Living the Dream: On Finding a Career (& Life) Path

I wrote this post over 2 years ago on my old blog, Ellipsis. Can you believe it? At the time, I was exhilarated by a recent slew of job offers after months of nothing and not having a job. I thought I'd take a second look--and a second rewrite--to see what else I have to say now. 

A few years ago, I wrote a particularly sad sentence in my journal: 

I'm about 85% sure that I will never be able to say that my career is my "dream job." I'm starting to think that phrase was made up by someone who wanted other people to feel bad. 

Wow, past-Michelle. WOW. That's harsh. About yourself and about your life.

Not very long after I wrote that sentence, I attended my first Toastmasters class. Toastmasters is a group that helps people improve their public speaking skills, as well as their confidence, posture, and mannerisms. If you're an introvert like me, that sounds terrifying. However, I found it to be incredibly fun. I thought I would hate it, but I loved it. I've never been a good public speaker, but following just the basic tips offered in the first class, I actually won Best Table Topics for the week!

I could never have imagined myself doing that. I couldn't have imagined myself being able to enjoy something that was so obviously not in my comfort zone. But then again, I also couldn't imagine myself being genuinely happy at work, or where I worked.

I've spent an embarrassingly long amount of time wishing I had my "Dream Job."

What was my "dream job"?

I don't even really know. 

Now that is embarrassing. I'm kind of ashamed that I spent years being sad, depressed, and generally stupid for a job that I couldn't even put any qualifiers on. I had a general sense of what I wanted to do, but then again, not really. I have a lot of skills; I have a lot of talents; and I have a lot of drive. None of things add up to I'm going to be an... fill in the blank. They add up to I like to write; I like social media; I like people; I like marketing; I like blogging...

So how do you get a cohesive job out of that?

You find businesses that want creative, interesting people & you wait.

You might start to wonder: does this Dream Job even exist?

I've always had high expectations: for myself; for other people; for my education; for my career. It's been an obstacle for me to overcome the idea that sometimes, my expectations are just too high.

For someone right out of college, I actually did all the right things: I took a deli job; I worked internships; and eventually, I started a low-level job at a place with opportunities to grow. However, I made things difficult for myself by hating every step of the journey. I kept feeling like I should be doing more, that what I was doing wasn't right, that I was holding myself back by being afraid to follow my dreams.

Really, I was following my dreams, but with my expectations so high, it was impossible for me to see the positive in any situation I was in, personally and professionally. Nothing I did was good enough & that thinking was incredibly negative for me.

I kept telling myself things would get better, but as time went by, I became less & less positive; I stopped trying; I let myself think that this was how my life was going to be; I couldn't see how anything would change. I let myself stop blogging. I let myself gain too much weight while trying to say I was very, very healthy. I let myself hate my body & take out my feelings of failure on my body. It was a bad time. It was a bad time to be me.

But this isn't a pity party. 

This is about telling it like it is.

Even after everything I went through -- two crappy jobs that I hated, two years of 24/7 body hatred, crying almost everyday, going months without writing or caring about anything -- I still don't have a "Dream Job." Because, to be completely honest, there is no "Dream Job."

Everything is what you make of it.

A Dream Job is just another version of the American Dream.

The American Dream is this: white picket fence, perfect house, wife & husband and 2.5 kids, car in the driveway, golden retriever in the backyard. Perfect, right? Yes, in the 1950s. Not everyone wants that life now, though. Some people don't want kids or they don't want to buy a home or they don't want to get married. Whatever, society has moved on.

We've evolved. 

Which means our notions of employment should too.

Twenty, thirty, forty years ago, when you accepted a job, you were essentially signing on for life. People worked at places for 40, 50 years. That is incredibly rare now. The idea of working anywhere for ten years kinda makes me start to feel itchy. It's just too confining. That's what a job used to be though: you signed on for the long haul.

Society, however, has evolved. So when we talked about "Dream Jobs," we're talking about a concept similar to "the American Dream." And we've evolved past that. It's time for our expectations to evolve too.

It's less a dream & more a path.

Have you ever heard the quote "Aim for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars"?

I hate that quote.

Ok, I don't hate it, but I think it's pretty lame. It assumes that you should aim as high as possible & that there is no possibility of failure from doing that.

