I need to get back to writing. For the most part this blog has consisted of Cannonball Read reviews, weekly lists of articles guaranteed to depress the heck out of folks, and the occasional rant about losing my hard drive (update to that: I paid a bazillion dollars and everything was recovered!). But I love to write, and I love policy and social justice, so instead of ranting into the wind, or in 140-character bites on Twitter, I think it’s time to get back to the blog.

Before I take an in-depth look at something horrible (the Republican primary contenders? police violence? racism? people who insist on incorrectly pronouncing ‘.gif’? SO MANY OPTIONS) I thought I’d share what’s been distracting me lately.

This fall has been challenging; there was a two week stretch there that was downright brutal. We put in an offer on a house (and lost), I went through three rounds of interviews only to come in second to a job I’ve wanted since college, and it all culminated in the Aurora bridge bus collision.

But things are looking up. I’ve got a plan to start looking for other work, and to also kick up my writing. I’m in my second round of edits to my book, and hope to start pitching it soon. And there is promising news on the house hunt front.

So, long way of saying: watch this space for more than book reviews and weekly wrap-ups.

This weekend I went back and deleted everything I’ve ever posted onto Facebook, with the exception of a handful of pictures, save the most recent round of birthday well-wishes. I hid every status update Facebook wouldn’t let me delete, un-tagged myself in a bunch of photos (I really wish there were an option for un-tagging that didn’t make it seem like the person who tagged me did something wrong. Why isn’t “I’d rather not be tagged in pictures” a choice?), hid my various page likes from my timeline, deleted all my comments on other posts (so sorry if you go back and it looks like you’re having a conversation with yourself). Basically, according to my Facebook page, I was born 35 years ago, and nothing has happened since.

I did this because I think I’ve been using Facebook as a way to share information with people who might not really be interested in seeing it. I can see the usefulness in posting a major life event for a couple of days (‘we’re getting married!’ ‘I’m starting a new job’ ‘we’re moving!’), but I’m hoping that if friends are interested in seeing my thoughts on a political issue or pop culture, they’ll follow me on twitter, or visit my blog. I feel as though I have more control of those than I do over Facebook.

So why not close my account? Well, because I do want to know what’s going on in the lives of folks who I don’t see regularly. Also, it remains one of the easiest ways to invite folks to an event, and I know other folks use it for that (so not being on Facebook could mean missing out on the occasional event). So I’ll still RSVP and even post the occasional event. But future birthday wishes are coming via email or text, and anything interesting you post on my timeline will get responded to in a message, not on my wall.

For now.

After finishing the Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up, I decided to actually try it out, and Austin agreed to join me. I started with my clothes, as suggested, and between the two of us we worked out way through the house, area by area. Electronics, books, photo albums. Kitchen stuff. All that is left is a drawer and nook in the office that Austin needs to look through, and a tub of holiday decorations.

We probably could have sold many of the clothes and books we decided we didn’t need anymore, but we donated everything instead. Someone else will enjoy these things, and hopefully the money will help some folks who need it more than we do.

Our house is lighter now. Our bookshelves don’t have as many items, and our closets aren’t stuffed full. There’s something pretty cool to know that everything in our house either brings us joy or serves a real purpose.

Some items were hard to part with. Clothing that I purchased when I was fitter than now was especially challenging, as part of me feels like I’m accepting that I might not get that fit again. But there’s no point in taking up space in my closet – or my brain – with items that I don’t love and don’t need. Same with some books. I can appreciate the idea of holding onto items that I want to read, or projects I want to start, because I like the idea of them.

At the same time I think part of growing a bit wiser is recognizing the difference between an aspiration that I want to do for me and an aspiration that I want to want to do, if that makes any sense. I have limited time when I’m not at work or sleeping, and I want to choose to do things that are meaningful to me. It might seem odd, but this really helped.

If you read my post from this weekend you know that I expressed concern about the fact that the only information available on my Navient page is about my current loan, not my loan that I paid off last year. Mostly I was concerned that I might have missed out on important tax documents. From what I could tell, it appeared to be both a function of the loan being paid off and a function of it being a Department of Education (as opposed to Federal) loan.

