I just counted them up, and I’ve written around 100 columns since 2011.  They started as updates about the CVC’s work and the community.  Then they evolved (devolved?) into random stories about my life, heavy on introspection and almost always highlighting my many foibles.

Subjects have included everything from my Whole 30 diet success to losing a parent to raising boys to the power of optimism.  People are incredibly kind and will tell me in the grocery how much they enjoy my columns. They’ll email and text me with feedback on Saturday morning after they’ve read it. I don’t get comments every time I submit a column, but often.  It’s quite flattering.

However, nothing, I repeat, nothing has had the impact and staying power of the column I wrote about moving to Mississippi. I was slaying myself with the tongue-in-cheek delivery, assured that my references to bugs, humidity, and snakes, as well as stating I hadn’t told my family or boss about this imminent “move,” would make it plenty clear I was just kidding.

It turns out my humor was way more subtle than I realized. Within minutes of the newspaper landing in inboxes or mailboxes, the texts started pouring in.  “Is it true? Are you really moving to Mississippi?” Then my husband and boys began texting and calling. “What the hell did you write in your column?” The firestorm just increased in velocity and scope when Ashleigh posted it on the Press’s Facebook page with the clickbait title, “Moving to Mississippi!”  There may not have been an exclamation point, but it was well and truly out there now.

The furor was such that I wrote another column the same week explaining that we were most definitely not moving to Mississippi, and I was sorry for the misunderstanding.

That column was not read by much of anyone.  I know this because since the column was published in February of 2020, not a month goes by that someone does not randomly ask Mike or me about our new home in the South. They are genuinely confused when they see one of us at Home Depot. “Wait, didn’t you move to Louisiana or something?” I kid you not.  Pretty much every month, even nearly two years later.

It’s so far-reaching that I received a Christmas card from a family friend in Illinois.  She said her son was going through Sheridan this past summer and looked us up.  However, he read that we had moved down South.  Was this true?  Thank you, Google keyword search.

All of this to say that the reason behind our alleged move was my infatuation with the HGTV series, Hometown. Imagine my surprise and excitement when Vanessa Buyok, local column reader and series fan, alerted me about Hometown Kickstart coming to Buffalo, Wyoming! Right next door!  Kickstart is a new show with my fave hosts, Erin and Ben, and they’re coming to “refresh the home of a local hero, give a small business an upgrade, and invigorate a public space that will forever change the lives of everyone in the town.” I got that straight from the HGTV website.

This seems like fate!  Almost as if I’ve manifested Ben and Erin to my part of the country, avoiding the snakes, bugs, humidity, and actual moving.  As a superfan, I’m considering the best way to introduce myself when they arrive.  An invitation to my home for beer and design consultation? Too forward?  I’m open to suggestions.  If I’m still experiencing the blowback of threatening to move to their hometown, surely, I should reap the benefits of them coming near mine. What are the chances?