Dear Karen (a letter to my readers)

Dear Karen (a letter to a reader)

Dear Karen,
You wrote a comment recently in which you thanked me and I feel the need to say that I don’t deserve the thanks, you do. It takes a lot to get someone to read a post these days, let alone take the time to log into a blog and leave a comment. You did that though, and your words meant a lot to me.


If you browse my blog for a while you’ll see that I don’t have a lot of comments on my posts. I don’t write anything super controversial so I don’t expect to get a hundred comments a day. I decided long ago that I’m not a shock blogger who writes and posts offensive or controversial posts just for the sake of numbers, there is too much of that kind of clickbait on the internet and it does nothing but harsh my mellow. But I have a secret: I do get comments, a lot of them. Why don’t you see them? Well, you don’t see them because they’re nasty.


I’ve gotten hate mail over the weirdest things. My Zaycon chicken review has the most comments of any post, 81 original comments and even more replies to comments. What you don’t see is the 30 or so that weren’t published because the commenter called me an idiot (or worse). One particularly foul (fowl, LOL) commenter told me I had an agenda, one even told me I must be a member of PETA (hello? have you tasted bacon?)


I’m very much of the “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen” mindset. When something awful happens (and yes, I’ve even been cyber stalked!) I talk it over with my husband, maybe comment about it on Facebook somewhere, and then I move on. It took me a while, several years, to get to this point. I think it was somewhere around the time that one of my posts was put on a forum for childless adults as a target. When that happened I thought about shutting my doors, in fact, I did. I had a very popular blog about mommyhood that got tons of traffic and interaction but I shut it down because of a few haters. I let them get to me but I won’t do that again, because you took the time to write the kind words that reminded me why I do this.


So, anyhow…the world is a harsh place. I’m not going to sit here and write about how you should remember that there is a person on the other end of the computer, yada yada. Bloggers do that to death.

This was all a very round about way to tell you what I came here to say: THANK YOU.

Thank you Karen for taking the time to comment and for being real. I was sitting here thinking about how the internet is nothing but a bunch of angry people holed up in a little room and someone forgot to wear deordorant and someone else ate beans for lunch. I was ready to close up shop again. The internet is a smelly place. And then I opened the email with your comment. I almost cried, I woke my husband up and said “You’ve got to hear this great comment!” Karen, you are the reason I blog. When I sit down to write my only goal is to reach out to one person and let them know that they aren’t alone. Whether it’s sharing in our overgrowth of oregano or bringing it down to earth talking about my child’s near drowning, I’m in this life with you. I am sorry that you are experiencing hard times but I hope I helped in some small way and made you feel not so alone. *hugs*

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Karen wrote the following comment on my post titled People on Food Stamps Aren’t Wild Animals:


I am absolutely sure that I was one of THOSE people looking at the cart of the stamp recipient thinking….wow…they can afford THAT?! How can they be ALLOWED to get chips and soda….clearly not nutritious at all.


Well…….If you were behind me in line a few days before Christmas you would have seen my cart laden with chocolates, fancy nuts, juice,fancy breads and stocking candy. Peanut butter filled pretzels and Peter Pan peanut butter sat on top of tiny, one serving Kellogg’s cereal boxes and juice boxes. Yes, the faces were there….the cashier’s as well….I feel like I need to wear a sign…MY HUSBAND FELL OFF OUR ROOF 3 YEARS AGO AND HASN”T WORKED, I am disabled and homeschool.
My three kids, my extra kid and her spouse, my husband and best friend were the recipients of those fancy gifts. I packaged them in giant gift bags from years gone by and filled the bags with tissue paper that has been reused for 20 years. The room was full—as was my heart.
Food stamps allows us to be a little bit “normal”.

Thank you.