Today, I decided it was time for my bi-annual swapping party, wherein I move everything from one bag to the other and assess its potential usefulness for the next six-month period, and I thought it might be fun to do a "what's in my bag" post.

Clockwise-ish from top left:

A buhmillion bobby pins. I've been growing out a pixie cut for a year now, and I have reached the awful stage between chin-length and shoulder-length hair. It is just the right length to jump in my mouth when I'm leaning over a keyboard or a book, but it doesn't quite stay in a ponytail. Bobby pins to the rescue! (You buy them in jumbo packs because bobby pins disappear into thin air after 1-3 uses.)

Mini Moo cards. I have never ever had business cards, personal or professional, on hand at the right moment, even though I have a lovely collection of each. I now carry some in my purse, so I can hand them out to the zero people I meet up with during the week who don't already know me.

Jif-to-Go peanut butter. I bring a bagel to work every morning and eat it with peanut butter as my at-the-office breakfast with a side of coffee. Sometimes, I'm in too much of a hurry to grab these pre-packaged peanut butter cups from the pantry (yes, I realize how terrible that is), so I keep a spare one in my purse. I like to imagine that it could also come in handy as a method of distracting a vicious dog if need be.

Wristlet, debit card, driver's license, pocket knife, lip balm, lip gloss. I keep all of these items stored together in the wristlet (from NY&Co.) because I don't always want to haul around a giant purse, especially if I'm just walking to the nearby general store for a candy bar or some shampoo. Having a few essentials stashed in a separate bag makes it easy for me to dash out the door for a quick errand. The lip balm is Maybelline Baby Lips in Pink Punch, and I have no idea what the lip gloss is. (It is completely unlabeled and was a gift.)

Kate Spade tote. I love nearly everything that Kate Spade makes, especially her stationery and handbags. If I had the money, I'd get one or two more Kate Spade purses and rotate them out every few months, but until then, I will just bookmark this handsome thing for later and hope to find it on sale for $80 later in life.

Canon PowerShot 300 HS camera. I take a lot of pictures with my iPhone 4S these days, but I still like having a camera/camcorder with me at all times. This particular model is popular among YouTubers and makes a great little vlogging camera, so I have it loaded with a 16GB SD card just in case I bump into Elijah Wood and need to record every awkward second of the encounter.

Hair clip. My hair doesn't really stay in that yet, so I guess it's in my bag just to taunt me.

Top Trumps: Doctor Who. Ian introduced me to Top Trumps a long time ago and was immediately sorry; I kicked his butt every time we played. Even though we broke up a few months ago, I keep the game in my purse because it is a really fun, casual card game to pull out when you're waiting for food to arrive at a restaurant or for your flight to begin boarding at the airport or whatever. Plus, Doctor Who!

Advil (ibuprofen). I started stashing a bottle of Advil in my purse a few years ago for headaches and lady pains. Since then, I've discovered that guys just expect gals to carry this stuff in their purse for any time they get a boo-boo. Well, lucky for you, man-children of the world. I am totally that kind of girl.

Go-Go Squeez applesauce in Apple-Apple. This is the perfect snack! No need for a spoon or really even for your hands. I nearly died of hunger on a train once, but then I remembered the applesauce in my purse and survived to tell this cool story, bro.

Frango mints, milk chocolate. I self-medicate with three things: Lord of the Rings, chocolate, and pizza. I have The Fellowship of the Ring on my phone at all times, and pizza is only a phone call away. Frango mints are among my favorite chocolates on the planet, so I keep an emergency stash in my purse for really bad days. This little box holds four Frangos, and I refill it from a one-pound box I hide at home. Brilliant, I know.

Knit sleeve for coffee cups. This came as a surprise gift from @bethanyactually when she shipped my tiger mug many moons ago. Slipping this thing over a hot or cold beverage from Caribou Coffee brightens my day so much. Plus, it saves me from using a cardboard thing, making it cute and environmentally friendly.

Minimergency kit. When I saw this at the Container Store two or three years ago, I thought, "Oh, that would be a great gift!" So I bought one for myself. The kit contains a teeny tiny bottle of hairspray, clear nail polish, an emery board, floss, a sewing kit, bandages, a safety pin, hair ties, and much more. (Read the full list and/or buy one here.) It really does come in handy in a pinch, and it has even impressed a number of my coworkers. This is no small feat, since a lot of them are mothers and have way more life experience than I do and generally have a solution to every conceivable problem within arm's reach. All in all, really glad I bought this for me and not for you.