Unfortunately, that's not true. Failure happens. People fail every single day. It's a fact of life.

We've all become afraid to fail. So afraid that we set our expectations spectacularly high and then fall apart if we don't measure up.

It's ok to fail though. Everyone fails. We have to. If you don't fail occasionally, you'll never learn what works or what you want to do. Working a job you hate tells you what you don't want to do. Working a job you love, but with a manager who treats you like crap teaches you about managerial styles.

From failure, we learn how to succeed: what we want, how to achieve it, how to lead. And if you protect yourself from never ever failing, you're doing yourself an incredible disservice. By spending your time hoping for a "dream job" or trying to find your "dream job", your letting opportunities to learn pass you by.

I wasted a lot of time being miserable, waiting for my "dream job" to come along. I wish I could take back all those times, all those opportunities. I missed out on enjoying life, enjoying working for two years because I was so wrapped up in the idea of doing something specific-that-I-didn't-really-know-yet.

I missed out on following my unique, special path.

So this is my advice.

Whenever June rolls around now, I think about the path my life has followed since I graduated five years ago. Can you believe that? Five whole years! I've learned so much since then and I hope my experience can help other people. 

My advice is simple:

• Don't worry about it & don't be afraid to fail. It's ok to make mistakes. It's ok to feel like you don't know what you're doing or where you're going. That's the point. In your moments of confusion, you'll be able to figure out what you really want & follow the path that is most you.
• Work hard. Every second of every day. Make it count!
• Take every opportunity you encounter.
• Have fun.
• It's not about a dream; it's about you. The path you follow is yours. Your understanding of success is entirely yours. Don't ever let what anyone thinks stop you from following a path that is right for you.

Am I Really Planning a 1st Birthday Party?

Is it just me or was Forrest just born, like, three days ago? A week? Maybe 2? It can't be 10 months, right? I can't possibly be realistically looking at decorations and invitations and how to make a 3-layer cake with a removable top layer to be his smash cake, right? I'm just having some kind of fever dream, I'm sure. This is one of those weird postpartum dreams where I wake up and I've been sweating out all the fluid I built up over 9 months. Right? Right.

Except no, Forrest really is 10 months old now. I really am doing all of those things. I really am pinning Fall-themed birthday cakes. I really am thinking about ordering invitations, baking cakes, making little acorn-lookalike candies. 

When it comes to parenting, I feel like I'm always writing in astonishment. Can you believe that Forrest ate a SANDWICH? By HIMSELF? It stuns me that he is old enough to chew, to pick up food and eat it, to stand up on his own. It really does feel as though he was born yesterday. 

But it also really feels like, well, he was born a year ago. The months are both incredibly short and the longest of my life.

Babies grow up. Part of me is sad about it (what happened to my smooshy little newborn?) but another part of me, a bigger part of me, is so exhilarated to see what he's like, what he enjoys, how he talks, that it's ok. So I'm gleefully planning his first birthday party, even though I'd always said I wouldn't throw a big shindig. 

If you'd like to follow my party planning for Forrest, you can follow my 1st Birthday board on Pinterest. 

5 No-Nonsense Tips for Planning Your Wedding

This post originally appeared on my old blog, Ellipsis. A revisit was in order, especially as I'm not 3 years past my wedding! 

If I could go back in time, I would plan my wedding differently. Not that the day itself wasn't awesome: it was. I would just do things different now! 

I hated planning my wedding. I really did. I wanted to let someone else deal with the flowers and the tables and the music and the ceremony. Let someone else figure out the schedule and who is in charge of what and the food and the choreography of people arriving and leaving and delivering things and setting up things. Let someone else do this. 

I say this fully realizing I chose to have a wedding and not just, you know, elope.

It didn't help that I was working full time and having a home built at the exact same time as planning a wedding. The lead up to my wedding was stressful and let me tell you, my wedding was pretty chill. There was no huge spectacle. Not a lot of travel. Not really that much to worry about. But I still worried about it.

There's a lot of wedding advice out there. I bought a wedding planning book, thinking it would be helpful, and instead found it weirdly outdated and frustrating. I didn't want a DJ. I would never have a sit-down, served dinner. I didn't want a first dance or an elaborate setup. I just wanted to be married. I just wanted to have a party with my family and friends. When I say there is a lot of wedding advice out there, what I really want to say is: there is a lot of stupid, bad wedding advice out there.

