It was with a great deal of excitement and pride that we launched the Five More Minutes With website last year on March 26, and it has been an exciting and ultimately gratifying ride ever since.

During our first year in operation, we’ve published more than 60 Featured Stories, I’ve written 65 Editor’s Notes, and we have more than 150 individual pieces of content on the site. I was too lazy to count the number of photos I’ve posted; suffice to say several hundred sunrises, sunsets, floral arrangement, and cloud formations have graced Five More Minutes With pages.

We’ve welcomed guest columnist John Paul Carter and printed part of a memoir by Seattle writer Teri Citterman.

Mom remains the most popular category so far; dog stories outpace cat stories by almost two to one; the same with grandmothers versus grandfathers. We even received a story about an errant wild alligator!

We’ve held contests honoring mothers, fathers, lost loves, and the winter holidays. And created special sections of the FMMW website that feature radio interviews and film. There’s even a mobile version of FMMW for your smartphone!

We are well on our way to our ultimate goal: to publish a book in whatever form it may take (print or digital), so please say tuned and please continue to share your stories with us.

And a special thanks to each and every contributor! Whether you gifted me with a story, a comment, a testimonial, or just by reading this website’s edgy, “out there” content, we thank you and applaud you.

Goals during our second year of operation? To keep spreading the good word through personal referrals, reaching out over the Internet to sites and individuals with similar mindsets and goals, and even more presence and involvement with the social media on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.