Wow, I hit my 100th post! (The one about my daughter.) That’s exciting. And kind of amazing. Hard to believe I’ve written that much already.
I’ve also received exactly 700 comments. (A day of milestone numbers!) I can’t tell you how much it means to me when you guys leave comments. We bloggers don’t get paid for blogging, so our “payment” comes by way of response — comments and feedback and pingbacks and general all-around fun “conversation.” It’s the best. It makes me feel great every time I see one pop into my inbox.
My “regular” commenters have been from all walks of my life, so I thought I’d introduce you to each other. You’d all be good friends if we could sit in a room together:
- You know Chris (or Christopher or Charles) is my hubby Superman, and “Nene” is my daughter.
- Dave (a.k.a “The Bubbynator”) is my brother-in-law and an all-around fun guy and terrific conversationalist. (And single, ladies.)
- M., Debi, Barbara and Dawni are all friends from jr high or high school. I absolutely love keeping in touch with them.
- Barbara is also from the book club, as is Rosy, Carrie, Pam and Lauri. These women know how to talk about books! Always insightful. …
- Nancy is a friend from college (and crit partner for decades) who lives in Switzerland now and introduced me to verbivore who keeps a book blog in Switzerland (and has become a wonderful crit partner). They’ll both be on the literary shelves soon.
- Grace, Bill, Texan Penny and Dixie are all friends and former coworkers from the newspaper. I miss the days when we used to have the most interesting conversations ever there. In fact, many of my posts here feel like “work conversations” I used to have with these folks.
- Patti, Sharon, Sonja, Andrea and Rachel are all crit partners I’ve met through online writing classes — all hardworking, great storytellers. You’ll see their romance and historical novels on the shelves soon.
- Arlene is my mom, and Helene is her sister. They both love to read and have great book insight.
- Johnny is my father-in-law, and Jersey Girl is his wife. They both read voraciously and are the first “dual-Kindle couple” I’ve met.
- Debbie C. is a friend of Superman’s who has become a friend of mine.
- Geraldine is my sweet niece-in-law and a great mother to an adorable baby boy.
- Jen Kelly, Marla, Judy, Nicole, Brianna, Beeb and Celeste are all smart women who’ve worked at, or freelanced for, my current job.
- And there are sooooooooo many super-cool new blogging and/or Twitter friends that I’ve met in the blogosphere. Most have blogs themselves and are fun and amazing. Some of the wonderful regulars I’ve just met have been Jeanne, Kat, Crystal Posey, Kristibug, Anastasia, Kwana, Jen Roland, beckylevine, nanna95, doart, December, WindyA, Amethyst, denisebump, chickenbetty, Joanna D’Angelo, Lisa MacColl, Lynn Daniels, joemmama, Ashley Ladd, Trish (heylady), Sherry, Conrad, Alyssa Carter, Debbie Sanchez and more. I’ve also had thrilling visits from IzzyMom, Jordan Summers, Misa Ramirez, Lori Borrill, Carolyn Burns Bass, gretatiki (Rebecca Regnier), Carla (mizfitonline) and others.
I can’t tell you all how much it means to me when you stop and say hello or add your thoughts to the conversation. Please continue! And those of you who haven’t commented yet, please throw a “hello” anytime you want — you’re truly welcome here.