Wallet. This NY&Co. wallet has just the right number of pockets and slots for store loyalty cards and imaginary cash. Plus, it's pink. (My favorite color is actually purple, but my favorite accent color is pink. Yes, there will be a quiz later.)

Earbuds and decorative bag. This combo solves two problems for me: 1) it is way too easy to lose small items in a large purse and 2) earbuds are the devil's string. The decorate bag came free with another Etsy purchase, so I was thrilled to find a good use for it. The bag is easy to find in my purse, and keeping my earbuds separated from everything else makes it 20% less difficult to untangle them in a hurry (like when a chatty group forms outside my office to discuss the merits of kale for the third time in a week).

Dior Addict Lip Glow. This Dior product is best described as a balm that lightly enhances your natural lip color. It's a nice and easy way to freshen up my face. I don't even use a mirror to apply it, so I keep it in one of those "your phone is obviously supposed to go here" pockets for fast access while at a red light or while I'm running up the stairs to get to my office in the morning.

Fisher Titanium Bullet Space Pen. If you're only going to keep one pen with you at all times, this is the one. It is compact when closed, but the cap attaches to the body of the pen to form a full-sized writing utensil. It writes well at any angle, even upside-down, and even on damp paper. Also, it's adorable.

Compact mirror and brush. I picked this up ages ago at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It opens up to a mirror on one half and a small hair brush on the other, which is obviously nice to have for on-the-go situations. I rarely use it because I am very lazy about fixing up my appearance after I leave the house in the morning, but that's another story entirely. If I want to look pulled together all the time, I have the tools to make it happen.

* * * * *

There you have it. I carry quite a bit of stuff with me, and I can give you a reasonable excuse for every item. Impressed yet? Terrified? I'm dying to know what you take with you in your pockets or briefcase or purse or oversized hat. Tell me in the comments or put a link to your own post!

There are two squirrels living in the box elder tree in our backyard—Bob and Janice. They have returned to their home after a winter of hibernation only to find that the neighborhood has gone to hell in a hand basket. (Most notably, there is a plastic grocery bag waving from one of the tree branches nearby, which is not a symbol of classiness, even among squirrels.) Janice is very cross with Bob about all of this, and the first time I saw her, she was on the far end of one branch tapping her foot angrily at Bob, who was at the opposite side of the tree waving his front paws about in a gesture of helplessness.

"BOB." [tap tap tap tap] "Bob, this neighborhood is not what it used to be. I can't be seen here, Bob. BOB, what are you going to do about this?"

"I'm sorry, honey. The housing market isn't what it used to be. The Hendersons' tree was bulldozed just last year, and now look at them. We should be grateful to have a home, dear."

"I don't care, Bob. I want to move. Sally Skinnytail said her husband said that now is the time to invest, and I think he's right." [tap tap tap tap]

"The only available real estate nearby is that new sapling under construction, and it won't have room for a growing family like ours. The rent on a place like that is going to be way out of our price range anyway. You know we have to be careful with our budget after the winter."

[tap tap tap tap] "Whatever, Bob. I'm going next door to see what Sally plans to do about getting out of this wretched wasteland. Make yourself useful and find us some dinner, Bob. I don't care what it takes."

And then Janice scampered off across the fence, and Bob worked for ten whole minutes to get past all the squirrel guards to steal dinner for himself and his wife. Later in the week, he suggested they seek marital counseling, and Janice chased him around the base of the tree in a blind rage, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Basically, I ran out of things to watch on Netflix.

I can't remember what I ate for lunch two days ago, but I distinctly remember the hot pink fountain pen I got for my 10th birthday. I still have and will forever cherish the beautiful, weighty silver ballpoint pen my dad bought home from a business trip when I was 13. To this day, I hold a grudge against the classmate who broke my Sensa Cloud 9 after history class during my sophomore year of high school.

For a long time, my dad was the only person I knew who enjoyed pens—and notebooks and planners and file folders—as much as I do. We bonded in the pen aisle of the local office supply store as easily as we bonded on the baseball field or watching favorite cartoons. Shortly after I started blogging, though, I started making friends online. And one of the best parts about the Internet is that it makes it so easy to connect with people who share your interests and passions and who don't think you're at all crazy for having more pen cups than beverage cups in your home

Fast forward to September 2011 when I got a follow and a tweet from @EuroPaper.

@rachelskirts Thx for the follow! We're huge @lotr fans too & just finished the extended versions for the 4th time #weneedtogetbacktowork :)

— EuroPaper (@EuroPaper) September 12, 2011

@europaper: HA! And here I followed you because I love paper products. Match made in heaven. ;)

— Rachelskirts (@Rachelskirts) September 12, 2011

@rachelskirts Too true! We just launched last week; so exciting!! & yes, we tend to abuse the privilege of exclamation pts (!!)

