Not long after I moved from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, I met this beautiful blonde woman named Melissa at church. We started chatting, and eventually she mentioned that she ran her own blog. “Oh yeah?” I said, “What’s your blog called?”

“320 Sycamore,” she told me.

Friends, it was like realizing that Julia Roberts had been sitting in the next pew.

Long before I knew that Blacksburg, Virginia, existed, 320 Sycamore had filled my feedreader. That I’d ended...