Dear (you're name here),

I installed a little map gadget on the blog about a week ago. It is so cool. It shows me where the people are who are reading my blog.

This is so exciting! Hello Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks and Bell. It is so thrilling to see folks in towns nearby my own and know that maybe a mama (or papa for that matter) like me, not far away, is reading my humble words.

But wait… then there was Arizona, Texas, and Alabama. I don’t know a soul in Alabama. Hello, Alabama. How are ya?

Then something so unexpected, a red dot on the map in the Phillipines, another in Germany and one in Australia! Why, it’s morning there, I think, when I am up writing in the wee hours of the night. Hello! Kumustá! Guten Tag! G’day!!!!

What could be more exciting than knowing that my words aren’t just floating out there in cyberspace, unread? Of course then came the fear. What could I possibly have to say that someone in Germany would care about? Would someone in another country think my thoughts trite, my problems mundane, humor, um…not humor-ful?

Oh, I think, they probably clicked here by accident and then said, “What the heck is this? I was looking for lawn chairs.”

So this is my little love note to you; you who I don’t know, who I have never met, who I may never have the opportunity to know. Thank you for taking time from your life to read about mine. I pray that I will be able to write something worthy of your time. Please stop in and say hello on the comments! Share your stories with me. Tell me about breakfast in Australia. I would love to know you as more than a little red dot on my map.

All my love,

~Laine

One of my favorite pictures of me and the kidlets (BT...before Tessa), taken 5 years ago. Photo by my sweet pal Annmarie Hall.