Unbelievable

I am enamored with words, for various reasons. Some words are just fun to say, like discombobulate. Some words fit the situation so perfectly, like when I used to tell my kids that they were being pugnacious. And it's always a thrill to find the perfect word to communicate an exact idea. Most folks think that I must be a math whiz since I'm an accountant, and therefore numbers would be more interesting to me; that would be incorrect, as my second daughter (who majored in math) will testify. But numbers do come in handy when making some comparisons.

For example, The Mister grew up in a Gilbert town of 2,000, and the population remained pretty much the same for his entire life. He went to Tucson for his college education, came back here to farm, and during the first year of our marriage in 1980, Gilbert's population jumped to 5,000. Somewhere between our third and fourth child, the number hit 20,000, and you know the story of the exponential growth from there, up to about 184,000 at last count. It's the number 20,000 that I'm focusing on; it seems like it took a while for Gilbert to hit that number: all of his life, and up through 8 or 9 years of marriage.

Now switch the topic a bit; sometime today, the 20,000th visitor will read this post.

I find this unbelievable. When I started The Front Porch almost 2 years ago, my intention was twofold: first to introduce the family to this community, and also to provide some news about the neighborhoods along the way. The Mister sometimes bemoans the fact that we will see something interesting as we are driving - "gee, why is there yellow police tape around that building?" or "I didn't know this street was going to be closed for a day; I wonder why?" or "there's a helicopter hovering, is that good or bad news?" - and have no way of answering our curious questions. So I figured there were folks living in Morrison Ranch who might have the same sorts of questions - "I heard there was a drugstore going in on the corner" or "did you know there's a dollar store going into the Albertson's building?" - with no discernable place to go for answers. Some persistent souls will call our office (which we welcome), but I think many more folks just wonder amongst themselves. I've tried to anticipate those curious questions, and dispel those rumors that start flying, and actually answer the questions that I do receive via email. If I've accomplished my second objective of providing news about the community as it builds, that task is far from complete, since things keep building and there continue to be questions and points of interest.

Introducing the family to the Morrison Ranch residents has been a bit more sporadic, and I suppose that new readers are not so inclined to go back through the archives to find family history; yet, I don't want to retell the same old stories over and over again. I try to give links when the old stories seem appropriate to revisit, but I honestly haven't quite figured out how to keep imparting the same history to a changing audience of readers.

The reason why it feels important that you know the family that I've married into is more than just historical. To be very frank, when we went through the zoning process for Morrison Ranch back in the mid 90's, I heard and read some amazingly hurtful things about the Morrison family, and my desire to set the record straight began to grow. You know how we talk about big companies as nameless, faceless robots - Big Oil, Tobacco, even The Government? We can be brutal in our assessments because there is no one person's face that comes to mind (okay, except for Bill Gates, who is reviled by computer users across the world at various times). To actually meet a person, though, and say to oneself, "well, she's not the ogre I'd been led to believe" - now THAT seems more productive. That's why I've been willing to offer a peek inside our office, and to introduce various family members in various ways. I hope to provide context, to put a face (or several faces) to the name. This is also an ongoing process.

My self-examination on the blogging process after two years and 20,000 readers leads me to a few disjointed conclusions:

My Front Porch visitors circle has grown from family and friends (who may not be nearby and just like to keep up on what's happening here) to more residents of Morrison Ranch, for whom the blog is intended.

I don't get as many emails as I'd anticipated, but the number does continue to grow.

I receive the most comments and emails when I share a personal viewpoint or story, even though this is supposed to be about Morrison Ranch itself. The Mister says that it's because folks can identify with the Diamondbacks or birds or cars or whatever, but the details about soil amendment or the like is all new information, and so comments are not to be expected. Which doesn't make the information invalid, necessarily.

Blogging is more difficult than I thought it would be; but many times when I've grown a little weary of doing it, I'll get a lift from someone who emails me out of the blue saying that they are reading it in anticipation of moving here from another state, or that they drove through the area and loved our community and could I please tell them about the schools, or something like that.

So I guess I'll keep posting for a while longer; thanks for joining me. Probably the most encouraging comment I've heard was one that happened several months ago, maybe even a year ago. The Mister was in the UPS store at Lakeview Village, and he was joking around with the guys in there, who called him Mr. Morrison, and a gal in the store said to him, "Are you The Mister? I read your wife's blog all the time and I feel like I know you!" It still makes me smile.