Let me correct myself. This is an award-winning blog twice over.

If you’re shocked, well, so was I.

But without further ado, I’ll jump onto the excuse to link to other people bandwagon.

Penny sent a Thinking Blogger Award over quite a while ago, so you could say that I’m batching my award posts. Now it’s my turn to share five blogs that make me think, but only after posting the official rules:

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

Here are my five. It was hard to pick just five, so I decided to pick ones that are different from the ones I usually link to. Unfortunately 4/5 of these are also people that I’ve never interacted with personally, so I think this is the end of the line for this particular award bus segment.

• Just Hungry makes me think… about food!! (So does Nordijus… which also has fantastic photography.)
• Study in Brown helps me think about simplicity, intentional living, and God.
• Orson Scott Card isn’t a “blogger” per se (no RSS feed that I could find Update: Penny found his RSS feed here!) but his weekly column is published online and helps point me to books I might want to read, movies I might want to watch, etc.
• Zen Habits is a blog I learned about recently, by a self-described “normal guy” who happened to turn his life around, quit smoking, start running, get organized, and get productive. Inspiring, and I like his tips and articles, which help me think about how to make small and big improvements to my own life.
• The Simple Dollar helps me think about money.

Oops, I kind of cheated and ended up with six. But there’s no time to deal with that, because immediately on the heels of that award comes …

…the Rockin’ Girl Blogger award, sent over from Marcia at Organising Queen, who would have made it to the thinking blog award segment if I weren’t already linking to her here, because her posts help me to think about how to make my life more organized, efficient, and productive!

• Sara makes it easy to know she’s a girl, as one of her newly started blogs is called Just Another Girl. I originally “met” her through her DIY blog, where she has some awesome Circa/Rolla Do-It-Yourself hacks.
• Doodah writes from Just a Bit of Silliness and cracks me up with her circus metaphor for her place of work, but also has lots of non-silly blogs that touch my heart. (I know Doodah personally — so I know she’s a girl.)
• Penny at PenguinGirl also makes it easy to know that she’s a girl in her blog title. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to interact with her more although we’re on opposite sides of the continent.
• Kim at A Kim’s Life is a friend from college and her life sounds pretty amusing.

At least 3 out of 4 of these rockin’ girls are also knitters (I don’t know about Sara). Coincidence…?