I want to thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you find what you are looking for and what you read helps make your life better.
If you came only browsing, I hope you found something worth your time. I hope in the next year, you are still here, and still finding something worth your time,
Here are two lists of where readers of this blog are logging in from. If where you live is not listed, let me know and I will add your country too!
Thank you, and my best for your New Year!
This blog has helped make me feel like a citizen of the world in many ways. Having people visiting from all over the world is something that fills me with awe. I read a number of blogs and I normally do not spend a lot of time wondering where the blog originates. Maybe I would be surprised if I knew where some of the blogs I read are from.
This list may not describe where you are exactly, but it is as precise as the company that I pay to host my blog chooses to be. If you are not from one of the places listed, drop me an email of where you are, and I will either edit this post with your country, or place it as a comment.
This is my big thank you no matter where you live, taking the time to read what I write, and learning what I enjoy and think. Thank you for returning too.
In the order my web host lists visitors:
US Commercial (.com), Network (.net), Unresolved/unknown, US Educational (.edu), Turkey, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Old Style Arpanet (arpa), Canada, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Russian Federation, Australia, India, Ukraine, Mexico, Singapore, Finland, New Zealand (Aotearoa), US Military, Hungary, Lithuania, Seychelles.
This is quite a list! I am always surprised with how many people know English as a second language. There are so many of you who are way ahead of my language learning ability. I have a tough time with English as a first language, speak Spanish like a two year old on a bad hair day, and can carry on very simple written conversations in one or two languages from Europe.
Beyond that, I do not seem to have an ear for languages other than listening to the music in them. For musical Languages, Farsi is the prettiest language I have heard. No idea what is said, but the way the language flows is pretty.
I know like me, your time is important, so once again I want to say thank you for stopping by, and thank you for hanging around. I write what I write because I went a long time fighting with my life, and learned how to be happier.
I hope what I write helps everyone enjoy their life more with less pain in the process. When I think of all the people like you from all over the world reading my blog, I am humbled. My grammar and wording is not all it could be, so I know you are not here to learn good English grammar skills but rather because I offer something that helps you in some way.
For the last time for now, thank you again for taking time to stop by. Blogging my thoughts is one way for me to do some small thing for others. Big thing happen in small steps.
There is a Christmas saying that I believe says a lot more than the few words than it is made of. For many of us Christmas has turned into a time of trial and tribulation. Stretching budgets to the bursting point and taking on bills for presents we have to struggle to pay off. A little farther down the slide, is the ugly truth that anything other than the basic day to day needs is out of the question for some of us. For the unfortunate among us, there will be no presents bought, wrapped or given out.
The six word saying I am so fond of this time of year helps to remind me that Christmas and its sister holiday, New Years is about something different than how many presents you bought, wrapped and gave out and what parties you attended. I am reminded of the subtle nature of Christmas and New Years. I like to believe the saying brings myself and others who have said it to me to the basics of these holidays.
“Remember the reason for the season.” These six little words are a succinct sentence that packs more thought and meaning into a few words than opening up a hundred packages of all our favorite things. Whenever I hear this quaint phrase said, or say it myself, I am taking a journey back to the roots of Christmas and New Years.
A celebration of new beginnings and new hopes is where this saying takes me. When I was a child it did not mean much when I heard it. When someone said it, it felt more like a flip compensation for not buying presents. For some that is exactly what it was or is, yet for others, they are celebrating the season and giving a reminder all at one time.
They are reminding me, that it is not the number or value of presents I receive that matters, it is not even whether I celebrate Christmas or not, or whether the New Years is the best New years ever. They are reminding me to celebrate and rmember that our life is not stagnant and there are always new and exciting times to come.
When they say it, they remind me to think like a child, to find wonder and joy in my world. Even when my world does not seem to wonderful or joyous at the moment.
I was thinking about how lucky I am to be able to celebrate. How lucky we all are having a nice dinner, exchanging presents, or whatever we choose to do. How lucky I am that we were not in a war zone.
Remember the reason for the season, it’s not about presents. Rather it is about people like you and I, and those we care for, and those who care about us.
Enjoy your holidays in whatever circumstance you find yourself. There are only so many in your future and not one of them will be the same as this one. Remember the reason…
I was looking at the statistics for my blog yesterday. I realized, that this is the fifth month my blog has been in existence. I am grateful that I decided after a few years of thinking about starting a blog. What I am more excited about is you take the time to read what I write, that is the real excitement of my blog!
Some days are fun, and some are hard when I am sit here typing a post. Some days, I am really comfortable with what I am writing, other days I feel like I am really stepping out on a slippery ledge. Through these last months which seem to have been so quick, you have taken the time to read my thoughts, find something useful, or at least a worthwhile read. When I was a poker forum junkie, I would go from site to site, and inhale every word that someone took the time to write. Eventually it dawned on me that I had been reading mostly the same things every day.
That was one of the big hurdles I had with this blog. Power Blogger’s suggest that a blog stick to one main subject, and everything be written towards the blog’s focus. They also suggest that articles be kept to three hundred words or less, because longer posts tend to turn off readers. There are some other rules that are out there that I should have be following too, but I have not. That was one of the things that kept me from starting earlier, I could not imagine how I could have a blog that anyone would actually read, when I was going against all the generally acceptable ideas about blogging.
The five months this blog has been in existence have shown that what is right for me, is absolutely okay. If I was writing this solely for myself, I would still be saying breaking rules is correct. I have read of other who have started their blogs, and they say they are enjoying amazing results, and I am happy for them. I have been to some of their sites, and most of them I will not be going back to because they are targeted at a specific audience for a monetary reason. I wish them the best but that is not my purpose at this time for my blog.
I thought it was kind of interesting the other day, when I was thinking about a comment my wife made to me. My wife had mentioned out of the blue, that if skate boards were out when I was a kid, I would have been a very good Skateboarder. I mentioned in reply, that I would have enjoyed it because fear does not enter in my life very often. My wife replied, “I know.”
Good or bad, everything you have read for the last months is what goes on in my head. If my writing was dragging, or moving fast, you have read my thoughts, and so many of you come back again and again! I am glad what I chose for the correct path for my blog, is something you too enjoy. I hope that you find something worth your time out of what I write, even if it is nothing more, than you mentioning to someone, that you wonder how I manage to get through each day writing what I write.
I am also grateful, that you are not grammar critics. I work full time, and all my typing tutor software has never helped me achieve anything above twenty words a minute. I have this odd three finger, two finger typing style with an occasional flurry of using all my fingers as I should. You have been kind enough to over look my odd wording, and my grammar errors – thank you for your patience.
What makes this a blog and not a personal diary, is you take the time to visit and read. Thank you for being you, and reading what I write! I hope at some level, my blog helps you in your life, even if that is only a laugh, or a how not to for your own life.
Thank you!