Hey gang! It's our last day in London until Sunday (and onto Paris tomorrow!). Thank goodness for Rooth at a miusmie for keeping things going around here. A lot of you already know her. What I know is that I cal always count on her blog for gorgeous houses, quirky comments and great reading suggestions.

I’ll admit, I started blogging for purely selfish reasons. It was the perfect open, uncurated forum for sharing all the utterly useless yet wonderful things that I found on the interwebs. In the beginning, I started out writing and talking only to myself in what felt like an empty auditorium. However rather quickly (although at the time, it felt like flipping forever), I was embraced by the many arms of the blogging community and my real foray into the blogosphere began.

When you join the blogosphere, the world unfolds rather elegantly at your fingertips. Suddenly, you get to know people from all over the world in all different circumstances. Bloggers who live in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East. Bloggers with different religious beliefs, familial structures and career paths. People who you wouldn’t have been able to meet in your neighborhood, school, job or community are now people that you tweet, email and chat with on a daily basis. You call them your friends - your special friends who only know you through the words you type and occasional pictures you post. (If you’re lucky, you get to meet them in real life. It’s kind of meeting a celebrity - no joke.)

And did I forget, you get to read what they write. The best part. Through their stories and experiences, I have vicariously lived a multitude of different lifetimes. Through them, I’ve experienced success and failure, new life and death, those momentous and miniscule life changes.

You know how the old saying goes: Before you criticize people, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes. Although I haven’t partook in the criticizing part, I have now collected thousands of pairs of shoes. And who doesn’t want that?

Honestly, I don’t have to tell you this. I understand that I’m preaching to the choir by being given the honor of guest posting on Lauren’s lovely blog while she’s off jetsetting in Europe. You, dear reader, get it. But I do want to say to all of you bloggers and to Lauren - Thank you. Thank you, truly, for all the shoes.