Assessing...Reassessing...Or Something

I read somewhere once, quite a while ago, that as a blogger, you're not supposed to publicly acknowledge when you've lapsed in posting to your blog. You're just supposed to go on like it hasn't been two months since you've regularly posted to your blog and hope that nobody points it out. I am, however, a nonconformist at heart and will tell you, the one single person left still reading my blog, that I'm well aware that my blog is neglected. Why? Well, I'll try and explain myself.

First of all, the holidays wreak havoc with all of my habits and schedules. My house is a wreck, all of my clothes are dirty (I finally did all my laundry yesterday and had to wear an old Marine Corps track suit of the Mister's because I didn't have anything left of my own to wear.), and my blog is in limbo.

Secondly, I started the final semester of my illustrious, long-drawn-out, seemingly endless, undergrad career. My final two classes are American Lit 1914-1945 or something like that, and American Drama. Trying to figure out what I'm going to do once I graduate and contemplating having to start paying back my student loans is sucking the life out of me.

Third of all, anticipating our fifth big move (and fourth coast to coast move) in 15 years is taking up a lot of my mind as well. We're thinking of trying to buy a house again and frankly, I have all kinds of misgivings considering the absolute hell of the whole Vermont house thing. So, do we buy or rent? There are so many unknown variables for the next four and a half years (what's left before the Mister retires) that buying seems like a bad idea but who knows. Anyone have a crystal ball that works??

Lastly, and most importantly where this blog is concerned, is that I think my blog has grown stale. Furthermore, I think personal blogs, such as mine, are going the way of the dinosaur (I love that saying). When I first started blogging, general, all-purpose, personal online journaling was all the rage. There were hundreds, probably even thousands, of blogs popping up online. Those blogs started evolving into niche blogs, like political opinion, book review, and travel blogs to name a few. Then that evolved into mom blogs that were geared towards people with smaller children and product reviews. Moms making money off of being consumer moms. That's a little judge-y but true nonetheless. To be fair, it's not just moms making money off of their blogs, but lots of different types of people and blogs. I've always resisted labels and pigeonholing myself and refused to jump on the mom blog bandwagon, persisting in my blog being the personal journal-type of blog. Again, I think those kinds of my blogs, hence, my blog, have become unfashionable and those original communities of bloggers have broken up. I can only think of one or two blogger friends of mine that are still blogging. Having teenagers, I don't fit into the mom blogger community anyway.

So, I'm at a crossroads. I've been debating for the past couple months, longer really if I'm honest with myself, about ending this blog. It will be ten years this fall since I started blogging. That is such a long time, I can hardly believe it's been that long. I'd be sad to give it up but maybe it's time. Or, maybe it's time to repurpose my blog and blog about something specific like reading/books, knitting/crocheting (which I've been totally into the past few weeks), television and/or music, cooking/recipes, pets, blah blah. I just don't know yet. Plus, my interests ebb and flow so what I'm into now (knitting and Downton Abbey) won't necessarily be at the forefront a month from now. We also bought a totally nice DSLR camera and I'm thinking about taking up photography. Times like these, I think I'm ADD.

I thought typing this up would help me make a decision, but I haven't sorted my thoughts out at all. I still need to think about it I guess.

Why the USPS is Going the Way of the Dinosaur

#USPS #badUSPS

This arrived in my mail yesterday:

It's postmarked from December 28th and it once contained a prepaid gift card inside of it. First of all, it took the post office almost a month to get it to us so that we had some idea of why it never arrived. Second of all, they apologize for it arriving damaged but not for the fact that it had obviously been purposely opened and the contents stolen.

Luckily, when it didn't arrive in a timely manner, I was able to let the person who had sent it know and they were able to contact the bank who was able to verify that the card had never been used and then proceeded to cancel it. So a big fat HA to the thief.

But seriously, the USPS has been struggling for years to compete with e-mail and other delivery companies and to stay afloat. They're considering not delivering mail on Saturdays and raise the price of a stamp annually. Personally, I can probably count on one hand how many times a year I use the USPS to send a letter or package.

This is most definitely not the first time I've had issues with the USPS and have even had to file official complaints when I didn't receive packages because the postal worker was too idiotic to read the mailing label. And that was seriously why we never got them, because they were delivering them to the incorrect address even though the correct address was written on the mailing label and then that person was keeping our stuff.

Maybe, just maybe, if the USPS would raise the level of customer service and actually do something when a customer has an issue and catapult themselves into the 21st century and actually compete with technology and their competition, they might not be having such a hard time staying a viable option when it comes to people's mailing needs.

USPS, you don't care.