I want to get a little something out in the open because a post that I wrote over at Real Simple hurt some of my fellow blogger friends and I feel the need to clear things up. To quote a blogger who wrote in recently, "But you have to know that publicly posting your top-ten list was hurtful to the dozens, hundreds, of other bloggers out there who are pouring their hearts and souls and untold hours into what they do. I've since heard from several of them who told me that they felt really hurt by that post, too."

Here's the post that hurt some of my friends.

By publicly posting the blogs that I read daily I was not trying to discredit other blogs that are out there. I do read other blogs on a weekly basis via my RSS feeds that were not mentioned. On a daily basis I'm clicking around on the various comments that are posted on decor8 to see where they are coming from which leads me to dozens of beautiful blogs spanning every imaginable topic. In fact, I bookmark many blogs and save them in a special file on my desktop and they each eventually become the Blog of the Week.

I know that all bloggers have an important voice and that everyone has something valuable to say because it's you -- your voice -- and you are important to me and all of your loyal readers, too.

I'm sorry that my words hurt and made some bloggers feel excluded because perhaps your blog was not listed. I never meant to exclude anyone, I was just honestly revealing the blogs that I enjoy reading, at least this month. Ask me next month and who knows, I might be hot on Cute Overload again.

Want to know a funny story behind this? I wrote what I did in reaction to a decor8 post on the topic, Is there such a thing as too much inspiration? where 63 of you commented and many expressed how blog reading can be draining and that many are trying to cut back or stop reading blogs altogether. When I read that I thought that I needed to some how help. The mission behind my words was to show blog readers that they don't have to stop reading them, but instead to try narrowing down the list if one is feeling overwhelmed. Read only the ones that 'click' with them and help them to see their way through the smog that can appear when one feels like they can no longer be creative due to over-exposure. I thought I was being encouraging when instead, I ended up helping blog readers and hurting blog writers.

So with that, please forgive me and know that I'm here to support everyone the best way that I can. But I also can't write as though I'm walking on eggshells. I have to be authentic and honest, that's what I think is sometimes missing in society today. People are afraid of hurting others so much that everything just comes out so fake and kiss kiss and never real or genuine. I have realized though that there is such a thing as 'seasoning' and I need to exhibit more tact and season my words a bit more than I do. I promise I will work on this because the feelings of my blogger friends are worth considering.

I know some will tell me that this post was completely unnecessary but I'm a small business and my heart is in this -- if I said something that hurt or offended my blog friends, I need to step up and admit it and apologize. Thanks for giving me a moment to address this. :) Again, I am very sorry.

xo,
Holly

(card shown from turtle papers)