Tag Archives: Blognotes
Giving Thanks With a Grateful Heart
This Thanksgiving Day, with a grateful heart, I thank all of you who made it possible to keep this blog going. This has been a long journey and most of you have been with us since we started; without your dedicated support, the blog would have folded its wings some time ago.
I am forever grateful for your kind support and affording us this uncommon existence online. Thank you for reading, and thank you for for keeping us company. It has been my great honor to share this small corner of the world with you. Thank you with all my heart. ❤️❤️❤️ — D
###
BlogNotes: Offline For a Little Bit
Your blogger won’t be around for the next few days to attend to some health issues. Hope to be back next week.
Be good to each other. –D
Via US Embassy London/FB
###
Red
From a red planet,
Absent our clear misfortunes
I quietly return.
Now, with heart filled with fresh tears,
Our Olympic Mons unfolds.
~ * ~
We’re coming back to blogging semi-regularly for the next few weeks. It is possible that the blog may transition into a subscription blog or newsletter in the future but we haven’t made that decision yet. We will continue to look for options on how to improve the blog’s sustainability. We will update you with changes as we know more. For now, the blog will continue as it has done in the past, although, we may focus more on the alphabet soup reports and the less covered parts of the big house. We also owe a bunch of you some response. We hope to get back to everyone within the next few days. Thank you! –DS
BlogNote: On hiatus as of Sept 1st, but please stay tuned
Over 500 supporters responded to Diplopundit’s GFM fundraising last year. We reached our funding goal hours before our self-imposed deadline of August 5, 2019 and that allowed us to blog for a year. Our funds ran out this month. So we’re back in our old cycle of anxiety about how to make ends meet for the remainder of the year and into next year. Asking for donations as you may already know is the least enjoyable part of running this blog.
We’ve tried various ways to keep this blog open since 2008. The fact is while we have over 11,000 subscribers, we have a more limited number of blog supporters who pitched in when we ask for help once a year. About 500 donors have kept this blog going year after year. An overwhelming majority of them, we hear from only once a year during our fundraising.
We did our first fundraising in 2014 with minimal success. After that, we were closed to calling it quits but OneFSO, TwoFSO, and 373 donors made sure this blog made it to its 7th birthday in 2015. They (and more) came back to help in 2016, 2017, and 2019 (2018 was a darn mess so we were in a hole that year).
You folks kept this blog alive and we remember, and are grateful.
This year, as we consider the blog’s future and our next adventure, you will clearly be in our thoughts. This blog will be on hiatus for the month of September. There will be no updates for at least four weeks. Sometime in October, we hope to fly the blog again, perhaps in a different medium. But for now, your blogger will be off to Mars on a mental health break!
You can continue to reach us via this blog: https://diplopundit.net/contact-us/ and via email at contactblog[at]diplopundit[dot]net. Response may be slow for the next several weeks. Be kind to each other and stay healthy.
Update: We’ve received emails asking about a new fundraiser. At this time, we do not anticipate launching a new fundraiser for the remainder of the year. Apologies for the confusion.
Blogging Notes
Have an ongoing medical issue in my household the last few days. We’re seeing a specialist tomorrow with potential surgery and hospital stay. This blog will not be updated this week but hope to be back as soon as I can. Apologies on the emails if I’m not responsive at this time. Be well. —D
Thank you! Some Fireworks to Share, Not Rum!
Our thanks and appreciation to 540 people who made this blog’s funding campaign a success! People even took time out from their weekend and turned out for the campaign! Some made second donations to help ensure that we get to where we want to be. We reached our funding goal hours before our self-imposed deadline of August 5. So sharing some fireworks (from Winfield House’s 2017 event), but not rum:-)!
As of this writing, the campaign has raised $41,432. GoFundMe deducted $1,364.02 in transaction fees, and left the campaign with $40,067.98 to withdraw. We won’t get the funds for a few more weeks but we are now funded from August 2019 to August 2020.
We are relieved we don’t have to worry about funding for the next 12 months, and at least for the moment, we are able to put the bag lady nightmare at bay. Thank you for making this possible!
#
A Note to Readers
Help Fund the Blog | Diplopundit 2019 — 60-Day Campaign from June 5, 2019 – August 5, 2019
______________________________________
Diplopundit will not be updated for the next two weeks. Your blogger will be on the road with obligations that could not be put off, and also will have very limited to zero online access. Blogging is expected to resume around the third week of July.
The GFM fundraising is chugging along. 183 campaign supporters in 26 days stopped by to pitch in. Thank you all, we appreciate every help!
We’re not quite halfway to our funding goal and time clearly is gaining on us. We’re looking at the rest of our subscribers to remember the blog and help, if their circumstances allow it. Whether or not we will get to our goal by August 5 remains a cliffhanger. Maybe we’re seeing the end of the line here, though the universe may still surprise us. For now, be well, don’t start a war, and we’ll see you in a bit.
White Cat on Grass Field by Pixabay
#
“Happy” Absconds For the Holidays, Get Ready For 2019!
So Hey, We’re Off to See the Wizard – Permanent Return TBD
As some of you know, this blog will be on a semi-hiatus after April 1st with only sporadic posts over the next few months. We’re moving out of the house and looking for a new place. We are currently scheduled to go into temporary housing and may not be in permanent housing until sometime this summer. Maybe. Earlier, if we get lucky. Nothing to be concerned about. This has been a long planned move that we thought would happened in 2017 but didn’t. We’re packing our own stuff and we’re currently drowning in large and medium Home Depot boxes. It turns out that despite excellent multi-tasking skills, packing boxes and blogging do not actually mix well.
Your blogger will be on unsettled schedule for a while. Hoping that the hiatus will be short and painless but knowing that may not be the case. The blog has been around for ten years now, so maybe it’s a good time to reassess the mission. Or decamp to The Wicked Wasabi so I can get some real sleep while I raise laughing chickens with colored eggs in a farm, hey? Or you know, cartoonists and lawyers seem to be the only folks having the time of their lives these days … so that, too … but anyway, the break could help me think through what to do with the blog in the future and the hows of it.
I’ve been around a bit to recognize that things are not quite well, and I know I would feel bad giving up this watch at this time. But perhaps this is just me suffering from separation anxiety, right? Where does that put me in Abe Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Some of you have been with this blog since the beginning, so know that your feedback and input are always appreciated. I’ll be checking emails and Twitter periodically but apologies in advance if response time lags a little. Now take care and be kind to each other. 
#
You must be logged in to post a comment.