It’s always such a nice surprise to peek at the blog stats page and find that a visitor from some unexpected place has stopped by. Today that place is Zambia. Now I’m fully aware that it doesn’t mean that some wonderful person from Zambia has actually read this blog, it might be that someone with an IP address from there is phishing, but I like to imagine otherwise. I know that real people in many parts of the world have actually read my words, and I find that remarkable.

The world has definitely shrunk since I was a kid. I remember having a pen pal in elementary school, and we would write about once a month. I lived in the Northeast U.S. and she lived in Puerto Rico. It seemed so far away, and so exotic. The thing that struck me, though, was how similar our lives were. We both wrote about school and family and friends. I imagine most of our readers in “exotic” locales have the same interests and concerns as the rest of us.

Right now one of those concerns is trying to follow my nutritionist’s advice. Yes, I’m at it again. Now the focus is on lean protein and healthy fats, with many vegetables and few carbs. So far, so good, but it’s only been a couple of days. Still, I feel like I’m hitting a reset button somewhere inside my body, so I’m not craving as much garbage food. I wonder if people in Zambia have food addictions? Do they have Hot Tamales candy? Probably not, but I’m sure there are other things they deal with.