— EuroPaper (@EuroPaper) September 12, 2011

It was the start of a beautiful romance. I started buying products from their site. They featured a link to my site on the sidebar of their blog. I signed up for and won a free Moleskine planner in one of their first giveaways. They highlighted one of my blog posts in a link round-up.

Then they joined Instagram and posted a photo of some misplaced inventory with the caption, "Look what we just found! What should we do with these extra journals?" As a joke, I called dibs on the cat-themed journal. As a not joke, they sent it to me. It's like they have a step-by-step guide posted in the breakroom entitled "How to Win Rachel's Heart."

At that point, I was so enamoured with everything about European Paper Company (EPC) that I was singing their praises at every available opportunity. Eventually, my dad subscribed to their weekly newsletters and shortly thereafter became an insufferable know-it-all about their selection of notebooks. Of course, he insists on buying two of every kind, one for each of us to try, so I really can't complain.

He also entered a giveaway, one I didn't even know about, and was one of ten winners. When he submitted his mailing address to EPC to claim the prize, he mentioned that I was his daughter and joked that I would likely be jealous of his new notebook. So they sent me a notebook, too. (Also also, they wrote this charming comment and this charming tweet, both of which thoroughly warmed my cold, dead pirate heart.)

I cannot say enough nice things about the European Paper Company and the people who work there, but I do need to end this blog post eventually. To sum up: these people are doing everything right in my book. They are incredibly generous, not only with product giveaways but also in how they treat other people in the industry, fellow pen and paper enthusiasts online, and their customers. They have a genuine passion for the stuff they sell. They embrace everything related to social media and use it not just to promote their own products but also to form actual relationships. It's almost a bonus, then, that they sell quality products.

They have not sponsored this post in any way. I have been meaning to write up this love story for at least a year. I think it's important that they know how much I appreciate what they do, and I think it's equally important to document what a stellar business-consumer relationship looks like in the digital age. Thanks for being so cool, European Paper Company. I look forward to being a customer and gushing fan for a long time.

I have April 23rd highlighted on my calendar to remind myself of this weird milestone, and when I looked ahead a month ago, I thought about how much I had to say when I was 16 and first starting an "online journal." I treated it exactly like that and shared the sort of things an angsty teen would otherwise put in a paper diary. This essay is lame. I love calculus. Eeee! K sat next to me at lunch today! I talked about anything and everything and had no concept of censoring myself. It was sometimes boring, sometimes refreshing, and always a little bit insane. (Some day, I'll import all of those cringe-worthy posts to this blog, but they haven't quite finished simmering in their awkward glory.)

Meanwhile, more than a decade later, I'm a little less spontaneous in what I share. (To be fair, no one exciting ever sits next to me at lunch because I use my lunch break to hide in my office and check Twitter and Instagram.) Life is more complicated now, in spite of Avril's best efforts, and I haven't figured out how to deal with that when sharing personal stories in a public setting. Even if K did sit next to me at lunch tomorrow, would his sister's friend's aunt read about it on my blog and call me a slut for spending time with a married man? If I talked about the app I just launched at my church, would people find it in the app store and stalk me at work? Would it be nuts for me to talk about sock monkeys in one post and crippling grief in the next?

I don't actually have good answers for those questions, but I also don't want to let them keep me from trying to share things online. The more I started reminiscing about blogging and journaling during the past few weeks, the more I found myself recognizing certain thoughts and situations as "potential blog topics"—things I really need to talk about in exactly this kind of forum. I'm getting back in the habit of jotting down notes and drafting ideas. Just doing that for one afternoon unleashed a flood of ideas, a talking flood that smacked me in the face and said, "Whoa hey, maybe you should lay off the Netflix for a bit and address all these feelings and memories you've been hiding from."

So that's what I plan to do. I've started six new blog posts: one about grief, one about outrage, one about faith, one about European Paper Company, one about my dad and office supplies, and one about visiting my dad's office as a youngster. I don't expect anyone to nag me to finish them. I'm just sharing with you that I'm really looking forward to writing about those things. I'm also really looking forward to another eleven years of writing online, regardless of the pace or the topic or the audience. Blogging itself is such a cool opportunity, and I cherish the experiences I've had and the friends I've made because of it. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

There was a 20SB prompt a few weeks ago about the things we collect, and I immediately thought of my beloved sock monkeys. I never really intended to have a "collection" of them. One minute, I was standing in a Cracker Barrel and thinking that the sock monkey in my hand was the only thing I liked about that place; the next, I had a sock monkey tea set and sock monkey slippers and a family of five adorable sock monkeys smiling at me.

