As the world gets angrier and more chaotic, I want the blog to be warmer, rational, thoughtful, and colorful—a sometimes provocative but always safe place.

It’s been moving in that direction for a couple of years, and when I get up in the morning and look at it, I see a place where it is safe for people to come and experience some good, kindness, creativity, color thought. And a basic respect for and love of animals.

(I have a growing group of landscape lovers; these three photos are for you. The sun just exploded from the afternoon sky and lit us up.)

I want it to be a safe place. The final barrier was figuring out what to do with the angry hordes on social media. There is only one good answer – ignore them. My bad was responding to them, I might be crazy, but I learn. I was bullied a lot as a kid and disliked bullies intensely. I should be pitying them; what a sad way to be. I’m working on it.

I do hope they burn their fingers on their keyboards. (Oops!)

That decision has liberated me to help create the blog I wanted and want even more now. I wonder if the blog needs any more changes or if we should stick to where we are. I’m not here to fight. Those days are passing. Maria and I are happy and joyous together, and we want to share that love and good fortune.

I’ve learned a lot; I want to share what I am learning.

The blog, which has many curious and thoughtful readers, deserves that and more.

Every year, as some of you might remember, I meet with Chris Archibee of Mannix Marketing on Zoom (before the pandemic, we used to visit his office, but everybody at Mannix Marketing works at home now, so we  Zoom. I love Chris Archibee; he has been holding my hand with my blog since I started it 15 years ago, and he can tell some wild stories about me, but he doesn’t.) Today was the day.

He is a precious and great friend of me and my blog.

I have always loved meeting with Chris and arguing about the blog. We balance one another. I always want to do too much; he always wants to do less. We come together in the middle, and he is about as nice as a human being gets. He has the gift of being both creative and cautious.

Chris said he reviewed the blog last week and thinks it looks great and doesn’t need dramatic fiddling. I asked him to remove the motto I put at the blog’s top – “Creativity And Gentle Warmth.” I don’t think it’s necessary anymore; the blog is moving steadily in that direction, and I don’t think it needs to be announced, just experienced.

Said he saw how much I had changed and how much the blog reflected that. I was pleased to hear it from him. He never lies.

I told Chris I wanted to make small, visible design changes to keep the blog vital and contemporary. I love the design and am not looking to change much at all. I’m thinking of perhaps putting the headlines to posts in color so they live up the site a bit. Chris is going to show me some mockups.

I’ll show them to you. We might leave it alone. He’s going to send me some mock-ups and see how that looks.

I like to make it as appealing and colorful as possible, and I love creative change. I told Christ that as the country gets momentarily (hopefully)  uglier, the blog becomes a place of thought, respite, beauty, animals, nature, and peace of mind. I acknowledge the fray occasionally but am keeping out of it. I’ll leave it to my former colleagues in the media to spread fear and hysteria; the blog is moving in another direction.

I don’t want anyone to come onto the blog and have their stomachs sink, the fate of us who check in on the so-called mainstream media, a massive panic machine.

If you have any ideas or requests about the blog, please share them with me. This is the advice I want and am asking for. Please send your thoughts and ideas to [email protected], not on the blog post page. I am leading towards minor fiddling with color. Let me know if you have any thoughts and ideas. And thanks for following the blog and for supporting the work we do.

I sure don’t want to change that. Send any thoughts to [email protected].