Today marks my one year anniversary of this blog.

In the first month when I started this blog and I had 42 readers, my brother, of title, (I shall no longer say his title)  was having as much fun with it as I was. It was my first foray into a public life here in the United States and the plan was to eventually come all the way out of the closet so I could be as affective a change-leader here as I am in the UK.

In those early days I had a couple of people come forward and say I was a “scam”, but it mattered little because it was also in those first 30 days that rumblings of a movie about my life were coming forward and we realised that this could be a wonderful platform to truly accomplish our vision of helping others.

You see, whilst most people in the world are killing themselves to make more money so that they can have a better lifestyle, we have a dream of building the “biggest brand in the world to raise the most money for noble causes”.  We truly do want to make millions of dollars for UNICEF so that not one child should ever die from a lack of nutrition or water. These are the basics of life that you and I take for granted, but until you’ve traveled to Africa and seen children in their mother’s arms starving, literally, to death, you may not be able to get this. Just let me say, thank God it’s not you and your child. Can you even fathom such a thing?, yet it is happening in the world outside of America.

We had visions of changing the world and changing the way the world does business and we thought the movie would get our message of living with purpose out to more people than a blog would, so we were “yay” for the movie from the very start.

Then, almost overnight, I gained a new, Jill Zarin-coined title…”hate blogger”.  In those early days we realised that a lot of people simply had forgotten some of the basic courtesies we must extend to each other and perhaps the world could do with a little more civility.  We reasoned, why not continue writing this blog and share my perspective on things as the avenue to share?  Perhaps I could use the platform to share important snippets that would gently ease the drama queens of tv into a more polite frame of being.

Blogging became my platform and, in looking back over the past 12 months, we’ve done a lot together.

I have heard that a big part of the reason viewers watch Rosie Pope is that she, too, is a noble and through watching her they have learned a lot about how to raise children properly and what real noblemen are like.

Fortunately, for all of us, our readers are an educated group of people, in fact, some of the most educated on the web.  Nearly all of my readers are either women, or men who love to talk smack like we women do, like Bravo Andy.

And some of my readers offer their educated opinions that we are then invited to comment upon.  It is a community of readers and friends I am most proud to know and it is my greatest hope that each one of us have the opportunity to meet in real life.  Of one thing we know for sure, I am no Bethenny Frankel with thousands of women who consider her their personal friend, but I hope you consider me yours.

Mostly on this website we did this…

we talked, we laughed and, sometimes we even spilled our coffee on the keyboard.  It’s the stuff that friends do.

I talked about how the Countess is so condescending that no one of any decent upbringing or living with title would ever speak to someone the way she did, but that she wasn’t raised with title. People of title learn from an early age that being humble is the most important trait we must have.

I spoke of how Jill Zarin’s back-stabbing is never appropriate and what a friend should have done in such a circumstance.

I called nearly all the Real Housewives product-whores and fame-whores.

I called some drama queens.

I called others drag queens.

I even gave this one the official “Queen of Mean” title.

I even talked about the pussies of the world (yes, I really just said that)

I talked about my online friends.

I’ve talked about those who have transitioned into a lovely emotional space.

And I talked about people’s karmic debts being paid by their falls from grace.

I wrote of the 10 things every home of culture must have and how one should name their house, whether it be a hovel or a 9,000 square foot estate property.  (my best friend, Gail, from college immediately named her first home “The Hovel”). 

I shared personal spaces with you that nobody would ever see.

I wrote how the Alexis Bellino attack in Costa Rica was disrespectful beyond belief and that it was handled completely inappropriately from a civilised point of view.

And I wrote about my upbringing, my life-long relationship with horses, my love of polo, my luxury brand and my children.  Though I tried to refrain, I even occasionally talked smack about my husband (he’s okay, really).

I talked about the women I admired and why and I talked about women making well-thought-out and reasoned decisions.

I talked about our witty friends and how much we miss them.

And our trusted friends and how fame has not changed the core of their being.

I wrote about the role of Royals in a difficult world and what a truly noble and honourable job it is. I tried to impart through my personal stories that we wear a heavy cloak.

Often, I wove into my stories the most important role any of us will ever play in our lives, the role of mother to our daughters.  It is a relationship to which we have the highest duty to love, nourish, teach, share, laugh with and protect.

I wrote parodies that even I laugh at when I read them.

I remember sharing with you that our youngest daughter’s only life dream was to grow up like a normal kid in a normal house in a normal neighborhood (not a very lofty life goal).  She wanted to live like a normal kid, walk to a normal school and live in a normal neighborhood, so after we gained clarity from her by driving around normal neighborhoods, she found the school and she found the house.  There is so much more to her story because sometimes, when we have too much freedom, like living in a normal neighborhood without having to walk a mile to get outside the gate, we do very naughty things…and she has.  It’s been both fun and terrifying to watch her deal with the most basic of these freedoms…like sneaking out of a bedroom window at night.  It, too, reminds me of my oldest daughter who, once graduated from high school, didn’t really know how to dress outside of a uniform, or my oldest son, a recent PhD living in Singapore, who is just now learning that having an income of $12,000 there renders him near the poverty line and the struggles he is having living within his means.  These are the stories I love to share with you and I assumed you liked to read.

Interesting to me is that the very reason people ever came to my site was because of my story, but at the end of the day it seems to be what bothered people the most.  In the twitter war last night, aside from hearing that I was “shoddy”, my title was a “gimmick” and a myriad of other things, I can only say that it is my very background that has allowed me to share my stories and opinions with you. I even heard “umph, so you’re just a shoddy opinion blogger?”.  Ummm “yes”.  Isn’t that what we’ve been doing in this blog?…talking about bad behaviours, or good, civility and alternative suggestions? So whatever uneducated fool it was that wrote that tweet is an illiterate idiot.

From where I stand and what I see, it seems that what really happened is in my attempt to get real with people, to share my personal story and my life with you, was the very thing people most wanted to critisise.  You want to read the stories from my perspective, but then call my perspective into question.  I compare it to people who love and want the things that money can buy, yet refuse to work hard to achieve them.  You want my stories, yet you don’t want the history that made it possible for me to share them with you.

Therefore, I am hesitant to share my personal stories with you in this format. I’ll be blogging because there’s so much more to write about Jill Zarin and the new upcoming seasons, but there will be no more sharing of family stories.  Like the product whores above, you’ll have to pay to go see the movie or buy the book.

Since I’m actually not a product whore it doesn’t feel good to me, but it seems appropriate, for people never seem to appreciate what they can get for free, or as my mum used to say “why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?”

Which leaves me wondering…does that make me the cow’s milk or the cow? I’m so confused.

Your friend,