Pictured from left to right: Itty Bitty, Sugarplum the Violent, Cuppycake, Pierre, and Juan Pedro.

Juan Pedro was the first sock monkey I ever owned. As I said, I bought him at a Cracker Barrel and then asked the Internet to give him a name. He had too much personality for me, so I gave him his own Twitter account, Facebook account, and email address. (Some Central American TV celebrity whose name is Juan Pedro is really bummed that I got to the name first, but hey, I'm the queen of the Internet. Buzz off.)

Years later, my dad brought home Itty Bitty, who came with adoption papers and all of the cuteness in the world. Everyone wanted to know when she would get her own Twitter account and the like, but people, she's way too young for that. She and the others do work with Juan Pedro to manage all of my social media updates, though. I pay them in Scooby Snacks and hugs.

The third member of the team was Pierre, a gift from Cuddles for my birthday. His name was given to him by the fine folks at Pier 1 Imports, and it just sort of fits. (I saw him on a Pier 1 commercial months before my birthday and had been secretly hoping someone would send him my way. Thanks, Joey!)

Cuppycake showed up a few days later when I had my birthday party with my immediate family. I think my mom feels guilty about refusing to let me have a cat, so she's drowning her guilt—and me—in sock monkeys. I'm a little wary of Cuppycake, who has "Happy Birthday" written on her tummy in Comic Sans every day of the year. However, the other sock monkeys say she throws really great parties, so she stays. I guess she's the Pinkie Pie of the bunch.

Sugarplum the Violent was a stocking stuffer for Christmas, and she has a clip on the top of her head. She really isn't violent, but the other sock monkeys were afraid of the clip when they saw it, mistaking it for a weapon. I'm keeping it on her head in case the group needs to defend themselves against zombie Beanie Babies or whatever.

Anyway, that's my family of sock monkeys. If you'd like to meet them, I recommend hosting a tea party—real or virtual—and sending a formal invitation or five.

Short review: mostly good.

The book was a gift from one (two?) of my favorite friends, and I absolutely love Douglas Adams. That said, I really wanted to love every part of this book. For the most part, I suppose I did. The beginning was filled with tidbits about Douglas Adams' life and interests. It reminded me a bit of the beginning of Stephen King's On Writing. The end held a few wonderful short stories along with an unfinished draft of one of Adams' next projects. That part was nothing short of delightful. Something about his writing makes me glad to be alive. He was so clever and so funny and so full of surprising ways to say things. I couldn't bother stopping to jot down my favorite quotes, but I did take photographs on my phone and have transcribed and assembled the best bits below.

But before I get back to the happy part, I feel compelled to comment that the middle portion was a bit of a chore to get through. At times, it was even heartbreaking. Some pieces were entertaining enough, as they related to Douglas Adams' penchant for technology. He wrote about his first time using a hand-held computer in the bathtub and his hope that, one day, he could walk into his office with his portable computer and have the contents automatically appear on his desktop computer. (Hello, Dropbox!) Not as riveting for me as his fiction, but it was an interesting glance into the life of someone I very much respect.

(Actually, reading a few of the essays reminded me of a secret fear I have: that after I die, the horrible things I've started writing or even finished writing will be dug up from old shoeboxes and scraped out of old floppy disks and stolen from my personal computers and published internationally in some sort of postmortem shame festival/museum.)

I suppose if the middle portion had been just that, I would have muddled through it and appreciated the whole book without comment. But there was an awful lot about Adams' atheism in that bit, and it left me with the impression that Adams found all Christians to be idiots. Finding out that this guy whose work I very much admire would've found me to be absolutely moronic? Maybe it's silly, but it made me really sad. It'd be like telling me that Kate Chopin only befriended people who used Comic Sans or that Dave Brubeck hated anyone who used semicolons. It's one thing for a personal idol to believe the polar opposite of what you do; it's another to find out that idol would've disliked you because of it.

Maybe I got bent out of shape for nothing, but . . . too late. The middle portion of the book left a bad taste in my mouth, and it's really a tribute to Douglas Adams' writing that his unfinished snippet of a novel was so good that it redeemed the rest of the material in The Salmon of Doubt for me.

So without further ado, here are a few of my favorite quotes:

Jane, who is much better at reading guide books than I am (I always read them on the way back to see what I missed, and it's often quite a shock), discovered something wonderful in the book she was reading. Did I know, she asked, that Brisbane was originally founded as a penal colony for convicts who committed new offences after they had arrived in Australia?

