My guest post on Cindi’s blog Moomette’s Musings got my week off to a great start. Cindi, who offers blogging resource tips, had asked me to write a guest post about 6 months ago. I put it off more often than I won giveaways and contests! But, being the patient and kind person she is, she allowed me to send her my write up when I asked her late last month. When my post was up and I read it, I realized that I sure can write a lot! It was fun to share about myself and the positive comments I received did my confidence good. Cindi helped me realize that being a guest blogger is worth it and I’m ready to do it again.

Courtney Velasquez from Digital Moms surprised me by adding one of product reviews to her Favorite Posts of 2009. Very nice to be included with inspirational bloggers. I also entered two posts in Christine Brandt’s Product Review Carnival on Atomic Mama and both were accepted! OK, enough or my head’s going to explode.

Take advantage of guest posts, answering questions on forums and entering your posts for carnivals. It’s all good exposure and promotion.

Murray Newlands has been chosen as one of three semi-finalists for the Pinnacle Awards Best Blogger. The winner will be announced at the Affiliate Summit West 2010 in January. Murray is an Affiliate Marketing Expert who connects with others online and at events.

Murray will also be one of the affiliate marketing speakers at ASW10, on the panel - Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO.  Learn more about it from the Affiliate Summit Agenda. He has spoken already at IzeaFest and is available for other types of speaking arrangements both here in the US and the UK.

Congratulations Murray Newlands on your both of your achievements, being nominated for the Pinnacle Awards and for another speaking gig. You have grown so much as a blogger and affiliate marketer. I wish you the best!

As this year is coming to an end I look back on what to be thankful for as well as look forward to what I want to change for the better. When I saw GrowMap’s Thankful Meme, I thought this would be a good way to help me to thank those in my blogging community who have helped me grow as a blogger.

This is what Gail wrote:

I am thankful for all the generous bloggers who actively collaborate with us. These five have been most influential:

1. Derek Semmler – (DerekSemmler) – the WordPress Ninja who installs and maintains Thesis and the plugins on all our joint venture blogs and provides technical support and answers for us and many others who have requested his assistance. Without Derek, our NoBogies golf store and the Holiday Gift Ideas and gift affiliate program I manage for my favorite Personalized Gifts Store would not exist.
2. Murray Newlands – (MurrayNewlands) – Expert on Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing – If you are serious about blogging Murray offers Expert Blog Consulting Services and offers tips on Blogger Outreach. Interested in collaborating? You may be interested in our new Blog Club. NEW: Murray’s new Word of Mouth Marketing blog.
3. Ninety-Eighty-One Award Winning Logo Design – (_1981_) – Read what Joshu Geiger shared with us about logo design.
4. Search Friendly Web Design – (SearchFriendly) – Sammy specializes in SEO friendly Web design and WordPress. He originally installed and still advises and assists with this blog.
5. Good Millwork – (GoodMillwork) – The folks at Good Millwork could be the poster folks for using blogs and Social Networking to raise visibility for traditional offline businesses. We learn as much from them as they learn from us. If you ever need any exterior shutters or architectural moldings including crown moldings for your house or business check them out. If you’re a business in Florida or a dofollow blogger be sure to add them to your list of great blogs to visit.

We will share many more in the near future because collaborating is be key to blogging success. If you haven’t read the exceptional recent guest post How Guest Blogging Can Change Your Life by Greg Rollett of Rock Star Lifestyle Design we encourage you to read it now.

I am especially thankful for the dofollow bloggers who recognize that it is so much easier to reciprocate automatically and the genius of creators of CommentLuv and KeywordLuv. Watch for a new post about the many dofollow bloggers we know. We are actively researching and reaching out to dofollow bloggers and making Twitter dofollow blog lists.

We want to include your dofollow blog – let us know in the comments or at Twitter if you’re not on the list!

This Thankful Meme is the perfect excuse for you to write about what you are grateful for and to share some link love with those bloggers who have increased your knowledge, shared their skills, entertained and cared. I hope you’ll get involved. If you link to this post I’ll see your links and add you to one or more future Thankful posts.

Here are the bloggers I am grateful to and why:

• Daneka Soudak of Adsmarket who offers some of the best affiliate offers and provides relevant information about affiliate programs, who gave me the opportunity to write a guest post.
• Kikoni, of Kikolani.com, who shares about the best of blogging. I am learning so much by reading her blog.
• Murray Newlands, of MurrayNewlands, who is providing me with a means to write about connecting advertisers and bloggers and provides me with blog consulting.
• Cindi of Mommettes Magnificents, who provides tips for work at home moms and shares her product reviews, who is always willing to decipher my questions about blogging and Twitter.
• Heather Kephart of Happymaking, whose humor is enough to keep me reading her blog. Just check out The Universe Speaks To Me to get an idea of how much you’ll laugh. She also is a social media connector who knows the importance of commenting and sharing posts.
• DiTesco, the Internet Business Entrepeneur of Blog Zone, who writes a Weekly Echo post where he shares his favorite posts and gives out lots of linky love.
• Gail, of GrowMap, whose social media marketing info has been a lifesaver for me and who is taking the time to teach me one on one about link building.

I’ll link to those who reply to this meme. Please be sure to use the entire quoted text from GrowMap in your post.