So, how are we doing?

This has been a pretty fantastic week here at American Papist.

First of all, I got nominated for the Catholic Blog Awards in the "Best New Blog" category - and due to the generous attention of my readers, we've been making a very respectable showing. ;-)

Since introducing Karen Heiby's "Habemus Papam" music video, it has been downloaded over 1,000 times (chewing through more than 2 1/2 gigabytes of bandwidth in the process, I might add - but no worries - more where that came from). [Thanks to Mark Shea and many others for the help in promoting it.]

Next, collaborating with David at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex, the Cardinal George Fanclub got off to a running start. [Thanks to Amy Welborn and Shrine of the Holy Whapping for links.]

Finally, through blogrolling and mentions at Curt Jester, Closed Cafeteria, Shrine of the Holy Whapping, Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex, Matthew Lickona and a few Catholic forum threads, daily readership of American Papist has been hovering around a healthy 500-600 a day this week.

Of course, dozens of blogs have been kind enough to link to me - and I have very much enjoyed discovering your blogs in turn! Please allow me some time to make sure all the linkbacks are working.

There's not too much more to say, except - oh! - I always appreciate receiving emails and getting votes in the random 2006 Catholic Blog Award contest (and by the way - if I ever start going overboard with the canvassing for votes - let alone sounding like this - let me know. I'll stop. Because no one enjoys a nagging blog!)

To all my "not-your-average Catholic" readers - Grace & Peace!

- Thomas