This year we’ve had the privilege of being sponsored by one of the coolest sites on the web Lijit. More than just a site meter, Lijit allows you keep keep track of all your sites from one location. As part of this sponsorship Lijit together with the Best Of Blog Awards also ran a second contest with the winners being decided by a random drawing. Today I’m happy to announce the lucky sites that will be taking home a T-Shirt/Sticker for 3rd Place, T-shirt/Sticker/$20 Gift Certificate To I-Tunes for 2nd Place, and a T-Shirt/Sticker/Mogo Mouse for 1st Place are:

Grand Prize Winner: Three Beanz

2nd Place Winner: Travels With My Teenager

3rd Place Winner: Tales From The Stirrups

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and special thanks to all those that made this year’s contest a major success!  Without the support of sponsors, the thousands who nominated their favorite sites, and all of you who checked back here everyday to vote, none of this would be possible. This contest is put together by a great group of volunteers who merely want to help shine a light on blogs that deserve more attention. Thank you all and see you next year!

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. This year’s crop of web sites was one of the best and it’s almost a shame we have to pick a winner. For those who did manage to make it to the top of the heap I will be sending out links for the winner buttons this week or next. Congrats to everyone who participated and a special thanks to  this year’s sponsors Lijit and I-Lighter! Without further ado The Winners Of This Year’s Best Of Blog Awards Are…...

Best Funniest Blog

• Winner: Wheel Turning Hamster Dead
• 1st Runner up:Menopausal Old Bag
• 2nd Runner up: EmzeeGee

Best New Blog

• Winner:Grace Junction
• 1st Runner up:Five Blondes
• 2nd Runner up: Keeping Things Whole

Best Inspirational Blog

• Winner:Big Blue Barn West
• 1st Runner up: One Year Of Beauty
• 2nd Runner up:Religiarchy

Best Daddy Blog

• Winner:Literal Dan
• 1st Runner up:Daddys Little Tax Credit
• 2nd Runner up:LBSimba

Best Pop Culture Blog

• Winner:Urban Etiquette
• 1st Runner up:Pink Sheep Of The Family
• 2nd Runner up:These Glory Days

Best Pet Blog

• Winner:Julie Michigan
• 1st Runner up:Jennr St Clair
• 2nd Runner up:Two Barking Dogs

Best Mommy Blog

• Winner: Punk Rock Mommy
• 1st Runner up: Family Affairs And Other Matters
• 2nd Runner up: Mid-Century Modern Moms

Best Hobby Blog

• Winner:Volunteer-Boston
• 1st Runner up:Design For Mankind
• 2nd Runner up:Abstract 2 Collective

Best Food/Wine/Cooking Blog

• Winner:Adventures In Vegetarianism
• 1st Runner up: Kitchen Scrapbook
• 2nd Runner up: Noble Pig

Best How To/Diy Blog

• Winner: 2 Gringos
• 1st Runner up: Memoirs Of A Mommy
• 2nd Runner up: Diy Bride

Best Podcast/Video Blog

• Winner: Faustas Blog
• 1st Runner up: Friday Night Live Show
• 2nd Runner up: Just One More Book

Best LGBT Blog

• Winner: The One Percent Club
• 1st Runner up: La The Family
• 2nd Runner up: LGBT Rainbow

Best Health/Fitness Blog

• Winner: Escape From Obesity
• 1st Runner up: Postpartum Progress
• 2nd Runner up: The Autism Spectrum

Best Adoption Fertility Blog

• Winner: Donva
• 1st Runner up: Tales From The Stirrups
• 2nd Runner up: Kris And Lily

Best Travel/Leisure Blog

• Winner: Susies Big Adventure
• 1st Runner up: Morantinos Life
• 2nd Runner up:Preta Voyager

Best Education/Homeschooling Blog

• Winner: Detention Slip
• 1st Runner up: History Is Elementary
• 2nd Runner up: Three Standard Deviations To The Left

Best Book/Literature Blog

• Winner: Super Perception
• 1st Runner up: The Asylum
• 2nd Runner up: Kate Rothwell

Best Music Blog

• Winner: Canape Sun
• 1st Runner up: Stella Splice
• 2nd Runner up: Music Road

Best Sex Blog

• Winner: Bare Bits
• 1st Runner up: Daily Bed Post
• 2nd Runner up: SM Desires

Best Environmental Blog

• Winner: Ask Woollyn
• 1st Runner up: Julie Zicke Foose
• 2nd Runner up: Ag Metal Miner & Go Green Travel Green

Best Sports Blog

• Winner: I’ll Run For Donuts
• 1st Runner up: Sarah Jo Austin
• 2nd Runner up: Marathon Leap

Nobody likes doing research especially on the web. Too much information to narrow down, too many places to remember where everything came from, and most of the time you don’t even need the whole article just a couple of lines. If we were dealing strictly with hard copies of the info we needed, we’d just pull out the trusty yellow high lighter and go to town marking everything that might be of value later on. Now thanks to I-Lighter keeping up with all that valuable research is as simple as the swipe of a marker.

I-Lighter allows users to store their data on their own personal web page where it can easily be inserted into "files, folders and Notebooks, inserted into Word documents and blogs and shared with whom  ever you want" Plus it’s so easy to use even the most inexperienced computer users can learn to utilize this valuable tool in mere minutes. All you have to do is click on the I-Lighter icon and immediately your cursor turns into a yellow high lighter marking everything you drag it across and sending it to the your homepage. Forget about notes on which info came from what website. Download I-Lighter today and change the way you surf the web.

This is it ladies and gentlemen!! This weekend is the last chance to vote for this year’s Best Of Blogs and let me tell you the competition is fierce. We are talking down to the wire, too close to call, every vote counts kind of close! If you’ve been keeping up with the comments there are several battles being waged with the winner guaranteed to see a huge boost in numbers once they are crowned BEST OF BLOG WINNER!! Voting ends this Sunday June 1^st at mid-night and you can vote every 24 hrs!

Plus don’t forget about our Exclusive Lijit contest that is also ending this weekend. Three names will be draw from those who have entered and rumor has it the grand prize may win something amazing!  All you have to do to enter is click on the word Lijit anywhere in this post and find out what your blog is missing by not going Lijit.

We typically don’t like to post updates while the voting is taking place, so I’m going to make this short and sweet. Since more and more people are voting everyday I wanted to take a brief moment to remind everyone of the other contest that’s also currently taking place. I’m talking of course about our Exclusive Lijit Contest which is not only being brought to you by this year’s sponsor, but also offers some great 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes. All you have to do is click on the Lijit link anywhere on this page, discover why Lijit is more than just your ordinary site meter (I mean it keeps up with all your blogs and social networks in one place! How cool is that?), and you’re automatically entered into the drawing. So while you’re voting for the Best Of Blogs take a second and score a chance to win some free swag! And of course this is totally Lijit.