I am sure I have more stories, but it may take a bit to figure out what they are. So yes I will still keep going and hopefully going forward I will do an even better job than I did this past year.



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rick

No; thank you Rick. :)

RICK, DON'T EVER STOP BLOGGING.
I READ THEM ALL.

Hi Rick. At one time I had a conversation with Emily about publishing TuD poetry that had been put on the site after the publication of "No Sugar Poetry". Emily said there had been some thought of publishing them in ebook form. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm still hopeful.

It occurs to me that putting your blogs, or maybe the best of your blogs, or maybe the best of everbody's blogs, into ebook form would also be a great idea. Here's hoping!

Congratulations on your well deserved awards. Maureen

My heart is brimming with joy for you! ♡hugs♡

Congratulations, Rick. It never dawned on me that you weren't a good writer, and as an English major, I can be pretty picky. Keep writing and I'll keep reading:-)

Trudy, I think that woudl be a great idea. We have many amazing bloggers and I woudl be thrilled to have a couple of mine selected for such a compilation.

u deserved it rick ur blogs are the best yes i read them and don't comment on them but u got one vote on best comedien here u are just too funnt! Huggs!!

See Rick you thought we didn't like you......WE ALL LOVE YOU.
HUGS

Just few minutes ago, I was reading your blog about "sensitivity" and I burst out laughing. So go for the Comedian one... ;) and you know what, this was encouraging to read! Thanks.