I mean look at this ultimate wedding planning list. I mean, booking portable toilets? A list of people to give toasts? (Shouldn't the list just be one or two people? How long do people want toasts to go on!?!) Creating a guest list database? Distribute welcome baskets!? Frankly, a lot of this stuff is very expensive and when it comes down to it, it is just one day. One day does not make or break a relationship and a wedding won't magically turn any relationship into a "marriage." A marriage is what you make of it and the wedding has absolutely nothing to do with that.

For that reason, here is my wedding planning advice. Take it or leave it, these are the ways to keep yourself from going into a wedding-induced stress-and-rage blackout.

1. Forget about everything you see on Pinterest. 

There are some really cute trendy things out there for weddings. If you love the ideas you see on Pinterest, pick something that really means something to you. For example, I had mason jar centerpieces at my wedding. Why? Because I've grown up canning with my mom and we have, literally, a billion mason jars. Why pay for vases when I have a billion mason jars for free? It's cute, it's trendy, and it reduced the cost of my arrangements.

If you think something is super cute, by all means go for it, but make it your own... don't just blindly copy and spend more money than you need to. Don't set yourself up for disappointment by hoping to copy someone else's wedding exactly: you'll look back regretting

2. It's a wedding. Not a photo shoot for a magazine spread.

It's not an editorial. It's your wedding. Stuff is going to go wrong. You aren't going to look perfect 100% of the time. And that's ok, because that's really the good stuff. The pictures where I am laughing with a double chin, waving my arms around, and taking photos with my phone are my favorite pictures from my wedding. Because, you know, screw it, I'm not a Vogue model; I don't want my wedding to be pin-worthy; and the point of a wedding should be to have fun, not to spend hours smoldering at a camera to try to capture the "perfect" picture.

3. If it doesn't matter to you, don't spend time on.

There were a lot of things, when it came to wedding planning, that I just didn't care about. Picking a wedding color? Changed my mind a bunch of times and ultimately didn't care. Picking bridesmaids? Didn't care. There were a lot of things I just really didn't care about and so, I just didn't bother with them. When it came to my colors, I decided to focus on a detail that I liked and let the colors come from that. I love daffodils and daffodils were a big theme of my wedding. For the other stuff, I just decided, it's my day, no code of conduct can dictate what I want this day to be.

If, while planning your wedding, you encounter things that you literally just do not care about, then leave it. And really listen to yourself. Just because everyone has a full dinner at their wedding doesn't mean you have to. Just because everyone expects you to have bridesmaids doesn't mean you have to. Just because everyone wears a white dress doesn't mean you have to. Even if your family wants you to do something, even if everyone thinks you're crazy, if you can't bring yourself to care very much about something, just don't do it. It is not worth the aggravation and stress.

One more time: You don't have to do anything in your wedding just because everyone expects it! It's just a day for you and the person you love most!

4. This is your day... and your partner's.

 I think a lot of people get wrapped up in the idea that it's just the bride's day. This isn't entirely true as it's a day where you are marrying someone. Hopefully, that someone is involved!

I shared almost every detail with my husband & got his opinion -- from food to colors and flowers, to my dress to his outfit, and everything in between. We incorporated a traditional Celtic ritual into the ceremony on his request. What he wanted to wear wasn't originally what I had planned, but he was the one wearing it... so obviously, he got say in that!

This isn't just a day for a bride. It's a day for both of you. I think we all get wrapped up in the cliche that every girl dreams of their wedding day -- but as a personal anecdote, I didn't. Being pretty shy in real life, a whole day dedicated to me freaked me out. Involve the person you're marrying. Trust me, it will be better that way; it's a partnership, after all!

5. Have fun. 

Please, even if everything seems to go wrong: have fun.

And things will go wrong. I showed up to my wedding & was told that the sound system I needed to use for my ceremony system didn't actually go to the area where my wedding was. I improvised with a small iPod speaker. Could everyone hear it? Not really. Did it make me panic? Yes. Did it ruin my wedding? No. At this point, no one probably even remembers the music. 

