She won!!!!

Leah Larson won the Wells Fargo Someday Stories contest and thus the $100,000 for Yaldah Magazine!!!!

Congratulations GALORE to Leah, and abundant thanks to all who voted and helped promote her cause and the contest!


(I'm off to do a happy dance... Yipee!)

VetErans Day

(By request)

This is what I wrote last year for VetErans Day.

P.S. Thanks to the US Government for declaring the official spelling of the day with no apostrophe. I'm not so sure I agree stylistically, but it sure is easier to remember.

Did you vote? It's not too late....

I'm obsessively checking http://leah.clkl.com/ because voting ends MONDAY NIGHT November 10, 2008 at midnight (California time, 3:00 a.m. EST) , and Leah ("Evelyn in MA") and Danny have been neck-and-neck for the past few weeks.

9:42 a.m. this morning (EST), Danny was up by 25 votes, but at 9:54 a.m. Leah was up by 23!! This is going to be a total "nail-biter" and every vote is vital!!

Please, please, please, VOTE FOR LEAH!!!! go to http://leah.clkl.com/ and vote for "Evelyn in MA"

See this previous post for more informaiton.

Please note, according to the rules of the contest:

In order to maintain the fairness and integrity of this promotion and to
ensure that each voter has an equal impact on the voting results, voting has
been limited to one vote per person and per email address.

Thus, if you've already voted, please encourage someone else who hasn't to VOTE FOR LEAH TODAY!

Finally! [an overdue] Carnival of Overdue Thanks: Third Edition, October 2008

Welcome to the [overdue!] third edition of


The Carnival of Overdue Thanks



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Gratitude has no expiration date.

Welcome to the "October", 2008 edition of the Carnival of Overdue Thanks.

First off, thank you to the contributors and regular readers of this feature for your patience during the past couple weeks, during which time Blog Carnival was sputtering and failing, spitting out legitimate entries, intermittently down for days, then up for minutes, then down for days again, holding the entries in this month's edition captive...

I'm hopeful that this was a temporary glitch, and that this month's aggravation will be rewarded by a better functionality in the future.

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Well, the delay in getting this edition out prevented readers from participating in Treppenwitz's Help needed to deliver an overdue thank-you, but the up-side is that now the comments reveal a happy ending!

On a deeper note, Treppenwitz posted an honest and excellent article at OU.org, "Stumbling Blocks", that expresses gratitude ... just in time ... for the advice and perspective of the man who helped him and his son prepare for his son's bar mitzvah. (Mazal tov, Dave!)

And, as though that weren't enough (dayenu!), Leora submitted A Simple Jew's grateful post about how one of Treppenwitz's blog helped him in a most significant way. Read Blinding Flashes Of Intellect ...Just When We Needed It! and smile!

In Receiving is Giving, Part 3 , though the thanks are still overdue, Nadneyda marks the bill as paid.

RivkA, with her characteristic hope and optimism, thanks people for hanging out making chemotherapy fun!"

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Summy presents Getting Fun Done (GFD): The Toilet Paper Game- How To Get Your Kids To Help posted at Success Making Machine, saying, "there so much we need to be thankful to our mothers for and don't tell them."

Anna Farmery presents Living the Legacy posted at Widows Quest.

Vered thanks her blog's top commentators at MomGrind, which is something many do and recommend. Yet she does it in a personal and unique way, elevating a routine activity into a love poem to her online contributors.

Abby Freedman presents It's a little early for Thanksgiving but... posted at i pick up pennies, saying, "During a particularly dark spell in my life, I found 10 things for which to be thankful."

Amber Chamberlain presents How to change your life through gratitude posted at Amber, saying, "This article is about changing your life through the power of gratitude. It suggests beginning a gratitude journal to start giving thanks for things that are long overdue in each person's life."

The Babysitter presents Hashgacha Pratis Tuesday --- #1 posted at The Jewish Side. "Hashgacha Pratis" means Divine intervention. She plans to collect these stories on a regular basis at her blog. (I know the guidelines of this Carnival specify that the object of the thanks should be a person, but I'm making a one-time discretionary exception, so she can announce this new feature of her blog.)

The End of the Week Gratitude Theme #51 posted at Adversity University Blog is a weekly feature at his blog, but it struck me this week - especially the part with the business card he received from one of his seminars - how quickly and casually it was written, but still had an impact.

Daily Writing Tips shares some pointers for Writing a Thank You Note .

Gratitude is going main-stream and low-tech, with Leo's post about 8 Tremendously Important Ways That Gratitude Can Change Your Life at zen habits, and Lifehacker's Ungeek To Live: How Zach Braff (and I) Get Thank-You Notes Done.

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"Hakarat haTov" is Hebrew for "recognizing the good", and is an important directive precept in Judaism. In this article the Rebbetzin's Husband * quotes Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l, who said, for United States citizens, voting is an expression of hakarat hatov, or gratitude, for all the freedoms and rights we enjoy in this country.

(And when you do vote this Tuesday, don't forget to collect your free coffee from Starbucks, as their way of saying "thanks for voting!)

*(whose blog's name and sub-heading counts as an expression of gratitude on its own!)

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On a related note...

November 2, 2008 is the (extended) deadline for an international gratitude-related project, the Reverend and Mrs. Loketch Tribute book.

Earlier this month we sent out requests world-wide for people to share their memories and well wishes for our beloved synagogue sexton and his wife, who are retiring after 42 years. The results have been overwhelming, both in volume and content.

Collecting, editing and assembling the replies, I've been struck repeatedly by the scope and power of kindness and gratitude. The letters that have poured in, have arrived in many different formats, recounting the kindnesses that range from a warm greeting, to arranging of marriages; from not taking offense at a potential slight, to a lifetime of teaching and counseling.

Every note in this project is meaningful. Just as Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted,” the same can be said of expressions of gratitude. Even a quick e-mail can make a significant difference in how both the recipient and the sender perceive the world.

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(There were a lot of submissions that were not included in this carnival because they were outright SPAM, had nothing to do with the topic of the carnival, or violated the carnival guidelines. This month, SPAM outnumbered legitimate contributions 4:1! If you submitted something and feel yours was omitted in error, please review the guidelines and let me know.)

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The Carnival of Overdue Thanks
is an on-going project,
with posts due the Monday before the fourth Thursday of the month,


published on the fourth Thursday of the month.


For November's edition, the post submission deadline is Monday, November 24, 2008, to be published on Thursday, November 27, 2008. (which is also the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday.)
For this carnival's submission guidelines, please see this page (scroll to the bottom).
Please submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival Overdue Thanks using our carnival submission form.



carnival home ¤ submit an article ¤ contact

Gratitude has no expiration date.