Good Monday morning Felines and Humans!

A cheerful Monday morning for a change... This morning, I woke up to discover that I had just reached 500 followers overnight, so this will be a bit of a milestone post. And there will be a celebratory drawing... with FREE STUFF!

500 Followers in 144 Days!

Things are just moving right ahead, it seems! It took me 37 days to get to 100 followers, 72 days to reach 200; now I have reached 500 in precisely double that time.

Cat
Contemplating the path ahead. Or at least some bords outside...

I'm sure quite a few of those are "auto follows" and bots, but still... it feels like a milestone worth marking!

A big thank you to the many wonderful Humans (and a few fellow "cat accounts") who have encouraged me to "keep plugging away" at it! Also many thanks for your upvotes and nice comments!

Also a big thanks to @abh12345 who runs the Steemit "Curation and Engagement Leagues" which have certainly helped keep me inspired, as well. If you're an active Steemian and not familiar with the Leagues, you should check them out!

Score
It's Official: 500 followers!

Drawing/Giveaway for FIVE Shares of Steem Basic Income!

Goodness knows I'm not exactly "raking in the millions" here, but I thought it would be fun to share and "pay it forward" to celebrate my milestone, so I am giving away FIVE @steembasicincome shares!

@steembasicincome is one of my favorite initiatives on Steemit!

Cat
Morning selfie. Not full awake yet!

It's a cool program that's striving to "spread the wealth" in our community. And with over 30,000 shares now active, it has become a major influence for thousands of community members!

It's very simple: In exchange for each share you own, you get a tiny upvote for life on your posts! When you're new, knowing you always have that vote coming is a nice security blanket.

I was gifted into the program early on and now have a total of nine shares from various contests, gifts and people I have sponsored. Even with today's depressed Steem prices, that results in about a $0.06 upvote on my posts!

There are a couple of things I really like about the program: It's very much in the spirit of "Pay it Forward," in that you can't just buy your own shares in the program. You have to gift someone else in. The other thing I really like is that it supports a long term commitment to Steemit. It takes something on the order of 70-80 posts for each share to pay for itself... but the votes (theoretically!) will continue forever. You can read more about it here.

RULES of the Giveaway!

YOU MUST: Leave a comment that includes the words "Please include me in the 500 Follower SBI drawing!" along with whatever else you were going to say. This allows me to only include people who actually read the post, and exclude any bots that — obviously — NEVER read the post.

OPTIONAL: I very much appreciate your UPVOTES on this post, as this is all coming out of my own pocket, and I also appreciate RESTEEMS to help spread the word. The more participants the better! And if this post ends up with a payout over $10, I will add bonus SBI shares!

PRIZE DRAWING: When this post "closes" in 7 days time from now, my Human will help me hold a random drawing among qualified commenters and the first FIVE (or more?) names we draw out of the hat will be gifted into the Steem Basic Income program!

And with that, I'm going to wish everyone a wonderful day — I'm off to check out what's going on with my friends on Steemit!

=^..^=