Kind Words from Atlanta

I received an email Friday evening from a woman named Carolyn whom I helped with a Christmas present for her husband Tom back in September.  I’ve had some awesome email exchanges with her since she first sent me an email after finding the blog and she is an incredibly kind woman.

This is the email I got…

Hi Tom,

Since “meeting” you via your Hanley Happenings blog, I’ve gone back to it a few times over the past several months to read your inspiring posts.

I really enjoy your Think Kit musings and have been able to have some introspection from those as well. I am saddened about your divorce, but am encouraged and hopeful about your future. Your outlook is refreshingly bright and optimistic…and I am going to try and apply that to my life in 2014.

Thanks for all you did for me this year…and please let me know if you ever come to Atlanta…we’d love to grab a beer (or a Jack & ginger)!

Carolyn

P.S. Tom and I would like to donate to Nine 13 Sports & will do that via your website this week.

P.S.S. Keep writing…you have a natural gift and I look forward to seeing where life takes you!

It’s always interesting to get feedback from strangers on my writing.  The interesting thing about the blog is that it creates somewhat of a vacuum of information amongst my immediate friends.  I know it’s well read (the stats show a consistent and growing reader base), but unless I post something that gets emotions stirred up, I typically don’t hear chatter about what I write.

I’ve walked a pretty delicate tightrope over the last few months in terms of writing (or not writing) about the divorce and everything that goes along with that.  I’ve had my flareups and outbursts, which I feel were well deserved and needed; but for the most part the blog has been under the same concept with my piloting it as it was when it was launched as a family blog back in June of 2011; overcoming, surviving, moving on, having fun, exploring the world and finding things to make the world a bit better.

I certainly hope that my outlook does come across as optimistic and bright, I know it’s an area that I haven’t always highlighted with my slightly skewed jadedness and frustrations with different things…but it’s absolutely how I feel internally.  There is so much good going on in life, so many things that have come together in the past few months that finally developed when I stepped away and stopped trying to force it, I’m beyond excited for what the first half of 2014 will bring.

I’m currently sitting here writing this in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2014 and the dogs refuse to come in because they are having so much fun outside.  I figure I should let them have their fun today as they’re going to be pretty housebound tomorrow with the dangerous temperatures outside.  So once again, as puppy pictures make every blog post better, here are Zee and Bailey this morning.

The Colts game last night was awesome and I’m still coming down off of it.  What a great game to watch, I’ll get some photos up on tomorrow’s post.

squirrel hunting

reverse dalmatian?