A little before 9:30 this morning my phone rang, and the number that showed was Sallie Mae Client Services. I have that number in my phone because of a situation in 2011 where Sallie Mae double-debited my large monthly payment after switching bank accounts and raised enough of a stink that someone from their office called me. Now that Navient is managing things, they must have transferred the number to them.

Anyway, I answered the call and it turns out that the woman calling had read my blog post. Coming on the heels of my post last week about social media and the public nature of it, this did weird me out a bit. I realize that my real name is on Twitter, but I think I would have preferred the method other customer service reps have followed before: send me a DM asking if they could email me for more information.

The woman I spoke with was very polite and said that I was emailed something on January 9th that said I’d be getting my tax document for interest under a certain amount soon, and another email telling me I’d be getting my tax document for interest over that amount after that. I’m not sure why the complicated process, but either way I don’t have a record of those emails. However, in looking for that email I did find a different email from a week or so ago that has a link to my Department of Education Loan tax document. Because the subject line was identical to the one for my Federal Loan I deleted it. That’s definitely my oversight.

However, the woman I spoke with also said that I should have been able to access information about my Department of Education from my log-in page regardless. I gave her permission to view my account page, and when she got in she navigated a bit and then put me on hold. After coming back she asked if she could put me on hold again, as she thought this might be an issue she’d heard them talking about with respect to these DoE loans. I had to get to a meeting and so could not hold, but I was able to share with her that regardless of the system, people should be able to access paid loan information from the site and not have to find old emails to access a link that is specific to my account. My log in to their main site should be sufficient.

I think that message got through; we’ll see. But in the mean time I do appreciate that they took my comments seriously.

We’re starting the process of gathering up our tax documents for 2014. Both Austin and I paid off the vast majority of our student loans in 2014 (I still have a tiny one from NYU); it was an exciting fall. We both also just got our “your tax docs are ready” email from Navient this week, so we signed into our accounts to check one item off the list.

Austin’s was fine and as expected. Mine, however, was surprisingly low. Given the giant interest rate on my LSE loan (why hello, 8.25%, how are you), you can imagine my surprise when my Navient 1098-E showed I’d paid less than a Seahawks ticket’s worth of interest in 2014.

I clicked on every link on Navient’s website, trying to find the paid off loan graveyard, or a link to Department of Education Loans (my LSE one was a DoE loan; my NYU one is not). I even tried going back to Sallie Mae but they wouldn’t even let me sign in. Yikes.

Luckily, I still had my “Congratulations!” email from November, announcing the loan was paid off. From a link in there I was able to access my DoE loans documents page, which had a link for a 1098-E form. Which showed nearly a month’s rent worth of interest paid.

Now, we probably aren’t going to be able to deduct any of this. However, if I hadn’t remembered that my loans were two different types, and if I hadn’t gone in search of that email, I have no idea how I could have found this pretty important tax document. And because people sometimes do searches (I know a couple people have found my blog searching for Navient issues), I thought I’d share what worked for me.

Ugh. So needlessly complicated.

Alright. I’m 35, and I’ve decided that it will be awesome. It certainly started out that way. Last night I was greeted with macarons and some adorable tiny spoons. Today I took most of the day off of work and did a bunch of stuff I wanted to do. It was just lovely.

I also received some amazingly thoughtful gifts, especially ones from Austin. Items that I already adore, and that show me that he really knows me well. I mean, some are gimmes (cupcake wrapping paper? Obviously. Emergency cupcake? Even better.) But some – like finding a book of maps and statistics about London – are just beyond my comprehension of awesomeness. I’m a lucky woman.

I’ve said before that I do New Year Resolutions, but I tie them to my birthday. That way I have a couple of weeks to get a feel for the new year, what I want to do, and not be faced with anything drastic (like, say, cutting out all sweets unless it’s a special occasion, which starts tomorrow! Hooray!) during my birthday. I think there are a couple of big things I’m going to focus on between now and January 14, 2016 – finding more joy and being less anxious about what others think of me.

