Aunt Annie and I haven’t had the cheeriest of Christmastimes this year. It’s been a bit dark around the house, between a little bit of depression for the both of us, the reality of spending our second year and third Christmas without my mom, and the seasonal grind that is living life in a still-in-a-pandmic world as an immune-compromised person and her caregiver…
But we are tremendously grateful this morning. I asked the TMR community to step up and help us take care of AA’s property taxes as we really had nowhere else to go but the whole concept that this is a reader-supported blog, and this afternoon, I’m dropping off the final check that will pay off our taxes for the year.
It’s hard to ask for help. And it’s really hard for me to learn how to say, “Hey, there are no commercials here, no paywalls, but I pour my heart and soul into this blog, etc. etc.”
That’s probably the worst part of the job, in all honesty, but when you’re essentially a non-profit business, you still need to pay the bills. And the bill is paid.
It wouldn’t be so without the reason that I do this–you.
Now I still need to raise funds as the screen on my cell phone literally peeling off my phone like a bad wrapper off a sardine can, and it’s gonna cost about $500 to replace that phone because my credit score is a fraction (hello, student loans). But I need the phone for work as much as anything else (hey, you’ve seen what I use the computer for!), and so I’m going to keep asking that you consider lending a hand to help me break even.
But I can’t do that without expressing my profound, sincere and immense gratitude for your remarkable kindness in helping my aunt and I stay here.
Just like every Traverse City trip, just like Moonshot, a.k.a. my laptop, and just like so many other hoped-for dreams and possibilities, it happened because I work for a community.
That’s pretty cool. And very Christmassy.
If you’re willing to lend a hand, you can use PayPal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com. And you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check.
