D*mn, I'm Lucky!

Voting in the One Project Closer Before & After Contest continues in earnest. It will go through Friday.

So, am I lucky enough to be leading the charge? Hardly. The vote counts are starting to get a little nuts and I'm getting passed up left and right. In just the first two days there have been one dog fight after another and surprise votes appearing out of nowhere. It will be fun to see how it all shakes out.

But even I'm smart enough to see that it's well beyond my reach. And I'm OK with that. I knew going in that the competition was fierce. I'm still proud as hell of my project, even if it manages to come in dead last.

Why then am I lucky?

I'm lucky because I have enough people in my life (virtually and in real-time) that I could ask do something ... and they did it, in short order. (I managed to get my first hundred votes yesterday.) I'm lucky because even people who didn't vote for me have made their way to the blog. Some of them are even staying by subscribing to the feed or becoming a follower. Some have even left comments.

Some of the people whose help I enlisted, people I see on a regular basis but just don't talk to a whole lot, sent me the nicest e-mails sharing their own DIY experiences and marveling at some of the projects around This D*mn House. I learned something about them -- they learned a lot about me -- and hopefully that was as good a thing for them as it has been for me.

While I won't be declaring victory as the number one contestant, you can d*mn well bet I'm declaring myself a winner. And I got something better than the prize that was up for grabs.

Thanks, everyone. You guys are the greatest!