November 20, 2008 – The book tour ended tonight in an Albany Hotel, with Izzy and I getting an award from the New York Hospice and Palliative Care Association, which touched me deeply, and which I appreciate. A letter from my good friend Keith Mann, who brought me into hospice,  was read to the crowd. It was a very sweet and appropriate end to a curious book tour. Every event, from Omaha to Albany, was great, big crowds, lots of dog lovers, good words about me, the dogs, and about the blog and my writing and photographs. I am one of those people who doesn’t pay much attention to praise, but sometimes it gets through and it did tonight at this award ceremony and fund-raiser.
  It was a great experience zipping around the country, and it was also bittersweet, as my book came out almost to the day that the economy began to totter, and so there was this eerie and Orwellian sense of doom that emanated from TV monitors in hotels, airports and all over the Net and the Web.
  People were – are anxious – and although this didn’t deter the dog people in the least – it was in the ether, and bookstores were, along with most retail outlets, quiet places. My readings were all SRO, down to the last, and I am grateful for that. I remember someone in Omaha starting her own gourmet dog treats and Franana in Milwaukee who published her photographs and the many faithful readers of the the blog popping up everywhere and putting faces to messages.
  This has been an important year for me in so many ways, and I am grateful for the book, very happy it is over, and on fire to get back to my work of writing and photography, and of finding ways to write about encouragement, fear and of determination to live the best and most fulfilled possible life.
  I was much distracted this fall, by the book tour and by other things, and I am beginning to return to myself, to appreciate this farm and the life here, to face the challenges of a more complex world, along with everyone else, and to work to be a complete, loving and creative human being.
  I intend to run a lean and mean farm, to make sure I can care properly for the animals I have, and to challenge myself, personally and creatively. I will publish my book on Dogs and Souls next Fall, and am eager to explore ways of writing fiction.
  I am determined to maintain this blog, and my writing and photography here. I thank the many people who have read my book, who came to see me, who encouraged me in my work and life so strongly. I hope to return the favor. Clearly, these are challenging times, and fear is the enemy of many of us. I came off of the book tour with a heightened sense of the sensibility I brought to it: markets rise and fall, and while I respect that and take it seriously, I also believe more every day that happiness does not come from money, one way or the other. Animals teach me many things, and if I have learned anything in the past year, it is to fight to live my life. And then fight some more.
  And to wake up each morning with the desire to create something worth leaving behind.
  On to the holidays. I’m happy to be back. I’m glad you’re out there.