Hello, Internet.

Hi friends.

It’s been a while.

I just wanted you to know I’m still here.

A few things have happened since I’ve been gone.

1. At the turn of the New Year I got hired on as the official Managing Editor and Social Media Manager for Mint.com (after 1.5 years of contracting with them, this is a HUGE relief). Also, it’s just plain awesome. I love it. I’m tired. But, seriously? I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

2. I moved. I said goodbye to the Little Hen House (chickens and all). Sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest thing to do. Being a grownup really sucks sometimes.

3. I’m still writing, but not very often. You can read my latest article here. It’s actually another one about drug store beauty products, so you might like it. But please don’t tell me if you don’t. I hear enough of that all day at work. Thanks.

4. My blog got hacked. Twice. I sat down a few times to write and when I realized everything had been invaded by hackers and spammers and whatever other creepy crawly things that are floating out there, I just took it as a sign and closed my screen.

Luckily, my homie Downtown Rob fixed it for me. Thanks, buddy.

5. I started a new blog. I’m on the fence between shutting this blog down and starting over, or just keeping on keeping on with what I have going on over here.

Part of me wants to start fresh with a totally clean slate, but then I think about how much work it would be to start all over and this blog is a basically a diary of my life for the past 3 years (omg!) and it would be sad to let it go.

I’ll let you know if I ever get the other one up and running. I love the concept of the new blog and it excites me, but there’s no way I can handle having two personal blogs.

(Sidenote: I Hate Your Dog still exists, but the haters scare me. People really, really love dogs and they really, really don’t like it if you don’t. Or at least they don’t like it if you start a whole blog dedicated to your hatred of the species.)

I really want to start posting here again, but a lot has changed since I started this blog. I’m not really sure what this space should be like now. Blogging used to be a release for me — a safe haven where I could share my thoughts and be part of a community, but I haven’t felt that way in a while.

I know this sounds crazy, but apparently there are some bored people out there who like to come here and read about what I’ve been up to and then – get this – they like to gossip and say mean things about me.

I know.

You’d think that life has so much to offer and there are so many beautiful and wonderful things to fill your day with that hating on someone from behind a computer screen would be the LAST thing you’d care to waste your time doing, but I guess some people just haven’t figured out how to enjoy their own lives and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing.

I sincerely wish them the best of luck.

Phew! Well, I’m glad I’ve gotten that all off my chest. Maybe we can start fresh on here. Maybe we can pretend my 6-month unannounced hiatus never happened.

I guess that’s one good thing about the Internet – we now have the attention span of a classroom full of preschoolers who all had bowls of red dye #40 for lunch.

How have you all been? What’s new and exciting?