I hope my subscribers don't delete this without reading it because they don't recognize my new blog name!

"Let's Talk about Laurie" just wasn't working very well, probably because it didn't have a clear focus. I started it as a place to express my thoughts and share information with friends, relatives, and anyone else who came across it. It was to be both personal and general so it would be of interest to people all over the country or even the world (I have relatives in Europe). The only problem was only two relatives ever read it regularly, and I've had practically no feedback from anyone else. If you write in your blog and no one reads it, are you expressing your thoughts or sharing information? I don't think so.

I also noticed the only things I've really felt like writing about have been my garden and nature. When I had my first website more than 10 years ago, it had a huge garden portion and I even kept an online gardening journal—a blog before there were blogs. No one read that, either, except a few people who sent me gardening questions unrelated to my experience and a guy from Colorado who sent me hate mail because I defended tamarisks. In "Let's Talk about Laurie," I felt I had to avoid writing specifically about Northern Nevada gardening because I didn't want to bore out-of-town readers.

I felt less and less like writing anything, and I was close to closing the blog altogether. Finally it clicked: Why force myself to write things few seemed interested in? Why not write what I feel like writing about—my Northern Nevada yard—and see if anyone around here (or anyone else) is interested?

I hope to write more often now that I've given myself permission to be more specific. I've removed most of the non-gardening entries; I plan to post some of them as essays elsewhere on my website. I appreciate everyone who's been visiting so far, and I hope I'll keep your interest and gain new readers at the same time.