At the end of the day, a wedding is just a big party. Enjoy yourself! Stop stressing! If the cake falls over, if your iPod breaks that morning, if your hair gets blown to shreds by a gust of wind... who cares? You're still marrying the love your life. That's the reward. At the end of the day, that's all it's about. Take a few deep breaths, laugh, and move on from any tiny disappointment. It's not the end of the world.

Do you have any tips for planning your wedding?

7 Tips for Starting a New Blog

This post was originally published on my old blog, Ellipsis, over 3 years ago. I've learned a lot since then, so I've adapted the post to fit the current blogging climate. 

When I started my blog, I really didn't have any advice to turn to. I started blogging because I wanted to be just like Gala Darling (cringe!) but I've definitely grown since then. I see a lot of talk about advice for new bloggers. Here are my simple, 7 tips after blogging for almost 10 years. 

1. Start with clean, simple design. 

No matter what platform you use (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.) pick a theme that is clean & simple. I see a lot of "cluttered" looking blogs -- huge headers, double sidebars, crowded sidebars... it's incredibly overwhelming for readers! I'm a firm believer in less is more & I personally like designs that have one sidebar with a clean, organized look -- not too many icons, no random text, etc. Beyond that, remember to pick a readable font for your body text! The other day I went to a new blog that used cursive as the body font, that was near impossible to read. 

2. You don't need a fancy camera. 

I love my Canon Rebel t2i, but honestly, I don't use it as much as I used to! Most of the time, I use my iPhone to take photos or I use stock photos from websites like PicJumbo and Unsplash. If I'm writing a review post, I'll use my Canon to take those -- but an iPhone or point-and-shoot camera takes photos that are just as good. Remember, you don't need perfect photos -- just photos that clearly demonstrate what you're trying to show! 

3. Content is king. 

Your content matters -- from formatting to what you're actually writing, your content is the most important piece of your blog. The other day, I clicked to a blog that has 1000+ followers & had received a box of samples from Benefit -- really! -- and the first paragraph of that blog post? About 30 lines of text with not a single period. It was so stream of consciousness and it read horribly. Content matters. The amount that businesses pour into content marketing makes that very clear: write good posts and you will reap the benefits. 

4. Pick 2-3 social media platforms & use them to their advantage. 

Most of my traffic comes from Twitter and Pinterest. I also get a lot of traffic from Google+, which I don't even really use! Lots of people try to use every social media network, but that's not really necessary. Pick the ones you like best & work them! Post consistently, post intelligently, and post your links! (And if you decide to use Twitter, participate in chats whenever you possible can! I like #lbloggers, #fblchat, and #blogtrends the best!) 

5. Network. 

The blogging community is just that--a community. My blog is primarily read by other bloggers. If I find a blogger doesn't interact with the community, I'm much less likely to read their blog! It's totally fine to be busy, but replying to people on Twitter, asking questions, participating in chats, joining communities... it'll help you go further in the long run. 

6. For Love, Not Money. 

Ok, I have something to tell you: the blogging bubble has burst. There are just too many bloggers. It is certainly possible to have a creative career, but blogging will only be one part of that. To be truly successful, you have to have multiple streams of income if you are an entrepreneur: you can't rely on just a blog or just an etsy shop. You have to establish multiple ways to be successful & work hard at all of those things. Have passions, hobbies, and a career outside of blogging. It will all fall into place someday! Don't blog to get rich -- you'll only end up disappointed! 

7. Be yourself. 

This is something I cannot stress enough. I see so many blogs that are just carbon copies of each other. You don't have to have the perfect, pin-worthy home, an expensive camera, or new everything all the time to be successful. You just have to be yourself. When you blog in a way that is genuine to who you are, you will be successful. 

How to Keep A Clean Home (Without Cleaning All The Time)

I won't say I'm a paragon of cleaning. I'm really not. However, I do like to think that I keep my house at least "decent" through quick cleaning when I get the time. With a husband, a dog, and a small human, cleaning is sort of a fruitless endeavor: every evening I pick up the living room, put the alphabet mat back together, put the toys in the toybox... and they're all out again by 9am the next morning.

Being an adult means keeping a clean house--and it does wonders for your mental health and happiness. 

However, I have a few tried-and-true things I do every day to help my house stay presentable and save my sanity. 

