500th Post

Morning folks. (At least it is morning here.) Some people post in advance when they are going to be vacationing from the blogosphere, but me... well... I didn't know I was going to be out of the loop. I just have been. We had company and family outings and work and then I fell under the weather. I'm still not up to par. But... I'm here. I haven't flown the coop just yet. I just haven't been able to blog lately.

Today is my 500th post! Can you believe it? Well, for a moment I thought wow... so few! I thought I was more wordy than that! But it also seems like a milestone.

I'm thinking about having a blog-style ugly ornament contest this winter. What do ya'll think of that? I'm thinking that everyone would post a picture of their ugliest ornament on their blog and link back to mine. Then anyone that wants to vote can email me their votes. Here's what I'm pondering... when we have this annual contest, there is an entry fee per ornament. There are 2 votes - ugliest and prettiest. The ugliest wins the money and the prettiest wins all the ugly ornaments and must display them on their tree.

I need your input:

1. Should there be an entry fee? If so, how much? I'm thinking $1 or $2 would be good. I have a paypal account so I could use that to collect most of the funds. Then the winner of the ugliest would get the cash.
2. Should the contest require that everyone mail their ugly ornament to the winner of the prettiest? And should that winner be required or encouraged to post a photo of all the ugly ornaments on their tree?
3. As an alternative, I'm thinking I could simply put together two prizes for the winners. Not sure what just yet. What do you think?

For more details about how my families ugly ornament contest rolled out last year, read my first few December 2006 posts.