Tonight is the last night of our "spring break." I spent the better part of the week in California (all the details tomorrow), but now it's back to real life. Tomorrow Greg will head back to work (I don't have to go until Tuesday. Boo-yah!) while I will attempt to restore some order in our home and lives. Laundry, grocery shopping and meal planning, grading research papers, tackling my blog, and buying dirt to lay in our back yard are all on the ever exciting to do list. Hashtag I hate Mondays.
Speaking of hashtags... I noticed my friend Helene hashtagging up a storm on all of her instagram pictures. It was confusing to me so I said, "Yo, what's up with all the hashtags?" She said it was strategy- to use popular hashtags to connect with more people and gain more followers. I was and still am dumbfounded by the whole thing, but I decided to give it a try. I downloaded the app (YES, there is an app to tell you what all the popular hashtags are. It's called Tags for Likes and I hate myself for knowing that and using it.) and then started pasting hashtags like it was nobody's business to my instagram photos. And you know what? More random people have started following me. So it works! But it's a lot of hassle. And I don't know that the kind of people I want following me are instagram are the kind of people who look up popular tags and then follow those people in hopes of a follow back. You know what I'm saying? That whole paragraph basically to say I don't know what is going on in the world, but that is why my pictures have so many hashtags as of late. (Also, before we're done talking about it, I want to tell you all that I hate that instagram is taking over blogs. An instagram pic is awesome, yes, but it will never be as good for me as the real deal on your own personal little website. LONG LIVE BLOGS.)
Next subject! Spring break was really good for me. I feel like my head has been cleared and I have realigned some priorities. I think I am finally ready to give this blog a little more love again. Here's the thing with my blog. For a long time I wrote whatever I wanted and I had a lot of fun with it. Some people started reading and it felt real and authentic and it was easy. Then more people started reading it and some people told me they didn't like what I was writing. Then I got in trouble at work for talking about work. I hurt some people's feelings. And all of a sudden I didn't want to write- really write- anymore on this blog. So I did a lot of sponsorships, made a couple bucks, and struggled mightily to figure out how to write about my life without writing about my life. You still with me?
At the same time I started to feel this pressure that all my posts had to be "pinnable". 9 ways to make your house a home. 17 things never to say to a pregnant woman. 4 ways to load your dishwasher. ETCETERA. I basically blame buzzfeed and pinterest for all these problems. But suddenly my day to day happenings didn't seem interesting enough to write about on my blog anymore... to merit a blog post something had to be shareable, viral-able, relatable-to-the-world-able. And most of the stuff I had to say was none of those things. And so then I felt very uninteresting. Boring. I had major writer's block. The blog became a huge chore instead of an outlet for me to really enjoy writing.
None of this means anything except to say that I think maybe possibly I am past all of that, and that I'm excited to get back to the writing that was when I began this blog. The writing about nothing and the writing about everything. I want to get my voice back, the voice that somehow got lost in all of the business and chaos.
I don't know how this blog will evolve with time. Once upon a time I wanted a full time living off of this blog. I don't want that anymore, because I love teaching and because I know if my career was hanging out with people on the internet all day, I'd kill myself. No offense, internet peeps. But real life people are so much better than internet people. (Disclaimer: I've met some really really awesome internet people that I hope one day become real life people. But there are also lots of anonymous mean people and this is the part of the internet that makes me know I could never be a full time internet person.) (Tangent: Internet people I most want to meet: Elizabeth Ivie (who stopped blogging. BOO), Kelsey, and Taylor. ONE DAY.)
Now feels like an appropriate time to end this blog post. Mostly because everyone in the house is asleep except for me and that means that I get to pop popcorn and watch Kardashians without anyone to bother me. It's the little things.
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