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.

One of my coworkers can remember the details of every meal he has eaten. If you ask him what present he took home from the staff Christmas party in 2007, he won't have a clue, but he will know what kind of chicken was served and every dessert available and the dessert he liked the most.

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

@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.

This week marks my eleven-year blogging anniversary. I cannot believe that eleventy-one years of my personal history are strewn across the Internet, both here and on countless Diaryland, Xanga, Livejournal, and Tumblr blogs.

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.