Whew! The third annual Diabetes Blog Week is over!

At times I thought my Google Reader (more about this in a second) was going to explode and I was VERY behind on housework by the time Sunday came, but I found some great new-to-me bloggers and read some amazing posts.

So now what?

Submit your favorite posts from this week – or really, anytime this month to the Best of the ‘Betes Blogs. Just like Diabetes Blog Week, it is a chance to stretch the diabetes community wider and draw attention to the great humor, encouragement, and advocacy around us.

Send an email or use Twitter to DM one or one hundred of your favorite posts from this month.

There are so many great posts to share.

• I can’t decide if Alexis’ experience at the gym is funny or horrifying.
• Are there any better (or more tear inducing) video that Laura and Nate’s “Diabetes Hurts” videos? Or perhaps, those high blood sugars just leave you feeling highly uncomfortable along with Kim?
• And I dare you to look at this picture by Wendy Rose and not laugh and then nod in agreement.
• Renza found herself in an interesting opportunity to for advocacy but used her platform in an incredible way. And the story of Wuby just trying to spend the night in a hotel was almost more than I could handle.
• Briley reflected on her meet-up with Meredith and the pictures alone are freaking adorable. I love diabetes meet-ups!
• Is Gina’s bun in the oven the best non-D related post? What about Meredith’s big (ring) announcement?
• Is Lee Ann’s TMI post the best post by a Type 1? Or did Abby take the words right out of your mouth too with her post about what they should know?
• Or did you know that someone with Type 2 diabetes is susceptible to reactive hypoglycemia? Rachel taught me that in her post last week.
• And who could forget Ryan’s adorable hacking of the Our Diabetes Life blog?

And the links go on and on and on. What about those D-mistakes we all make? Did someone motivate you this month? Did you see some great d-art? Find a great d-recipe? Read a great reference to one of our favorite d-celebrities?

There are 240 blogs listed on Karen’s list of participants. That’s a lot of reading and sharing! I mean, I hadn’t seen Leo or Drew’s blogs before Kim and Scott shared them last week.

 

Speaking of reading – I was in a conversation on twitter this week where I realized some people don’t know about the beauty that is a feed reader for blog reading. When I first starting reading blogs I had them all saved in my bookmarks bar and would check them all daily to see if anyone updated. I wasted half my time visiting blogs that didn’t even have new posts. Using a feed reader like Google Reader saves me all that time.

All you need is a google account (if you use blogger or have a g-mail account you already have this). Then, when you find a blog you want to follow, all you have to do is click on the subscribe button and you will be notified in your reader when the blog has a new post. If you want to leave a comment on the blog, you just click on the headline and it will take you directly to that post.

 

A great bonus feature of using Google Reader is the ability to “star” a post. The starred items are saved in your reader, which comes in really handy when you need to look back at your favorite posts at the end of the month (hint. hint. nudge. nudge.)

Nominations this month will continue though the 30th and then the top nominations will be posted on June 1st.

I’m also working on a very exciting giveaway. I’m not sure I can sort out all the details by the time nominations are due, but I can assure you that whether it is this month or next month, it will be puurrr-fect. (No, it’s not my cats. Right kingdom, wrong species.)

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If you need a reminder of how the Best of the ‘Betes Blogs nominations work (no self nominations, link to a specific post, etc) you can see all the details on this page. You can also check out links on that page to the posts from the past 11 months.