I spent a good half hour enjoying that single piece of information. It was wonderful. There we British sat, poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seeped like a rancid dish cloth, busy sending those we wished to punish most severely to sit in bight sunlight on the coast of the Tasman Sea at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and maybe do some surfing too. No wonder the Australians have a particular kind of smile that they reserve exclusively for use on the British.

It does sort of make you wonder. Was there a criminal mastermind secretly behind this plan? Or are British people just crazy? Also, "[seeping] like a rancid dish cloth" is a brilliant way to describe a sky.

My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantelpiece, in order to prove it could be done.

That is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

I just retweeted that sloth fact within the last month. Great minds?

"Josh," said a voice in a kind of Swedish-Irish accent.

That is a delightfully impossible amount of accent to cram into one syllable.

He was immediately glad that he had decided to build in a brief period of mental preparation. Almost immediately number one, a large duvet of a woman, came around the corner . . .

I don't ever want to be fat, but if that's my destiny, please refer to me as a "large duvet of a woman."

Dirk had recently moved to this new office—new to him, that was; the actual building was old and dilapidated and remained standing more out of habit than from any inherent structural integrity . . .

I like the idea of buildings having habits.

The following morning the weather was so foul it hardly deserved the name, and Dirk decided to call it Stanley instead.

Stanley wasn't a good downpour. Nothing wrong with a good downpour for clearing the air. Stanley was the sort of thing you needed a good downpour to clear the air of. Stanley was muggy, close, and oppressive, like someone large and sweaty pressed up against you in a tube train. Stanley didn't rain, but every so often he dribbled on you.

Dirk stood outside in the Stanley.

See? Delightful. The writing is absolutely delightful. (No, you find another adjective.) That could have been a terribly boring and commonplace description of weather, but it is not. It is Stanley, and it is wonderful.

I wanted 2012 to be the year when I magically jumped from the life I have to the life of an independent, healthy, charming, and responsible adult. I also wanted my pixie cut to instantly turn into Rapunzel hair. Some sort of portal between here and England would've been nice, too.

Reality check: none of those things happened!

But looking back, I am so proud of myself for rolling with the punches. I don't have a very good track record of dealing with change or adversity. Bad grade on a test? Curl up with The Lord of the Rings movies for twelve hours instead of studying. Tough times at the office? Spend every evening playing World of Warcraft instead of figuring out how to make things better. Feeling bad about watching movies and playing video games instead of dealing with life? Read a book. Watch Doctor Who. Do laundry. Re-organize earrings to be sorted by size instead of color. Re-organize earrings to be sorted by color instead of size.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Basically, my coping mechanism is to ignore problems and hope they go away.

It works out super well .01% of the time, and admitting that has been the first step in stopping the madness. The next part seems to be surrounding myself with people and things that inspire me to keep my chin up, to get back on my feet, and so on. It's the whole "you are what you eat" philosophy except that I don't typically eat books, tweets, or friends. Still, I'm making changes for the better in all those areas, and I'm really excited about it.

Since one of the areas I'm focusing on first is my financial situation, I've started blogging for Dimespring. I'm part of a group of 30 people from all stages of life sharing tales or thoughts related to personal finance. Being part of that community has been an ongoing source of encouragement for me, and I invite you to check out what I've written (duh) but also what the other peeps are writing.

I'm also taking care of what I ingest via social media, unfollowing people left and right if they don't consistently bring me joy, inspiration, and/or really good belly laughs. Some very good friends haven't made the cut, but I hope they'll forgive me and let me keep in touch some other way. (Let's meet up for doughnuts! Cupcakes? Listen, if you don't want to share sugary delights with me, maybe we shouldn't be friends anyway.)

Surrounding myself with the good and keeping out the bad also applies to what I read (books, magazines, blog posts), what I listen to (podcasts, music), and kittens (cannot live without one). It feels good to fuel myself with awesomeness on a regular basis. I could probably bring about world peace or something if I put my mind to it.

So if 2012 was the year of learning not to back down or hide, 2013 is the year of putting up that shield and plowing forward through whatever crazy stuff lies ahead. And gosh dang it, I can't wait.

And maybe it is also the year my hair grows out twenty inches overnight. A GIRL CAN DREAM.

P.S. I should mention that I'm really quite happy. I just spent two weeks with my amazing boyfriend, my birthday celebrations have been wonderful, and I've gone three whole hours without scuffing up my nail polish.