1. Wipe down the kitchen counters every evening. 

We have an open plan home, so our living room is also our kitchen. If the kitchen is dirty, the living room, to me, feels dirty too. Before I go to bed every night, I take a few minutes to clear the kitchen counters and wipe them down with Lysol wipes. If I have a few minutes, I'll clear away clutter, put away any drying pots and pans in the sink, and wipe down the cabinet doors and knobs. But mostly, I just make sure the counters (and table) are clean!

2. Dust every Saturday. 

This one is actually quite easy, mainly because I can pretend that I'm playing with Forrest. I use a box of Swiffers to wipe down our bookshelves, TV and stand, and windows. It takes maybe 10-15 minutes and it makes a world of difference!

3. Keep living areas for living.

As much as I'd like my house to look like it popped right out of a copy of Marth Stewart Living, that's just not going to happen. I try to keep my downstairs clean and tidy--but when it comes to upstairs in our bedroom and office? I let it get a bit messy. It saves my sanity. I do my vacuuming, my de-cluttering... but I don't need those areas to be perfect. 

4. Keep bathrooms clean.

The number one thing that makes my whole house feel cleaner is clean bathrooms! Without a doubt, a dirty bathroom seems to spread through the whole house (at least in my opinion). Bathrooms are very easy to keep clean, especially if you clean them as you go. I wipe down the mirror and counters every day (or every other day) and Swiffer the floors every other day. Then, every Saturday, I scrub the toilet, wipe everything down with Lysol, and mop the floor. It's an instantly "ahhh, clean!" feeling. 

The Benefits of Being Treated Like an Adult At Work

This post originally appeared on my old lifestyle blog, Ellipsis, over 2 years ago. This is a minor rewrite. If you'd like to see the original, click here. 

Sometimes, I feel like I've tricked people into thinking I'm an adult. The amount of responsibility--for other people's companies, for their public images--I'm handed every day is kind of astounding, despite the fact that I feel like I should still be answering to someone. And yet, sometimes--when there are dishes in the sink, or the stairs need vacuuming, or I've run out of clean socks--I find myself wishing I could opt out, have someone else be the grown up and take care of that. 

I'm a little obsessed by age--acting my age, acting like a grown up, acting like a kid. There are times where I feel like I really shouldn't be 27--I feel about 14 or 15, tops. And I'm not the only millennial that feels that way. Even though I have a child now, I still often feel like I'm not the adult in any given situation. I look to other adults to help me out, more often than not. 

I recently read an article about the benefits of treating employees like, well, adults. The United States in particular has fallen into the trap of treating employees like students and/or children: dress codes, strict times to show up and leave, strong rules of how to do things, specific procedures, and limited creative freedom. Boooooring. Isn't that supposed to be the benefit of leaving school? You start getting to work and act like an adult? 

I've started to wonder if my own inability to see myself as an adult is tied to the fact that my jobs, up until two years ago, all treated me as if I was a child. 

At one of my last jobs before my current one, my boss had a rule that I had to tell someone when I was stepping into the bathroom for even a minute. About 9 times a day I was telling my boss and/or one of my coworkers that I was going to the bathroom, and they were doing the same thing. It was obnoxious and embarrassing. What kind of boss really needs to know when I'm taking a 45 second break to run to the restroom?

I know I'm not alone in having stories like that. It seems like workplaces overwhelmingly lean towards treating employees like overgrown babies who need a lot of rules to do basic work. And, surprise! Research shows that when you treat employees like little bitty babies, they are act more irresponsibility. 

As well, treating employees like children allows bad employees to fly underneath the radar. We've all know a coworker for followed all the rules--showed up on time, followed procedures to the letter--but never actually did any work. Those kind of employees thrive in environments where the procedure matters more than the outcome--and being a "good employee" is all about following the basic policies. 

This article explains the entire idea nicely: 

What works is focusing on results. If your employees are nonexempt, you do have to pay them by the hour for their work (and pay overtime, when applicable), but if they are exempt employees (that is, professionals or managerial or outside sales workers), let them be grownups. Set expectations. If problems come up, address the problems. If their work is otherwise good, who cares if they check Facebook eight times per day?

There isn't any real, concrete reason about why this has happened. With the rise of the Internet & the abundance of smart phones, I think employers have grown increasingly concerned about not paying their employees for downtime. They focus on the minute-by-minute action of their employees days, instead of seeing the big picture -- did the project get done? Was the work good?

