in my kitchen, around the farm

and a huge, gushing "thank you"

First and foremost, I want to thank all of you for your incredible support. I am thrilled to bits to get to announce that I (because of you) made my goal of reaching 1000 paid subscribers by the one year anniversary of my foray into Substack! And there’s still ten or so days left to spare.

Thank you to each and everyone of you!

I was so hesitant to start writing on this forum. It took me a good many months, and some encouragement from some dear friends and family members, to finally give it a shot. I didn’t know what to expect. I understand that my diverse offerings mean that a lot of what I write about won’t be consistently what some people sign up for. Maybe I’d attract even more readers if I stuck to one theme. I think many people find writers from something they read and like, thinking more of that same topic will be offered. I hope my “more of the same” comes in the form of honesty and curiosity over themes or staying in lanes. Yawn-o-rama. Lanes are for donkeys.

Still, I’m certain that some of what I share is more applicable or interesting for some over others and then swings around in the other direction at other times. I’m sure wise counsel would tell me to remedy that by focusing on one or two things, but I don’t want to do that. Sometimes, like this past Wednesday, when I share things that can be “charged”, I am likely to offend someone. I will usually get a few unsubscribes, but I also get a few more subscribes. Kind of like real life, I suppose. Some will take us and some will leave us. It’s nice to know that the ones that take us do so knowing who we really are and not because we stay quiet in hopes that they’ll like the curated version they get.

Thank you for being here with me. Your interactions and shared stories feel connecting and, without sounding too corny, like something pretty special on this corner of the internet.

Okay, onto this week’s offering of what is going on around here.