Amanda and I struggled with categories among other things during the months we worked together on this blog.
She seemed to me to use categories and tags interchangeably and without much care for the distinct ability of categories to have a hierarchy, much to my exasperation. When I brought up my frustration with her, she gave me blanket go ahead to change things around however I wanted. I felt like I didn’t have the time to go back and “clean up” everything according to my desires. I also felt like it would not be true to her intentions, and our logic and works would become a directionless, entangled mess. Her go ahead was well-intentioned, but ill received because of my hang-ups.
Immediately after her suicide, the desire to preserve all of her doing overwhelmed any desire to make changes truer to me. I read all her posts in the hours after she died just because I had nothing else to make me feel like she was still with me. I read the entire blog again later to find some neat bite-sized advice for bookmarks I created for attendees of her memorial and inurnment. But then I walked away not knowing what to do with this blog, avoiding it, almost detesting it for reminding me of the person it can’t bring back.
In 2018, I periodically spurred myself to try to pick up the pace around here. The domain for this blog was paid for by Amanda through 2026. That makes 9 years under my helm. I would rather not spend close to a decade running away from and forcing myself back here over and over. I aim to incorporate this endeavor into my life as a regular fixture for at least the next 7 years.
In 2019, I want to do more creating and less consuming per the wisdom of my late sister. (It turns out I do have enough time to rearrange the categories [and much more!], if I make the time for it!) Realistically, I can’t keep all of the ~Amanda vibes~ and still have the kind of space of my liking. I struggled to come back and create without disturbing the past (and her memory) much, but now find myself ready to make some larger strides.
I changed the tagline from “Financial Pearls from Wall Street and the World” to “For Mini and Others” because that’s where my heart is (in this and always), it is with Mini. And also frankly I’m hilariously less ambitious than the OG Dr. Wise Money.
I’ve also revamped the categories. Here is a road map for the new system:
The DWM side of things has:
Life of a Doctor: posts from the earliest days mainly had to do with Amanda’s own choices and some of the goings-on in her life. Later on, she created the Physicians Support Initiative and was concerned broadly with the many challenges facing medical professionals (and those in training). I lumped the general and personal.
Lifestyle Advice: as she was obsessed with frugality, most posts here revolve around money-saving, but they are more about adjusting one’s expectations or view to life to change one’s relationship with money. Here you’ll also find frugal tips in homemaking or parenting.
Mini Wise Money: all things Mini. Anything having to do with Mini I put here for easy reference as Amanda wrote about her a lot!
Personal Finance Advice: posts on debt, net worth, retirement, and other DIY personal finance topics are here. I also lumped in what I believe were ads for refinancing student loans and home mortgages. I’m not privy to former sponsorship arrangements; I just didn’t feel like creating a new category. It is not my intention to mislead anyone by disguising advertising as advice on personal finance. Please proceed with your own careful judgement.
On my side, things are even simpler:
WMS Buys: are what I bought or wanted to buy but was posting about to not buy (it works, sometimes!)
WMS Fragments: are original pieces that I cannot in good conscience call “poems”
WMS Makes: are things I made to not buy (this, also, works sometimes!)
WMS Notes: are articles on the web or snippets from books I liked.
WMS Rambles: began as “Notes” but then I got too wound up and couldn’t stop, well, rambling. Those posts go here so they can be skipped. This post is a pretty solid example.
Today is the first anniversary of my last “state of the blog” update, and (more!) things ~are ~happening! See you around, kids 🙂