Several days ago, Ivy over at Animal Shak picked me for a "Thinking Blogger Award" not just for the posts here at Shak & Jill, but she said, "I'm enthralled with her ancient kitty."  Unfortunately, Pootster the 20-year old cat (98 in human years) died his morning.  She had a massive seizure at home and when we took her to the veterinarian, it was time.  She was such a pain in the butt sometimes - like when she would almost trip my 73-year old mother-in-law in the kitchen trying to get some food - but we still loved her.  Heck, we had her longer than we've had our children and one is a junior in high school!  Her death reminded me of the "Thinking Blogger" work ahead of me, so here we go.

I believe exceptional Realtors find ways to balance their work with life.  They work to live, not live to work.  So I'm going to name some "Thinking Bloggers" of my own who are able to carefully balance work, family, friends, and community.  Or they just have awesome blogs.  First, here are the official rules:

There are rules attached to this award
1. You must write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Acknowledge this post
3. Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote
**Of course all of these things are optional...it's just a nice way to recognize your favorite blogs.

DRUMROLL... my picks for real estate blogs:

The first goes to Athol Kay of REAgentinCT who introduced us to Bad MLS photos.  He shows bad photos, but also offers great advice on how to fix them. I've split my gut laughing at some of his comments, but you always come away having learned something - even if it's a how NOT to!

I really like Linda's style in the Raleigh Real Estate Blog because she posts a strong variety of information including community oriented, tips, personal, about the area, about taxes, and more.

I love the Sacramento Real Estate Blog because it's whimsical, informative, funny, and interesting. Great job to the Californians!

I love Glen's positive outlook about real estate.  Although we don't see eye-to-eye on some issues (no talk of politics, please!), we are dead-on when it comes to our vision for real estate - be professional, be realistic, and provide amazing service.  And his blog is pretty awesome too!

Finally, Jessica at Real Real Estate in Connecticut is quite amazing. In her most recent posts, she has the guts to take on her local media for constantly reporting only bad real estate news.  It's like with children... when people hear something enough they eventually believe it.  I've said before, if my phone is an indicator of the market, I think the market is about to explode again! Good job, Jessica!

I've named some pretty amazing people who are gifted real estate agents.  Now go and hug your cat or dog or child or all of the above.