Wow. So, it's over for this year (yes, we'll do it again next year---I promise!) and I couldn't be happier with what we've accomplished for the first year of the Mouse & Trowel Awards. A total of 487 final ballots were cast, not counting the roughly 50 that had to be disqualified due to lack of an email address. I'm thrilled to have anywhere near 500 ballots, especially this first time around. As I mentioned before, in the nomination phase, we had 164 nomination forms submitted. I was expecting roughly 300 final voting forms. Needless to say, I was stunned to get so many!

But, it's not really over yet. There are a few housecleaning tasks that I want to take care of first. First of all, there are all of those wonderful comments we received on the ballots. Through the rest of this week, I'll be posting a collection of the comments we received about the winning blogs and podcast, as well as for Site of the Year. Here's how we'll do it:

Tuesday: May Dreams Gardens Day
Wednesday: Bliss Day
Thursday: Digging Day
Friday: Garden Rant Day
Monday (yeah, I take weekends off ): Wiggly Wigglers Day
Tuesday: Soul of the Garden Day

I had a lot of the fun reading the comments that came in, and I'm sure you will too. It's always nice to hear that people enjoy what you do, and the comments I received were priceless.

In that vein, I want to acknowledge all of the kind words that many of you have expressed toward me over the past several weeks. I can't even explain how I've felt reading all of the nice things you've written about me. Everything from "thank yous" to "great job" to being called 'blogosphere changing" by Susan and having myself written into a traditional nursery rhyme by Yolanda Elizabet....it's all been overwhelming. All I can say is Thank You! I started the Mousies because I thought it would be fun, make a few people happy, and yes, maybe get some attention paid to garden blogging. I never thought the awards would receive the accolades they have, and I'm extremely grateful.

Okay, over the mushy stuff....I'm getting misty-eyed here, and I need to stop Back to business. While this process is still fresh in all of our minds, I want to hear about any suggestions you may have for next year. I have a few specific questions, but please add anything you like. Remember---I launched the Mousies, but they are YOUR awards. I want to focus on the things that matter to the garden blogging/website community. This goes for bloggers and blog readers...your opinions matter!

Questions:
1. Regarding the length of the awards: were the two phases too long, just right, or not long enough? My sense is that the nomination phase could be cut back from one month to two weeks. Final ballots came in pretty steadily all the way through. Should I leave the phases as they are, or cut back the amount of time?

2. What blogging categories would you like to see added for next year?

3. What about websites? I think "Website of the Year" is important to keep. What do you all think about the other site categories? Do you think it's important to keep the forums, info site, seed/plant source and magazine categories, or would it be better to focus more on the blogging part of the awards?

That's all I can think of...of course, if you have any other suggestions, please let me know. You can either respond here in the comments, or you can e-mail your suggestions to colleen [at] inthegardenonline [dot] com. I really appreciate it.

See you tomorrow for "May Dreams Gardens Day!"