Followers

I have 32 followers!

That is so hard for me to believe!  I never intended for anyone's eyes but mine to see this silly blog and now I routinely have about 40 followers/visitors per day!  Far, FAR short of the thousands and thousands The Pioneer Woman has each day.  But, still!  40 people who read my blatherings and look at the photos of my sweet pups! 

I owe a lot of those followers/visitors (heck, almost all of them) to Taryn over at A Tail of Two Cardis and Kelly at Corgi Butts.  When they added Darby's Daily to their blog rolls, my visitation and follower numbers jumped.  Thank you, ladies, for giving me that boost!

Glenn and I had dinner last night with two of the people who read Darby's Daily -- Darby's mom's humans, Wendy and Mike from Maine.  (We postponed The Mother and Child Reunion/birthday party and instead went out to dinner where I could spread my cold germs around to a lot of people, instead of just Wendy and Mike!)  Mike commented that he was glad we had stayed in touch over the past year since our incredible, chance meeting here in San Diego.  We discussed how email and computer technology in general has created challenges as well as wonderful opportunities.  I think the opportunities far out-weigh the challenges.  Wendy, Mike, Glenn and I would not have slipped so quickly into a comfortable visiting, getting-to-know-you rhythm yesterday without the help of having gotten to know each other a little through email throughout the past year. 

Without email and blogs, I would not:

• have shared memories of my long-ago year in Italy with Francesca at Fuori Borgo nor learned about her life raising three children in an ancient hill town in Italy; 
• kept in touch as easily with Darby's and Pumpkin's breeder, Leda,  who has held my hand (figuratively, of course!) as I've gotten to know these wonderful dogs she caused to be here;
• have met Taryn and her Cardis and watched her and Jimmy in their graceful, FAST, agility dance; 
• have kept in touch with Darby's west-coast sibling, Buddy, and shared "worried mom" emails with his human, Becky;
• have had a visit from Flat George and the chance to learn a bit about the non-flat dog he represents, George The Lad and walk with him through the beautiful countryside (and pubs!) where he lives in the UK
• made many a virtual trip Downunder to Australia via the blog owned by Kendra, Daisy and Bella

...and the list could go on and on.

Through visits this week to Darby's Daily, people from the following countries have come to know a little bit about an American woman and her love for her two dogs: Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Ukraine, Italy, Russia, Austria and China.   And, through my visits to other blogs, I have learned about life in Italy, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Indonesia and many states in the US.

I can't help but think those are good things!

32 followers!  I have a "following"!  That is incredible and wonderful to me.  Thank you!

And, I owe it all to her: