It's Thanksgiving. So let's spread the thankfulness and help out a fellow blogette

This is the time of year when we count our blessings, take stock, feel grateful. We drop some coins into the Salvation Army bucket; we think about who we can donate money to so that we can take it off our taxes, come spring.

I say, let's go one step further and help out a fellow Blogette. Ari 1965 over at Beyond My Slab has been out of work for more than a year. She lives alone, but for her lovely dog, Buddha, who she loves "like grass loves rain."

Let me say this again: She has been out of work for more than a year.

She has been holding body and soul together without family, without help. Her field is marketing, as near as I can tell, but she hasn't done much of that lately.

She is resourceful; she earns what she can baking and selling dog biscuits, walking dogs, writing newsletters, revising websites, doing day labor. Her stories of doing day labor are horrendous and make you want to weep at the inhumanity and brutality of it. She has applied for hundreds of jobs.

I don't know how she does it. I couldn't. Some days she thinks she can't, either.

I've never met her. Don't know her. She lives in my town, not all that far from my house, but I don't think I've ever laid eyes on her. All I know is that she's tired of living on the edge and sometimes she feels like giving up. I can't blame her, but I also can't stand by and watch that happen.

She's got a little paypal button on her blog, put there reluctantly and only after the urging of her blog readers, who wanted to help. My Thanksgiving invitation to all of you is this: hop over to her blog and press that button. Even a paypal donation of five bucks will help.

(The button is on the right-hand side, halfway down, and it says merely: DONATE.)

And if you can't donate? Prefer not to donate? Maybe mention her on your blog. See if we can get this ball rolling.

And even if all you do is wish her well, well, that's a lot, too, in this most difficult and wonderful of seasons. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.