I’m betting the joy part is what will be more challenging. I think I’ve already got a healthy amount of it in my life, but I want to celebrate more things. I want to hang stupid paper hearts up around Valentine’s Day, and bake a cake when someone finishes a big project at work or pays off their student loans. I think it’s super easy to get caught up in the mundane to-do lists; hopefully this year I can get caught up in the awesome little things.

The other part might be surprising to some people, because outwardly I probably seem like I’m very willing to speak my mind on things. And it’s true, I am. But only when I feel really comfortable that I’m not going to ruffle the feathers of the people with whom I’m speaking. Other times I hold back, even though I know that what I want to say is what I believe in.

An example from the past week is the horrible shit that went down in Paris. I have complicated feelings about it (and I’m not going to get into now because it’s 10:30 p.m. and I’m still floating on the last strains of the Veronica Mars theme song after finishing the movie), but I’ve not felt comfortable sharing them here because I have this voice in the back of my head saying “what will people think?”

And the thing is, I do care what people think, and to a degree I think it’s disrespectful to not care about it. I loathe people who try to pass off being an asshole for just ‘not caring what other people think.’ I’m talking about feeling more comfortable about discussing things on this blog, or with friends, that might not fit what others are suggesting is the way to go, and that may not even be fully formed arguments. Sometimes I’ll be shown I’m wrong, and sometimes I won’t be. But I’ll be true to myself, and I feel that now is as good of a time as any for that.

So, here’s to being 35. I’ve got about 364 more days to figure it out.

This year was kind of weird. Personally and professionally it was pretty fantastic, but the world around seemed to be going further and further down this depressing hole (see: each of my “What I’m Reading” posts). But within all of those horrible events I saw some amazing people doing amazing things, fighting for their rights and demanding that those who have chosen to look away for so long pay attention.

This year I:
• Traveled to Santa Barbara (twice), Portland, Tampa, Atlanta (work), Philadelphia (work), Alaska, Hawaii, New Orleans, Vancouver (work), Denver (work) and the Bay Area.
• Presented at four national conferences, including one in Canada.
• Was part of a team that helped prepare our county to respond to Ebola, while still managing to do all of our regular work.
• With the help of Austin (obviously) kept our kittens alive for another year. They continue to be adorable, snuggly little jerks.
• Got my act together exercise wise, and managed to end the year down a pants size or two.
• Read and reviewed 58 books for Cannonball Read. I’m hoping to do the double Cannonball in 2015.
• Paid off our student loans (again, Austin was a big factor in this one)
• With the help of many of you, conducted interviews, did research, and wrote the first draft of “How Not to be an Asshole When Your Friends Have Kids.”
• Almost made it all the way through Veronica Mars (just a few episodes left). Thanks to Austin for finally getting me to watch it – it’s SO GOOD.

Next year we’re going to Portland, to London and Paris to see friends, to Canada for the women’s World Cup, and (hopefully) to Napa to help friends celebrate their birthdays. I plan to make more headway with my book, Austin and I will dive back into learning French and Spanish, and the kittens will somehow learn to vacuum their own hair and clean their own litter box.

I know that friends and family faced challenges, sadness and even tragedy in 2014; some can’t wait to kick this year to curb. However 2014 treated you, I hope that 2015 is your best year yet.

Cheers and see you on the other side.

This experiment with the blog post a day has been fun and interesting. Not all posts have been winners – and I’m pretty sure my last one is just going to be some Halloween costume pictures. But it’s forced me to work on my writing, to be creative, and to form and articulate my opinion on things more regularly that the occasional random (and usually irate) posting.

I’m not going to stick with it, though, because November is also NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month). While I’m not trying to write a novel, I am writing a book, and I’m going to focus my writing on that during November. But I’m sure I’ll be back on here for the occasional book review, weekly wrap-up, and angry tirade.