It's An Honor Being Nominated for a Liebster!

I've been running around like a loon for the past week with The Girl going into a day program, trying to get a new psych eval on Tim to send to potential 18 and over facilities and my oldest, Wonderboy, who has been in Europe on an internship, losing his work visa extension and being ejected from the country.  Never a dull moment around the Hickey house, that's for damn sure!

I'm a little bummed I haven't had a chance to post before now about the cool award I was nominated for last week by fellow mental health blogger and mom raising a kid with a diagnosis, Julie's Mom!  Liebster is a German word meaning "beloved," and I love this award because it circulates across the interwebs, given to bloggers by bloggers that like their stuff.  So cool! You can read the rules off of Julie's blog.

And - if you haven't read Julie's stuff, GO NOW.  She's a great writer, a computer geek like me, and she's British, so when I read her blog I hear a cool accent in my head, which for me, an Anglophile from way back, is a total bonus.

I get to nominate FIVE other blogs, so here it goes! Yeay!

More Than Words: Jennifer is a beautiful soul with three beautiful daughters, two of which are diagnosed with mental health conditions. I "met" Jennifer in a strange way - we had a Facebook friend in common that led me to her blog and after I saw her family's story on 20/20, I commented on her blog, and she commented back. Her blog is a diary of dates, appointments, and issues as much as it is beautiful prose about the highs and lows of her daughters and her life  as she navigates the frustrating waters of doctors, RTCs, schools, and trying to keep things "normal" for her neurotypical daughter.

No Points For Style: Yo Adrienne! (I've always wanted to say that). A sistah-from-another-mothah in this journey of childhood onset mental illness, her blog is raw emotion as often as it is sarcasm and wit about the trials and tribulations of not only a blended family, but one with mental illness in the fold.  Plus, her son has awesome taste in footwear.

Kidneys and Eyes: Julia Roberts - no, not that one - blogs about her life raising Quinnlin and Gage, and the dual challenge of them both requiring kidney transplants, and Gage's add-on mental health diagnosis.  She's (almost) always uplilfting and handles her challenges with grace, wonder, and humor.  Plus she takes awesome pictures.

Adopting Special Needs: GB's mom is a super-regular blogger, sharing the story of raising her adopted daughters Hope and GB, both adopted in 2010 and struggling with Reactive Attachment Disorder and, in GB's case, Bipolar as well.  Some days, her supportive comments are all that keep me from repeatedly slamming my head in a car door until the whining stops.

Learning To Fly and Other Adventures: TwisterB is wicked smart and writes about whatever is on her mind or stuck in her craw. She has psychiatric demons of her own, but doesn't blog just about that. Sometimes you might get amazing poetry, other times a treatise on why she shaved her head last year.  It's always a fabulous read.

And there they are! Five fabulous blogs that will brighten your day. I know they brighten mine!