(Also, I've seen what happens when a person gets categorized as a "computer geek," and I have zero interest in fixing your Internet connection while you eat my piece of rhubarb pie at Thanksgiving.)

That said, here are five little tech-related tips I use regularly to save time and minimize frustration:

1. Learn to love your basic text editor.

The first thing I do with any new Windows machine is put Notepad front and center—on the desktop, pinned to the task bar, pinned to the Start menu, etc. I open Notepad maybe twenty times an hour. I just started a Tumblr blog dedicated to my love of Notepad. (On a Mac, I either use TextEdit or one of the distraction-free text editors I talk about later.)

Need to jot down a quick note? It opens in the blink of an eye and doesn't have any distracting options to slow you down. Need to write some HTML or CSS? Boom. Free option that doesn't put you in a time-out when you refuse to close a div tag exactly when it wants you to close a div tag.

But my best and favorite use of Notepad: copying and pasting. If you've ever used Microsoft Publisher, you know that copying text from an email and pasting that into Publisher sometimes results in a text box catastrophe. Like every line of the email gets pasted as a separate text box because I needed another reason to gouge out my own eyes. But wait! There's a workaround. Almost every time I'm copying text that was generated by someone else and pasting it into something I have or will format to be super pretty, I use Notepad as my middleman. Copy from the original location. Paste to Notepad. Copy from Notepad (which has now stripped all the formatting) and paste into Publisher or InDesign or Photoshop or your pants. Problem solved. (Note: Yes, some programs offer a "paste text only" option, but I work with too much text and too many programs to be slowed down by that unreliable alternative.)

Of all the tricks I teach to my coworkers, that is the one that most consistently gets the "OH MY GOSH, YOU HAVE JUST SAVED MY LIFE FROM A BURNING BUILDING. PLEASE ACCEPT MY IMAGINARY CASH MONIES AS A THANK YOU" response.

2. Use Gmail and use it well.

Google has already put together a fantastic series on how to master Gmail, but the one tip in particular that revolutionized my online experience was this one: rachelskirts@gmail.com is the same as rachelskirts+spam@gmail.com is the same as rachelskirts+sockmonkey@gmail.com is the same as rachelskirts+shadyonlineretailer@gmail.com. All of these email addresses are mine, and I can use those "tags" in a variety of ways.

My top two uses for those tagged email addresses? Twitter and shady online retailers. Not every website will allow you to sign up with an email address that has a plus sign in the middle, but Twitter is one that does. I have 50+ Twitter accounts, and 40+ of them direct to my main Gmail address plus a unique tag. Yes, now you know the secret. Go forth and conquer.

As for the shady online retailers, using the tagged email address, when possible, allows me to then set up a filter to catch retailers who sell my email address without my permission. (My dad used to do something similar to that when signing up for magazine subscriptions and the like; he'd give a different middle initial to companies he didn't trust and then watch to see if that middle initial showed up elsewhere.)

3. Write blog posts anywhere but your browser.

I have been blogging for a decade now, and it took me until two years ago to break this habit. Regardless of whether you are the type of person who writes the post and publishes it immediately or the type of person who writes a draft and then edits it for the next seven days before publishing it, stop writing your blog post in your browser. One day, your browser will crash or your Internet connection will punish you for laughing at that helpless kitten or Jack Bauer will "borrow" your computer to prevent the world from exploding. If you type in your browser, I guarantee you that you will one day lose some brilliant words that you didn't want to lose, and you will be heartbroken and furious and full of angst.

Using something offline (like Notepad!) can be a step in the right direction, since your computer probably crashes less than your Internet/browser. I'd recommend taking that one step further and finding a distraction-free text editor (like WriteMonkey for Windows; WriteRoom or Byword for Mac) that auto-save your work periodically; some of them even integrate with smart phones by synching across DropBox or iCloud. You can copy and paste your work into your blogging platform when you're nearing the end then to do a final preview and any last-minute edits. If the Internet still decides to "eat" your post, you will shrug and hum a little tune and refill your coffee and try again.

4. iPhone users: embrace your custom shortcuts.

"Vlog" and "vlogging" are words that I needed to type a lot in August, even though I failed pretty miserably at VEDA. Apple insisted that I meant "blog" and "blogging," and no amount of cursing at my iPhone would change that. Then, by some miracle, I remembered that there is a Shortcuts dictionary under Settings » General » Keyboard, where you can add words and phrases and unicorn magic.

