Return of the Prodigal Daughter

When I started this blog, I could count on my hand the number of friends and family who were interested in discussing issues or topics related to personal finance. But as a Christ follower, I noticed that the Bible had a *lot* to say about money. This blog was my attempt to work through some of my frustrations and concerns about finances in a relatively safe environment without being judged by some of my more legalistic acquaintances. Yep, there's a lot to be said for anonymity :-)

However, it's been 6 years since I've updated this blog, and a lot has happened in the intervening years. In a nutshell, I....

1. Sold my condo in the city in April of 2007
2. Sold my BMW and replaced it with a more reliable, mid-size, family sedan
3. Purchased a smaller condo in the suburbs
4. Started a graduate school program in clinical psychology in August of 2007
5. Along with the rest of the nation, saw my retirement portfolio and net worth drop precipitously over the course of a very short span of time
6. Graduated with a master's in clinical psychology in May of 2009 during the height of the recession
7. Could not find a full-time job as a therapist, so worked part-time at the community counseling center where I did my grad school internship
8. Started working remotely as a part-time legal consultant with my old employer 
9. Gave up on finding a full-time position as a therapist that didn't require me to be on call both nights and weekends or relocate to a different part of the country
10. Started working full-time as a legal consultant at various positions that required me to be on site during the work week
11. Paid off the remainder of my student loans
12. Saw my retirement portfolio and net worth bounce back to pre-2007 levels

So, what prompted me to post an update now, as opposed to say last year, or the year before? Surprisingly, it was a letter from PricewaterhouseCoopers, indicating that I had a $24.99 credit from Google AdSense "due and owing" to me. It was an 'in your face reminder' that some folks actually did visit my site and hopefully read my blog posts while clicking on some ads. But like the author of a bad serial novel, I left my readers hanging, without providing any closure. Please accept my apologies, dear reader, for my long absence from the blogosphere.

Coincidentally, one of my friends recently asked me what I would want to do if I managed to retire early. My response was a no brainer. I told her that I wanted to write full-time. After majoring in rhetoric in collge and working as a technical writer for two years, I gave up on my dream of making it in the publishing industry and decided to go to law school. But working as a transactional attorney in Corporate America for 8 years left me feeling restless and pretty unfulfilled. So, I decided to make yet another transition into what I thought would be a more fulfilling career as a psychotherapist. Of course, that didn't work out so well, since my timing was a bit off.  In future posts, I'll share some of my 'lessons learned'.

However, be forewarned that I plan to expand the focus of this blog from personal finance, to other more general topics (i.e., whatever strikes my fancy). Although I still have a strong interest in personal finance, there are other topics that are also near and dear to my heart (i.e., social justice, Christianity, psychology, technology, leadership, management, productivity, etc.).

If you've stayed with me this long, thanks for reading my post.  If you skipped over the middle section and jumped right to the end, you are definitely missing out on the good parts :-)