I have a new blogger crush and her name is Ree Drummond, more popularly known as The Pioneer Woman. I have heard, on many separate occasions, about The Pioneer Woman and how she was a woman who lived on a cattle ranch and blogged about it. I didn’t pay close enough attention because I immediately felt that I would never be able to relate to someone who lives on a ranch. I am more of a water and ocean kind of girl, not a land and animal one. The blogs I tend to read are people whose lives resemble my own, not those who live in worlds I can barely imagine inhabiting.

All I can say is that I was blind and now I can SEE! Reading Ree’s blog is like taking a trip to a place you never expected to go and realizing how when you get down to brass tacks (isn’t that a very cowboy-ish thing to say? See! I’m changed already!), we are all more similar than we originally believed. Reading her blog and looking at her stunning pictures is inspiring and uplifting. It gives me a whole new perspective on life, on our experiences (both shared and uniquely our own) and on the overall objective when it comes to blogging. The Pioneer Woman represents what a great blog should be, a reflection on our own corners of the world, the place we inhabit and why it is special, unique, inspiring, funny, sad, real, honest and true. She is also a woman who doesn’t claim to be an expert at anything (writing, food, photography) but follows her passions and learns as she goes. A woman who started to cook to feed her family has now written a cookbook. A woman who started journaling her life as a way to show people what life on the ranch can be like now has a memoir coming out. A woman who took pictures for fun now has thousands of gorgeous images and is teaching other people how to capture their own lives. A woman who started off with one reader and a teeny tiny space on the internet is now one of the top bloggers with hundreds of thousands of visitors to her site daily. Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, is one cool chick. …and I’m kind of in love with her boots!  I might need to get myself a pair of these.