Welcome!  In this first post I’ll do a little explaining about what I’m blogging here for, then we’ll get right into it…

What is a placeblog?  There is an excellent FAQ here.  I was first introduced to the idea when reading (and then reading about) William Gibson’s Spook Country.  Looking back, it’s a pretty tenuous connection between the book and placeblogs, but it was one of those situations where a click leads to another and another and eventually you find yourself in brand territory.  Placeblogs make instinctive and immediate sense to me, though.  Despite the popular opinion – at least in some circles – that the internet is a force for disconnection and divisiveness, I think that quite the opposite is true.  I’ve met people online who live a mile from me who I never would have met otherwise.  Of course, by the same token, I’ve also met people thousands of miles away who have affected my life in big and small ways. This site is for me, but it’s also for them.  For you.  People in my neighborhood who love this place like I do, and for people “from away” who might like to get to know it better.

This placeblog will cover the greater Portland, Maine area.  There are other blogs doing this – most notably and, for me, most enjoyably at Westbrook Diarist and Portland Psst! -  and some refer to themselves as placeblogs, while some just are, without the title.  I’ll eventually get a proper blogroll together to identify the ones I think you might like.  But while there is more than one blogger covering our home, the blogs will all be as different as we are (see the above links for a pretty powerful example of what I mean).  I’m not a journalist or a professional photographer, although those areas will surely be represented.  I’m just someone who found this place and loves it, and who can’t keep her fingers off the keyboard.  I have another blog (covering more immediately personal ground), a home, two young children, 9 credits, and a checkbook that never seems to be in balance, so this won’t be a daily blog – I’m shooting for once a week.  If you find time to come back, I will, too.  I hope you enjoy.