In the end, you get employees who resent their bosses & act like kids. 

As millennials increasingly enter the workforce, I think we'll see employers re-evaluating their policies when it comes to how they treat their employees. As it is, millennials as a generation feel very stuck by where we are--most of us moved back in with our parents right out of college & some still do until they can afford their own places. Millennials are resisting buying new cars and homes. (I do love that these articles are trying to find a reason for this. Here's the reason, guys: most new jobs are part-time & do not offer very competitive wages, nor do they offer many benefits. We aren't buying homes and cars because, duh, we don't have the money for them, plain & simple. Paying student loans on part-time wages and trying to buy a car or a home would be beyond financially stupid.)

And while us millennials struggle to feel like adults (often because we are being reduced to feeling like children because of our living situations, our difficulty finding good paying jobs, and the media's increasing obsession with making us sound like the laziest generation ever), no one is ever happy being treated like a petulant child. 

For the first time, I work at a job where I am treated like a competent adult. Ultimately, it doesn't matter when I show up or how I do my work or how many times I run to the bathroom; what matters is if my work is good, if I get it done on time, and if I am a nice person to everyone around me. Easy-peasy. The feeling of satisfaction I get from my work simply because I'm treated like the adult I was taught to be is astounding.
 

Being a grown up is hard. There's no reason to make it any harder by treating people like children & then wondering why they act like children. As far as I'm concerned, I feel like I should still be 15--but that being said, I know I'm really an adult and I appreciate when others have confidence in my abilities.

I Have Postpartum Depression

Let's set the scene. 3 weeks after Forrest was born. I sat in the reclining chair in my living room, holding this bundle of blanket and very small human. There were nipple pads shoved into my bra. My back hurt. I'd been up all night, pumping and feeding. Forrest cried, and cried, and cried. I sang to him. I sang every song I could think of. I hadn't left the house in over a week. Most days, the only time I moved was to get more coffee, grab a snack, or pump--otherwise, I sat on the couch, or in the chair, with Forrest. I started to cry and I couldn't stop. I wanted to be anywhere but there.

I loved Forrest with an intensity that bordered on obsessive: I worried about every little thing and recorded it, carefully, in an app that cost $5. But that love wasn't enough. The depths of my misery reached further into me. I wanted to both take care of him 24/7 and have someone else just offer to help me. I wasn't sleeping, period; at my 4 week appointment, my doctor would go through the calendar with me and count hours I had slept since the day I was induced. The number would be staggeringly low. So low, that when people tell me about "not sleeping" now, I want to dare them to wander into the danger zone of "so little sleep, you may actually die." 

Here's the lucky part of the story: because of Forrest's low birth weight and my preeclampsia, we went to the doctor near constantly. Forrest's pediatrician gave me these tests called "Edinburgh tests" that measured my likelihood of postpartum depression. My own OB was also monitoring me for PPD: women who give birth early, are unable to breastfeed, and have low birthweight babies are more likely, than other group, to develop PPD due to both hormonal and environmental factors. 

By our appointments at 4 weeks, I was diagnosed with PPD and started treatment. 

It's hard to describe now, because I feel like a completely different person. The circumstances around Forrest's birth, my sadness at not being able to breastfeed him, my severe sleep deprivation... it all added up to PPD.

I want to say that the minute I started treatment, I was a different person. But that's just not true. It took a lot of things to get me "feeling normal" again. It took treatment, which was hard and expensive and in many ways, unpleasant; it took letting go of breastfeeding and supplementing with formula, because it was the best thing for my mental health; it took going back to work, giving myself time away from Forrest and not feeling guilty about it. 

I started to feel better, more like my pre-labor & delivery self around 8 months postpartum. 8 months. It took almost 7 months of treatment and self-care to start feeling better, to stop snapping at Danny, to start cleaning my house again.

Sometimes, I will wander across an article about the rates of postpartum depression: who gets it and who doesn't. Sometimes, the comments, and the mom groups that post such articles, like to draw lines: bad moms get PPD and good moms don't. But postpartum depression doesn't pick sides in the mommy wars. 

