<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344431788/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="500" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4344431788_0383e83bf1.jpg" width="375" /></a></div><br />Hey, Tulsa bloggers. <a href="http://oklahomablogawards.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-ballot-2009-okie-blog-awards.html"><b>Did you know the final ballot for the 2009 Oklahoma Blog Awards has been posted</b></a><b>?</b> It's true.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>Go check it out right now - dozens of deserving bloggers have been nominated, including several from the Tulsa area (especially in the Best Tulsa Blog category, duh). If you're an Oklahoma blogger, <b>be sure to cast your last and final ballot before this Sunday, Feb. 14.&nbsp;</b><br /><br />See? Valentine's Day doesn't have to be about cheap candy and overpriced flowers. It can also be about blogger love. Which is totally legal, I assure you.<br /><br />I can't go any further without getting a little sappy for a minute here. I'm overwhelmed that enough of my peers in blogging enjoy this silly morass of a Web site enough to nominate me in not just one category of the 2009 Oklahoma Blog Awards, but in three. As in one, two and...three.<br /><br />I'm up against some seriously kick-ass blogs in each category in which TDT was nominated - <b>Best Culture Blog</b> (nominated for the third year in a row - yeah, boi), <b>Best Representation of Oklahoma</b> and <b>Best Tulsa Blog</b> - so to even be considered on par with these folks is, I feel, an award in itself.<br /><br /><a href="mailto:2009okieblogawards@gmail.com">If you're an Oklahoma blogger and you want to vote for me in any of the three categories in which my blog was nominated</a>, I won't mind. In fact, you don't even have to ask me for permission. You can just go right on ahead and do it, and we'll both be happy as clams.<br /><br />Not that I know anything about clams or their happiness. I've lived in a landlocked state for the past 26 years, after all. They could be really depressed, for all I know.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344431880/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="375" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2620/4344431880_60259d6606.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Changing topics somewhat: Remember that party of Tulsa-area bloggers that went on like Donkey Kong last week? At <a href="http://joemommas.com/">Joe Momma's downtown</a>? The one to which more than 50 people came? Yes! That one. I'm so glad you remember.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lots of lovely, sunshiny people showed up. As one of my Twitter/blogger buddies observed, Tulsa bloggers aren't a half-bad looking group. I'd have to agree.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Look at this mom and her baby girl, for example. That mom, she's Mandy Vavrinak. <a href="http://mandyvavrinak.com/blog/">Mandy's a blogger, sure, but she's also one of Tulsa's PR mavens</a>. That baby girl is...well, let's just say she's a womb-flip inducing, lovable lump of delicious baby goodness.&nbsp;</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344432124/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="375" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4344432124_19b79304f5.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344432378/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="375" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/4344432378_def1c47bda.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh, Baby V. I'm sorry, but it's really best if we don't see each other again for awhile. It's not you - it's me. It's me and my baby fever, despite the fact that my husband is now a full-time student and I'm still a full-time blogger/freelance writer/columnist/scarf knitter/mom. All six jobs really do a great job of lining the ol' 401(k) coffer, let me just tell you. &nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That hiding in the corner is <a href="http://batesline.com/">Batesline blogger Michael Bates</a>. He has some seriously gorgeous children of his own - three of them, if you can believe it.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We bloggers, we make the pretty babies. &nbsp;</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344432328/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="375" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2745/4344432328_85f5f702ed.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There's <a href="http://tulsaproject.com/">Tulsa Project writer Michael Champlin</a> and <a href="http://music.tulsaproject.com/">Colleen McCarty, who just last weekend launched her new music blog, Independent Cause</a>. Stop by and check it out. You'll be glad you did.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thanks again to Michael, as well as to <a href="http://artofmanliness.com/">Brett and Kate from The Art of Manliness</a>, for helping me to organize the first-in-a-long-time Tulsa Blogger Meetup. Your help was more valuable to me than a secret &nbsp;loaf of buttery cinnamon bread hidden in my closet during my "vegan" phase in high school.&nbsp;</div><br />Yeah. That actually happened.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashadoestulsa/4344431680/" title="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup by Tasha Does Tulsa, on Flickr"><img alt="Tulsa Bloggers Meetup" height="500" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4344431680_981bf35610.jpg" width="375" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Those of you who showed up to the event will remember that I asked you to think about what you'd like to get out of a regularly meeting group of Tulsa-area bloggers. What sounds good to you - a monthly, casual meet-up? A formal association? A group sky dive? A group run to Canada for discount prescription drugs? You tell me. <a href="mailto:tasha@tashadoestulsa.com">Feel free to send me your thoughts on this via e-mail</a>, or post them in the comments section below.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Stay tuned for news about the next Tulsa Bloggers Meetup. Yes, it's coming. Your wildest bloggy dreams are coming true.&nbsp;</div>