I recently resolved to simplify my life in an effort to free up time and brainspace. So, this week I:

• deactivated Twitter (scheduled to delete in 30 days automatically)
• deleted my Instagram account
• deleted Pinterest too.

I'm not giving up ALL my online spaces. Not at all. For one thing, I'm still enjoying my niche in the Mastodon/Fediverse at wandering.shop. It's nice to share tidbits & not feel like I'm happily wallflowering at a friendly party rather than shouting into a void.

My Facebook account gets to stay active because it's still an effective front door to this blog for folks I would otherwise lose entirely because they're only on Facebook.

In other words, I've escaped that walled garden, but I like having a pipeline open in the wall so I can talk to the friends left behind. You won't catch me going back inside the weedy-algorithim garden, though.

Not gonna lie, it feels good.

I still can't bring myself to give up the Tumblr account. I have mostly ignored it since 2013 when I started it. The interface baffles me. I do like the posts I stumble across, but I don't feel any urge to post. It'll stay dormant unless they set up a system for cross-copying posts to other places.

So anyway, I'm streamlining, online. It's freeing to prioritize only being in places I WANT to be.

It's not perfect, because if I simplify my life in one area, I'm sure to complicate it in others.

I now have loads more time for surfing websites like the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Feather Atlas. (Which is a real thing!) Or researching prairie plants & ending up down internet rabbit holes about apple genetics.

But I'm having a blast doing that, so it's all good.

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The links below are also in the page footer, but that doesn't show up for all you phone & tablet readers. So, for you, here be some online places I still can be found.