One statistic that always sticks out to me is that moms who formula feed are at a higher risk of PPD. Horrible, judgmental women use this as evidence that "choosing to formula feed" means that you develop less of a connection to your baby and therefore, are a "bad mom." The truth is, a significant number of women who formula feed do so because they are unable to breastfeed--and being unable to breastfeed, or having to exclusively pump, increases your chances of PPD by almost 70%. (Another statistic that's often thrown around by breastfeeding activists is that "only 5% of women truly don't make enough milk," but 5% of the number of women who give birth is still a significant number. That's still thousands of women.) 

When I talk about PPD, it always goes back to my failure to breastfeed. And despite how PPD makes me feel, I logically know that I didn't do anything "bad" to "deserve" not being able to breastfeed or develop PPD--and that those two facts are related when it comes to my improving. 

If anyone reading this is struggling with postpartum depression, or suspects they may have postpartum depression, this is all I can say: it is ok to reach out for help (from your baby's pediatrician, from your doctor, from anyone); it does not make you a bad mom to admit you are depressed; and it does get better, things can improve, you don't have to feel like this. 

25 Facts About Me

A week or so ago, my friend Charlotte at Girl Next Door Fashion posted 25 Facts about herself. Which I loved. I've been reading Charlotte's blog since 2009/2010 (I can't honestly remember when I started now...) and I feel like I could probably tell you 25 things about her too! And yet, I still learned new things from her post. 

Like Charlotte says, when we read blogs, we tend to think we know everything about that person's life based on what they post. But personally, I know there are lots of things I never mention here. So I thought I'd share my own 25 facts! 

1. I'm the youngest of 3. I have an older sister (the oldest) and an older brother (the middle child). I subscribe heavily to birth order personality lines: my sister is motivated & driven; my brother is stereotypical middle child; and as the baby, I most resemble an only child. 

2. My favorite song changes every day, but right now, it's "Dustland Fairytale" by the Killers. 

3. I write in my journal every single day and have since I was 14. I have huge piles of old journals in my house. I have no idea what to do with them.  

4. I love to cook, but I often find by the time I'm done, I'm absolutely sick of whatever it is I made! 

5. I work as a marketing copywriter, but since I work at a start up, I wear many hats: graphic designer, content entry, marketing strategist, social media marketer... the list goes on. 

6. I write fiction when Forrest finally goes to sleep at night. 

7. I grew up in the country and never had close neighbors. The idea of just being able to walk to a friends house is still very foreign to me. 

8. I have been bitten by a tick. It's not pleasant (mostly from my own screaming). 

9. I bullet journal every day because I'm always making lists that I want to remember. 

10. I'm already planning Forrest's first trip to Disneyland because I love it so much. 

11. My favorite food is probably macaroni and cheese, followed by bread. 

12. I don't think I've ever drank enough water a day in my life. Ever. Well, maybe when I was pregnant. 

13. As much as I kind of hated being pregnant, I also really miss it. I also really enjoyed my labor & delivery, so I can't wait to do it again! 

14. Everyone close to me calls me Shelly, so sometimes I have a legitimately difficult time responding to "Michelle," even though that's what I've always been called at school and work. 

15. I love working and I find a lot of personal enjoyment from doing a good job. That being said, if I could stay home and blog for a living, I would in a heartbeat. 

16. Growing up, I wanted to be an artist. 

17. When I was in high school, I was very into the Harry Potter fandom. I was even an integral player in revealing the fake Rupert Grint official website (anyone remember that?). 

18. Sometimes, I really do miss Myspace. 

19. Autumn is my favorite season and I actually don't care how basic that makes me. I even run an insanely popular Fall tumblr. (Not to toot my own horn or anything.) 

20. I probably would not have survived the first 6 months of Forrest's life without my mom group on Facebook. Who else could I fret to about rashes, breastfeeding, and not sleeping? 

21. I don't know how to swim. My mom repeatedly put me in lessons to get me to learn, and it's just like a mental block. 

22. I'm really strict about grocery shopping and meal planning, especially with a baby (formula is expensive, y'all!), but I still find myself throwing random things into the cart when I'm actually there. 

23. I love getting mail. Even if it's just formula coupons. 

24. I always have these lofty goals of how I'll spend my weekend (cleaning or cooking meals for the week), but I usually end up walking around wearing Forrest and playing games on my phone. 

25. After having Forrest, I started becoming anemic and have to take iron supplements, as well as eat my bodyweight in lentils and red meat. (At least, that's what it feels like.)