Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you! THANK YOU!

I posted yesterday morning asking if people wouldn’t mind sending some money my way to help me get to this summer’s Empowering Women Through Secularism conference here in Dublin. I wasn’t expecting to receive much- I know that lots of us are low in cash these days and I’d never want to presume. I figured, though, that if I got enough to cover half of the cost or so, that I could come up with the rest myself.

What happened next left me astonished. And overwhelmed. Those pics above? Those are my overwhelmed faces the morning after. You should’ve seen me last night.

In a matter of hours, you wonderful readers responded not just with donations, but with reblogging, RTing and sharing my post and, well, with words that had me blushing cherry-red. I have no idea how I lucked out so much with my readers and followers. But damn, I did.

So here I am with an entirely unusual problem. I now have all of this extra money, and I want to do something worthwhile with it. I think it would be ungrateful and inappropriate of me to, say, blow it all on a fancy new set of bearings for my roller skates. (I’d pretend the thought never crossed my mind. But I’m only human. Of course it did)

I see this money as being for two things: the Tea Cosy, and supporting women and secularism. 

I’ve wanted to transfer the Tea Cosy over to wordpress.org for several months. With a self-hosted blog I’d have far more freedom to do what I like with this space- to include more and different kinds of features, to play with how the site is put together. WordPress.com is a great place to start a blog, but I’ve been feeling a little frustrated by some of its limitations recently, and it seems like time to strike out and give the Tea Cosy a home of its own.

I’d like to use the extra money I’ve been given to do that, and if I have any left over, I’ll donate that either to this summer’s conference or to another secular & feminist cause. I’d be happy for any suggestions you have in that regard, and I’ll let you know what ideas I come up with.

What do you think? I feel both grateful and delighted with all of your generosity, and that I want to use this money in a way that benefits all of you, as well as me.

Let me know!

And, if I haven’t mentioned it enough times yet? THANK YOU! You’re all, as we say here, a shower of ledgebags.