My favorite implementations so far: having abbreviations like "brb" and "btw" expand to "be right back" and "by the way"; using shortcuts like "etiger" and "epoop" and "eheart" to trigger the tiger and poop and heart emoticons from that add-on keyboard that I am sometimes too lazy to access; adding "shh" and "vlog" and "goofbutton" so I don't have to HULK SMASH my phone for correcting words and non-words I commonly use; having my stupid-fat-fingers-keep-hitting-the-wrong-button faces :$ and ;$ automatically correct to the real smiley faces of :) and ;).

5. Stop fretting over video file types.

This probably won't apply to many people, but because of projects like Mad Libs Monday, I am all too familiar with the wide variety of file types generated by people's cell phones, digital cameras, and camcorders. iMovie and other programs will accept 90% of them, but for the 10% of files that won't work with your software, use Zamzar. It is free. It does a very nice job of converting video files without needing to install any software whatsoever. It hasn't generated mass amounts of spam to my email that I can tell. The end.

So those are just five of the things that save me oodles of time on a weekly basis. I hope this was useful to at least one person. I'd offer to answer follow-up questions, but being an unhelpful jerk is another way to save oodles of time.

(Kidding. Ask questions. Hum a little tune. Refill your coffee.)

I love hanging out with her.

She also convinced me to try renting a movie through RedBox (since Netflix, Hulu+, and iTunes were uninterested in letting us watch Bridesmaids). Something about the battered DVD case brought me back to my childhood, when Blockbuster was king of the video rental establishments and getting a week off from school meant stocking up on films and video games and consoles. Bringing home an N64 over Thanksgiving weekend guaranteed that Adam and I would play Mario Kart and Zelda and Army Men until we made ourselves sick. In fact, I distinctly remember going to bed after at least three major holiday dinners with a raging headache and images from Donkey Kong burned into the backs of my eyelids.

I'm glad that my childhood is so full of good memories like that, and I love that I get to continue making fun memories with Jenna and Ian and all of you wonderful people. xx

On June 26, I hopped on a plane to LAX to spend a week with Ian, Pham, Nico, Hung, Joey, Tiffany, Nick, Katherine, Patrick, Ashley, and Treavor. Most of us knew each other from VEDA (Vlog Every Day in August), an annual YouTube project. I only made a handful of videos last year before realizing that my style of vlogging involved a lot of time in Photoshop and iMovie and couldn't be a daily thing unless I quit my job. But we've found other ways to keep in touch since then, and now that we've shared beds and drinks together, I can honestly say that all of those people are more delightful in person than they appear online.

We took Anaheim by tipsy storm, starting with Disneyland and Munchkin and ending with YouTube celebrities and VidCon dance parties. Favorite moments from the week, in no particular order:

• Receiving the following series of text messages from Ian: "Joey has just full-on rolled over onto me. O_o // I'm trapped // Also, being sleepy is lame. // Also help. // S.O.S."
• Establishing that Joey cuddles everything.
• Drunk Pham whispering long stories to me while I was meant to be keeping score for Munchkin.
• Having my name misspelled by every Starbucks barista in the county.
• Changing my Facebook status to "in a relationship."
• Critiquing bathroom doors and everything else with Ashley.
• Proposing to Katherine with a Ring Pop.
• Seeing Nick Pitera, iJustine, Alli Trippy, the guys from Gentlemen's Rant, and so many other lovely YouTube stars in person.
• Realizing that I had a network of good friends, many of whom had just met me, trying to work things out for me and Ian.
• The "Excuse Me" dance.
• Discovering that Treavor and I somehow have a mutual, not-from-the-Internet friend in Texas.
• Getting Treavor to strike a pose with Katherine's foot.
• Baby Wingman, new on TLC.
• Being serenaded by every person at least once.
• Watching Rich gush about movies and realizing I was experiencing 90 Second Love without YouTube.
• Earning the respect of Wil Wheaton for being part of the best (and only) cheering section at his Settlers of Catan game with Ian.
• Texts and tweets from Smugs.
• Hank Green dancing with Felicia Day.
• Eating at In-n-Out for the first time and getting an extra penny back from the charming cashier.
• Finding an abandoned cherry on the floor outside our hotel room door one morning.
• Taking the following picture:

Thanks to Snap Yourself for the awesome photo booth set-up and for sharing all of the pics online! Click through to see the full image.

It was a really marvelous week, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. If you feel like basking in other peoples' memories from VidCon, here are some other recaps you can read or watch: Ashley (blog), Hung (vlog), Joey (tweets, blog, and vlog), Pham (blog), Patrick (blog and vlog), Ian (vlog), and all of the other ones I was too lazy to find. Ahem.

