The Homeschool Blog Awards polls are open for voting. I hope you will take time to go and vote for your favorites. Have you been there to see how many of your friends are in the nominations or perhaps, if you are in the runnings?

Perhaps you have been to the HSBA site and noticed some of the original nominated blogs have been removed from the Awards' running. Yes, that's true. Yours Truly, as well as Amanda and Jocelyn and other great homeschool blogger moms who author the HSBA blog have removed ourselves voluntarily in the light of  - well - whatever you want to call it. Read about it on the HSBA site in the Legal Update.

Originally, as I stated in a previous blog, HSBA was started "because we were not likely to get noticed by mainstream blog-award-givers. Spunky’s first year of the Homeschool Blog Awards were a complete success. Not only did quite a few homeschool bloggers get a much deserved pat on the back for their “labor of love”, but all of us were able to join together as a group - no matter what type of homeschooler we were - and learn about all the talent among our ranks. Some of us met new bloggers, made new friends, and found new blogs to read that continue to inspire us to be better homeschoolers."

As gifts were donated to the winners as prizes, this caused division to form and bloggers who neither wanted the Christian prizes (read Vision Forum) nor did they qualify as family-friendly bloggers, started blogging dissension and commenting as they could to put the HSBA in a bad light. I read some of the comments, and some were valid and non-judgmental, but most were just nasty and unwarranted temper-tantrums.

The HS Blog Awards are supposed to be a 'fun' recognition. We are trying our best to make it just that and keep it that way. I understand the need for laws to keep impropriety out of mainstream contests and giveaways, but I have a lot more faith in the homeschool community than to think such divisions and laws are necessary. We should be different. We are trying to 'buck the system' and raise our children differently, without government interference. There is definitely a division between Christian Homeschoolers and those who are not, but the homeschooling community we are a part of is a tight-knit community. We are different in the fact that we support each other and lift each other up and the homeschool blogging circles I belong to are no different. We are happy for each other when we "win". We give things to each other. We pray for each other. We get to know each other and each others' families. It is like we are neighbors. What has been said to tarnish and tear-down the HSBA is just plain wrong and selfish. Period.

Would I have loved to win? You betcha'. We aren't a high-society wage family. It would have been nice to win any of the gifts in any of the four categories I was nominated in. But, when it came right down to it, it was worth more to me to make the choice to let God take care of that and stay the course in helping the HSBA Team.  Amanda and Jocelyn, who are 18 and 16 respectively, gave up their chances to win some really nice prizes in their categories. But, they were determined to stand behind the HSBA team too. I'll tell you, it has been a lot of late and extra hard work, but it has been one of the best character-building times in their lives. I am thankful for that. Very thankful.

As Dawn put it: "It is so sad that it’s come to this, that there are people in this world so offended by moral decency (the family-friendly requirement) that they’ve turned the awards into a controversy that resulted in the elimination of the people who cared enough to keep it going in the first place."

Rachel - The Milk & Honey Tea-House (Best Cyber-Buddy Blog 2007 category) and LucyLillie -THE Raspberry Pixie Muffin (Best New Homeschool Blog category) are not Authors on the HSBA, so they are still in the running. Vote for them! Voting ends December 15, midnight, Pacific Standard Time.

If you would like to read more of what the team has to say about the blogging dissension in the past few weeks surrounding the Homeschool Blog awards, here are a few more links:

Dawn *Thoughts on The Homeschool Blog Awards
Sprittibee *Contest News and Heartfelt Thanks
Jocelyn *HSBAward Update

blessings!
Jacque