Thanks

Carl scans the faces of the 50,000-odd people who have visited this blog this year

Thank you all for coming today. Let us bow our heads and pray....don't worry, it's an ecumenical prayer and if you want to edit past the icky religious crap, it's pretty quick...

Dear Lord (see? Quick.)

I am a lucky man. The things I have needed have been provided to me, usually without my asking. Thanks for the resources I have available to me, particularly my family, especially my daughter.

It has been a challenging year, this 2007-- my father died, the car accident, my health concerns, my daughter's transformation to college student, stress and pressures-- and proof that the future holds even greater challenges lies no further than the rehabilitation home my mother is in on this holiday and my multiple caretaking stops.

Somehow, I have found the strength for this, and thanks. A friend of mine, a fellow "of the cloth", once told me "If you pray for strength, the Lord will give it to you, then make even bigger challenges. You want to pray for peace." (oops....sorry...)

I'd be more thankful next year if my challenges were spread out a bit.

I'm thankful for my friends, both old and new. My "old" friends, for being by my side if only in spirit (altho face-to-face has played its role as well) when I've needed them. My "new" friends, for bringing a new joy to my world. Life is a pot luck supper, and each of us brings a different course.

ThumbPer sits here on my lap as I type this, so I'd be very remiss if I didn't thank him for taking his pettings like a cat, particularly when I needed him most, and for taking his job as portrait model with good humour. (ed note: yer welkome dadby!)

I'm thankful to my readers, who make this all worthwhile. I wouldn't do this without you (blogging for yourself, I feel, is the equivalent of shuffling down the street, talking to yourself).

I'm thankful to other bloggers who have linked to this small slice-o-Blogtopia (© Skippy, who is on this list): Most grateful am I to Mike Finn over at Crooks and Liars, who has been a big supporter of SLB since its inception and who asked me to guest blog his Round Up during a very important week for me, the week of the Weblog Awards (See? When I've needed something, it's been there!). I'd also like to thank Nicole and Bluegal for making me feel welcome in my old haunts. In this vein, I'd like to thank Miss Cellania, who's been there since day one.

I'd like to thank Avedon Carol, the gang over at Martini Revolution, Lydia Cornell, MaryScott of My Left Wing, and Michael Stickings of The Reaction, for their surprising uses of my talents, either as co-blogger or by linking out of left field.

I'd like to thank Instaputz for allowing me to be a total jerk in comments. It's helped me sharpen my comedic mind. Likewise, Jesus' General, Jon Swift,

And I made a new friend this year, so I'd like to thank Thers over at Whiskey Fire for extending his hand.

So many things and people to be thankful for...

I'm mostly thankful that the world seems to finally be sorting itself out, that Americans have woken up to the nightmare that is this presidency, and that there's a sense I get that a movement is bubbling up. It won't entail any of the players on the stage right now, but it will be an agent for change.

Given what could have been this year, I'm grateful to still be around and not emanating radiation in some quarantined city because of the misguided bumblings of the Asshat In Chief.

We face great and grave challenges these next few years, but I know that we have a power on our side. Call it fate, call it karma, call it God (sorry!), it will provide what we need when we need it to get the job done. And I'm thankful for that, as well.