Good morning my friends.

It’s very very early here. Lisa and I are heading out to Ottawa. 700 miles! We hope to be there by suppertime. Casile, a member of TLS, is doing her final year of her philosophy degree at Carleton University.

Well, TLS has been up and running for about one year. It’s been steady, hard but rewarding work. We’re in the process of ramping up for our next iteration which I’m very very excited about.

Nakedpastor has kept me very busy as well. Since I went under the Patheos network in February of this year, my traffic there has increased 3 times what it used to be. Just last week with my Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke cartoon, “The Public Stoning of Miley Cyrus”, there were over 50,000 hits just that day alone, with almost 50,000 shares on Facebook. As a result, my inbox is constantly flooded with emails. I could just sit there reading and deleting or filing each one all day long like a nonstop ticker tape of information. (But do you know what I do? I check each title and if it’s a TLSer, I check it. Otherwise, there has to be another good reason for me to read it.)

Needless to say, I’m exhausted. I’m looking forward to this little break with Lisa. It’s less than a week, but it will be nice. I’m going to repost cartoons for nakedpastor out of my archives. I will try to continue my daily toast. But I won’t be able to keep up with emails or Facebook, etcetera. I’ll do my best. However, I don’t want to rob time from Lisa and I just hanging out. We need this. I carry you guys in my heart and look forward to checking in on you when I can.

I really do love you guys. You are my community. You are where I feel I belong. And that is a precious thing! I know many of you feel the same way. It’s cool to know that I have new genuine friends spread all over the place. It’s also neat to think that I could go to so many cities and towns and meet up with you guys. That’s something I’m looking forward to. A meet up! A party! I don’t take this for granted. You guys amaze me.

I celebrate this.

with love,

david