Today is a huge day for us: the fifth anniversary of the blog!  Hard to believe.  But we’ve come through five years.  And it’s been one busy lustrum.

I just added up some numbers.   Here they are.

  • Since April 3, 2012: I have made 1462 posts. That comes to 5.6 per week.  I have not missed a week so far in the entire stretch.  To my *knowledge* (I may be wrong about this, and given the sharp readers we have, I’m sure someone will let me know in no uncertain terms if I am; but to my knowledge…, I have not missed doing at least 5 posts a week yet.  Again, maybe I have!)
  • Most of the posts are slightly more than 1000 words (some a lot more). That means I have written about 1.5 million words for the blog.    THAT seems like a lot.
  • There have been 49,284 comments read and approved for the blog. That is 190 per week, for five years.
  • Many of the comments have asked questions, and I have tried to answer them all. Sorry I have to be terse in doing so, but, well, I have to be terse in doing so!
  • Most important from my perspective: as you know, the reason I’m committed to the project is to raise money for charity. This past year of the blog’s operation, we brought in $117,000.
  • Altogether, since the blog has started, we have raised $410,000. That’s some serious money.   And every dime of it has gone to the charities we support.

I cannot thank all of you enough.  It has been a fantastic enterprise so far.  When I started out, I really wasn’t sure if I could sustain it for more than a couple of years.  I thought I would run out of things to say.  But that hasn’t happened at all (YET!!).   I don’t know how long I’ll keep the blog going, but I have no plans of stopping any time soon.  As long as there continues to be interest and we continue to raise significant amounts of money to help the hungry and the homeless, I plan to keep plugging away.

There are several things you can do to help.  Please think about doing so!

  • Please tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, business associates, doctors, dentists, mail delivery persons, and flight attendants about the blog and urge them to join. If everyone could get just one more person to join, we could double the income.  Now *that* would be good!
  • Give a gift subscription (just click the tab on the landing page or HERE)! Think of someone who would enjoy the blog for a year.  Give it to them.  Why not?  Surely you know *someone* who would be interested.
  • Send in suggestions to improve what we do and to attract more members. I can’t incorporate all suggestions, but we have made significant changes over the years and at every point it just gets better.  Hopefully we can continue to improve.
  • Think about making a donation to the blog from the form found on footer below. People sometimes make one-time donations.  Those are always welcome indeed.  Some have set up a monthly donation.  That is fantastic.  Think about helping us out to raise money.  I know you could give the money directly to the charities yourself, but by contributing to the blog you encourage us all to do more and more, and it keeps us heartened, encouraged, and pumped.  So please think about giving.

Let me end simply by saying how much I appreciate everyone who is on the blog – those who contribute comments regularly, those who do so on occasion, those who read but don’t say much or anything.  The tone of the blog is amazingly civil and there is a healthy sense of inquiry among those making comments.  All to the good.  I look forward to moving ahead with the venture in the year to come.

If you don’t belong to the blog yet and are reading this, JOIN already!!!