Just Because You Don't Experience Something, Doesn't Mean It's Not Real

So, the other day I was mindlessly scrolling facebook, instead of working. I came across a post someone shared in one of those "groups" you're never really sure how you ended up in? It was about Danielle Steele and her eighty bajillion novels, sleeping 4 hours and working TWENTY HOURS A DAY, and how she thinks burnout is a myth. The person who shared the article prefaced it with "What do you think? Is burnout just a millennial...." then I rage blacked out because the easiest way to push me over the edge is to blame anything on us as a generation. I didn't read the article, because I wasn't going to give traffic to some clickbait shit that made me mad. So here we are, halfway through Mental Health Awareness month, and we're saying this documented and studied form of stress, depression, and anxiety is a "millennial affliction"

this blog is about burnout, so here are some flowers to make it better.
This made me mad, so in true "millennial fashion" I'm going to blog about it. Just because you, Danielle Steele, don't experience something, doesn't make it a made up thing. I don't suffer from multiple personality disorder, but that doesn't mean it's not real. I've never experienced Postpartum Depression, but that doesn't mean it's not real. If you've made it through your career and you've never experienced burnout or impostor syndrome, that is GREAT for you. Really, kudos, congratulations! That doesn't give you the right to belittle someone else's experience, let alone something that nearly an entire generation of people are suffering from. 

This may be a "millennial affliction" because we're hyper aware of the way things are, thanks to our good friend the Internet. We're living in a 24 hour news cycle of just bad stuff all the time, then we're told that our opinions don't matter. That we're entitled, lazy, oversensitive, dramatic, have no work ethic, etc. We're told that we can't buy houses because we eat avocado toast. Blatantly ignoring the crippling student loan debt and wage stagnancy we're trapped under. Asking to be paid better, have affordable health care, that's just our entitlement talking. We're a generation of grown ass people and anytime we express any kind of emotion, be it passion or anger, it's our entitlement. This paragraph took a turn I wasn't expecting. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY. 

We are sensitive, overall, as a generation. That's not a weakness. Empathy is not a weakness. Wanting to make the world a better place is not a character flaw. So if you're suffering from burnout, because I know I have, don't let the muggles get you down. Wanting to be able to clock out, and enjoy your life is not a flaw. This is something every generation has struggled with, we've just put words to it. If saying "hey, this isn't how this should be" is entitlement, then fine. We're entitled. It's not our fault, we were raised to believe we could do anything we set our minds to. 

This is a very stream of consciousness post. I rage-typed some stuff and deleted it, you know since the Internet is forever. I just feel like we have enough to deal with right now, let's not add some bullshit narrative on top of it. Don't say "oh millennials are killing restaurants" and then ALSO say "you're entitled if you think that you should be able to afford to spend money on cable bills or eating out at restaurants as a twenty something. You have to work 40 years to be comfortable" You can't have it both ways, sorry. 

In summary: your feeling of exhaustion, depression, anxiety from overworking and overstressing yourself is valid. Take whatever kind of break you can. If you don't feel valued or appreciated at work, and you can move to a different job, by all means, DO IT. Let them call us entitled. Let them call us lazy. We're out here doing our best and that's all we can do. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my typical millennial rant. I appreciate ya. 

May Coffee Date

So, the last week, I had the most "lame grown up" dream ever. In my dream. Cobb county had announced a sweeping road resurfacing project and actively ignored the giant potholes by our house. I woke up mad as hell, then realized it was a dream and was mad for several other reasons. If that isn't the most lame, grown up thing to have nightmares about, I honestly don't know what is. I'm having a little writer's block, so I thought we'd have a little coffee date. My coffee is still a little too hot because I have this Mammoth tumbler and it almost works too well.
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If we were having coffee, I'd tell you that downloading the library's ebook app has really enabled me to read more than I could have imagined, and that I'm already up to 14 books this year (14.5 if you count the one I'm reading now...) I set myself a goodreads challenge of 30 books, but I'm thinking I might surpass that, should I change my goal or just see how far over it I can go? Right now I'm working my way through another Hercule Poirot novel. I think I just might read all of them... 

If we were having coffee, I would ask for advice on a new ceiling fan. The one in our master bedroom has two speeds: fast enough to where you think the room might take flight and off. There's no in between. We need the fan because we got a Nest thermostat for Christmas and I take it as a challenge to get as many leaf days in a row as possible. I'm a monster. Oh and also so that we're saving money and energy or whatever.. Anyways, what we're looking for is something sleek and relatively small, because we have a small bedroom. But I'm also not trying to spend more than $100. Coincidentally, every ceiling fan I like seems to be $169. 

If we were having coffee, I would ask if you've tried the Naturday yet. I don't care that it's a Natty, it is DELICIOUS. It tastes like straight strawberry lemonade, but it's a beer! It's perfect for sitting by the pool or on the back porch. SUPER refreshing. So good guys. Plus, I bought a 30 pack at Kroger for $18, I mean, you can't beat that. 

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how much I love our new storm door. It's amazing how much brighter the living room is with what essentially amounts to another window. It took us longer to install it than we thought, and the promise of  "oops free installation" was false (we may have put the hinge on backwards the first time & didn't realize it until we had mounted it to the door frame and couldn't open it.......) but it's awesome. And we can slide the little glass pane up to let the breeze in. I love it! 

If we were having coffee, I would also ask for sheet suggestions. We have white sheets right now and I just don't see that going well for us. Albus likes to run outside and then immediately jump into the bed, so I don't know how much longer we'll be able to wash the mud out of them without the stain sticking around. Also are there such thing as cooling sheets? I sleep REAL hot, I bought these magic cooling gel pillows, which was a good start. 

What would you tell me if we were having coffee? 

April Showers Bring May Flowers

I'm really not sure how we made it to May already. Wasn't it New Year's like, last week? We're on pace to set a record high temperatures here today in Georgia and I chickened out taking the doors off Penny Lane, the Jeep, because I was very unsure of my upper body strength. If you've been following me on instagram you'll know that some of my flowers are blooming! I have a super power, that is my ability to kill every plant I want to keep alive and somehow the weeds I try to kill stay thriving. I always spend somewhere around $100 any time I walk into a garden center, I love flowers. They just don't always love me back.

We had a rather wet April AND March this year, plenty of pollen, so the flowers I do have in my garden right now are THRIVING and I need to document it. So, without further ado, please enjoy some of my favorite flowers blooming at this exact moment. 



Yes. There are lots of weeds in all of these beds. I'm fighting a constant battle with them, but my end goal is to get the beds, especially in front of the house, to look like a cottage garden. The cottage garden look is almost an over planted bed, so there are just flowers EVERYWHERE. No need for mulch and you either don't have or can't see the weeds. Patience isn't my strongest virtue, so I have to keep telling myself that plants take three years to really be happy. First year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap. 

Standby, because coming your way very soon will be the adventure I undertake trying to build my own raised bed to plant vegetables in. I'm sure my retelling of however it's going to go down won't be quite as hilarious as the actual activity, but you know I'm an accident waiting to happen. How are your gardens doing?