Hope to see some of your pretty faces there next year. Or at VEDA, since I'm stupidly doing that again in a few days. Or in Chicago! People who come to visit me are rewarded with pizza and/or cupcakes.

The past four months seem like a blur to me. Things on the job front have been unstable for the first time in my working life, and I'm only now realizing how much that has affected my confidence in searching for new freelance opportunities and moving forward with related career plans. Meanwhile, I've been participating in more #winetoreach events with my new Internet friends, spending more time with my family (and more time outside with books), eating healthier, and dubbing Ben Franklin my spirit animal. These are all pretty great things, and they've definitely helped me from becoming Queen of the Useless and Unnecessary Pity Parties. (Because really, the job stuff will work itself out, and it's a blessing just to have a job around here.

Also, my little brother graduated from Columbia College in Chicago with a degree in screenwriting and being awesome.

Other really cool things that have been keeping me busy:

• Planning a trip to Anaheim, CA, for VidCon 2012. I get to hang out with many of my favorite Twitter/YouTube friends, and I am crazy excited. The agenda includes a day at Disney, a night of go-karting, a girls-only pillow fight, so many glittery Katherine (@purekatherine) hugs, Ashley (@writetoreach) watching me sleep, Pham (@phampants) rolling his eyes at me, and a lot of ducking and running away when I see famous YouTube personalities face-to-face.
• Planning a date with Ian (@Dutchface) while he's in the States. (Eee!) After months of chatting on Twitter and then iMessage, we're excited for real hugs. And punches. (From me. Ian doesn't hit ladies.)
• Tiger Thursdays. (Tigers don't hit ladies, either.)
• Emailing Katherine twenty times a day about crafts, apartments, and crafts that we would like to use in decorating our future apartment. I don't know if she was serious when she first suggested moving to Chicago and becoming roomies, but it was a brilliant idea from its inception. We even have plans to bug the apartment as a means of gathering content for a weekly podcast, and Katherine had the brilliant idea to get a place with a third bedroom, dedicated to crafts and a vlogging studio set-up.

I've also been listening to podcasts on a pretty regular basis at work and at home (as well as editing the first episode of Men with Skirts, my new podcast that will be launching in July). Podcasts I truly love: You Look Nice Today; Back to Work; Bob and Dan Cast; and My Brother, My Brother, and Me. Podcasts I always mean to listen to but have fallen super behind on: The Talk Show (Mule Radio version), This American Life, and Bullseye. And then there are the boring podcasts I listen to because they provide me with insider tips about budgeting or computer hacks or whatnot, but I don't want to give away all of my secrets in one post.

(Keep it secret. Keep it safe.)

I was going to talk about the importance of favoriting and the history of Twitter favorites, but you'll have to buy me a cupcake and clear an hour or two in your schedule if you really want to experience that monologue.

Instead, I present to you some favorite tweets from this month. Consider this my take on #FollowFriday, if you must.

"Buying four bananas at Walgreens is cheaper than buying three is the saddest thing I know."

"Jackie Chan is suspiciously good at words with friends. #cheatercheater #pumpkineater"

"I am in what can only be described as Shredder's Hideout."

"I took my child to work almost ten months ago, people. Is there seriously not a Take Your Child Back Home Day?"

"How come it's mostly random, creepy dudes adding me on Google+? What's up, ladies? You got better things to do than be creepy?"

"If you clean the office fridge, do not announce it in IRC as the hypocrites do. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward in full."

"I like my men the way I like my pizza: made of pizza."

"More like bidHEY"

"You're right, I SHOULD smile! Thanks for the great advice," said nobody, ever.

I do want to pause for a moment, though, to say thank you to everyone who sent kind words, incredibly offensive words with incredibly good intentions, e-hugs, and little Instagram hearts. On January 11, I said goodbye to my cat, Callie, after eighteen years. She died of kidney failure, just as her brother Carmel did a few years ago, and maybe someday I'll stop crying long enough to write up just how grateful I am to have had such delightful little fuzzballs as my constant companions through childhood, adolescence, and beyond.

Until then, I have no choice but to face the challenges of life without a cat. I'm the President and CEO of the International Society of Cat Ladies, so this is the part of 2012 I'll be trying very hard to forget. I don't like that I can leave a full cup of coffee perched precariously on my bed next to my laptop and know for a fact that it will still be there when I get back. I don't like how quiet the house is. I don't like that my clean clothes go directly to the closet without collecting $200 or any cat hair. I don't like being the only person on Instagram who isn't sharing cat pictures.

Callie (and Carmel), you are missed.