Hi! I hope you all are having a great week so far!! Recently, I have been getting so many random questions, so I decided to open the table to you all to ask me absolutely anything your heart desires! There are also a ton of new faces around here, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about myself. To all of you that have been around since day one…thank you! thank you! THANK YOU!!
My name is Michelle, and I have been blogging for mrssimplylovely.com for almost three years. I started it on a whim and had absolutely
no clue it could actually be someone’s job. I love sharing my outfits with you guys, sales, and behind the scenes on my life. I started it as a hobby and still consider it as that-it’s so fun! I graduated Nurse Practitioner School in December 2018 and just scheduled my state exam-freaking out!!! I have been an Emergency Room Nurse for 5 years and continued working part time throughout school. My husband and are both Romanian and Christian and love serving together on the worship team at church. We also love to travel and try to get away as much as we can. We have been working on something super exciting, though, for about a year, so in between that and school, we haven’t been able to travel as much. I can NOT wait to share more on that so soon! I’m so thankful to have you all along this journey and especially for sticking around through the last two years which have been some of the toughest moments of my life! Your support means so much, and without you, this place would not exist!
Ok! Now grab your coffee or snack, because this one is a long one 🙂 I’ll group all the Nursing/NP questions at the end since there were quite a few of those. Enjoy!
Do you know something in Romanian?
Yes! I didn’t know English until I went to kindergarten and my parents only spoke to us in Romanian growing up (we would respond in English). I understand everything and can speak it, but I do have a pretty strong accent/mess up a few words here and there especially when I try to say I joke haha!
How did you become the GIFF master?
Hahaha! My friend sent this one lol but I do have to say, one of my hidden talents is texting the best GIFFs lol!
Have you ever thought of being a YouTuber?
I would love to especially for commonly requested tutorials like how I curl my hair or my skincare routine, but I haven’t had the time to learn about video/video edit, so maybe one day.
What beauty/body products do you use/like?
I shared them on this post and still use them all.
What sign are you?
Ahh! I assume you mean Zodiac but sorry! I don’t know a single thing about those lol!
Did you do a renovation for the kitchen?
No, but we have been working on something SOOOOO exciting along those lines for over a year! I will update you all very, very, very soon so stay tuned!
What self tanner do you use?
I have tried several and will work on a post of the +/- of each but my all time favorite is this one (you can also buy it here) and this is hands down the best mitt. Every now and then when I don’t have time to self tan and feel like I’m starting to look really pale, I’ll add a few drops of this to my moisturizer and it adds color so fast, so definitely make sure you spread it on your neck too.
What question would you ask yourself if you were a follower?
Ahh! This is such a good one, but I have no idea haha! I do remember though, before I was a blogger, I would look up to so many of my favorites and be wow’d by their lifestyle, outfits, trips, etc, and how perfect they were but now that I’m on the other side of things, it’s not all as it seems! Nobody and nothing is perfect. Everyone has their own struggles even though it may not look like it on social media. There is SO much work that goes behind it and its a 24/7 job! Yes you get clothes, products, etc, but you also have to spend hours pitching to those brands and coming to an agreement, picking out those clothes, then try them on hoping they fit/are good quality, put together a look, shoot the look, go through the photos to pick the best ones, edit them, write a post, link everything, post it on the blog, then edit it for Instagram, link everything, post it to IG, IG stories, Pinterest, FB, Twitter and wherever else you post and all that just for one product and then off to the next. I absolutely love it and love everything I post, but it’s a revolving door. Just like a store gets new arrivals daily/weekly, bloggers have to too to keep going if they’re in the similar niche. It’s so rewarding getting messages of you all wearing something I posted or thanking me for sharing a sale, but things are just things. Don’t get soaked up into the materialistic life of someone else or compare your life to anyone else’s, especially a bloggers! Our jobs revolve around content creating and advertising and although I do buy a lot of my own items to share with you all, I also get a lot of free things but never without strings attached or some kind of agreement to post the product or try it out. Trust me, if I wasn’t a blogger, I wouldn’t be ordering new arrivals every week or two or sharing new outfits all the time-it’s the job and I love sharing my finds with you all and doing the hard work for you. Anyways, I wish my teenage self knew all of this haha and hope it makes sense for those of you that are in those same shoes wondering the same thing!
Did you find a new job?
No. I still work part time as a nurse in the ER and every Emergency Department in the area put a hold last Spring on hiring new graduates including nurses with ER experience, so I haven’t even been motivated to look for a job to be honest. I really wanted to stay in the ER, but we’ll see what God has in store. I’ll start looking/applying after I take my exam.
Where to find good quality leggings that aren’t expensive #collegelife
Ahh! Tough one because I have been though SO many cheap pairs of leggings in my days and ended up costing more in the end than a pair of really good ones. These are my absolute favorite and when I tell you I wear them almost every single day I am home/out for the last three fall/winter months since I have had them, I’m not lying! They hold up and wash SO well and still look brand new (wash them inside out!). I ended up buying another pair 2 years ago because I wore them so much and didn’t want to wear anything else when the other ones were in the hamper lol!
Best underwear to wear with leggings?
These are my favorite.
What’s your ethnicity?
I’m Romanian. My parents moved from Romania to the states when they were pregnant with me. My older brother was born there.
What gave you the confidence to start a blog/how did you deal with negativity/hate?
I started my blog on such a whim/hobby, I really didn’t realize what all it entailed until later when more people started following along and brands started to reach out to me to promote their products. I started posting more consistently and for me it was always just fun sharing outfits and sales, but not everyone saw it that way. I dealt with a lot of negative opinions from people I knew but also a lot of positive opinions and support from people I knew. In the end, my husband knew how much I loved it and 100% supported it and that’s the only opinion that matters. I constantly pray about it
How do you manage working full time/school while doing your blog?
I never slept haha! It was a total whirlwind, but most weeks the second year of school when I started clinicals, I did clinicals four days a week, came home to do hw/study until well past midnight and then back at it for a 6am wakeup call. I worked two days a week as a nurse (most of the time it was Friday/Saturday, but depended on my preceptor) and then that usually left me with one day, most of the time it was Sundays, to sleep in after work, hangout with my husband/run errands etc, and shoot a few outfits if we had time/weather held up. I tried to shoot clinical/workwear outfits as I was wearing them throughout the week and if followed along, I rarely posted blog posts last year and gave up on keeping up with that. I tried to post at least once a day on IG-most of the time it was my clinical outfit of the day and a lot of times I took 2-3 photos in the same outfit at different angles so I had more to post. Closet selfies were another saving grace. Again, I can’t thank you all for your support and for constantly showing up because when I started school, I honestly didn’t think I would still be blogging/IG-ing by the end of it.
What made you want to be an RN and how long have you been an RN?
I heard about the role of a nurse when I was really little and since then I just always said I wanted to be a nurse. I focused my high school credits on nursing related things, finished high school a semester early with my CNA, used that last semester to take prerequisite classes at a community college, walked my high school graduation, got accepted into a Associate’s Degree nursing program (they held 5 spots for high school students), finished my prerequisites that summer and then started nursing school that Fall. All of it fell into place and honestly, had not idea what a nurse did until I actually started school and didn’t have any ida about the roles of an NP or PA back then. Looking back and seeing where I am now, I wish I went to PA school, but at the same time, I would have just graduated PA school and would not have had the experience of working as a nurse which I also loved. Everything happens for a reason 🙂
How long did it take you to decide that you wanted to be an NP?
When I started as an ER nurse I was OBSESSED with it! I even told myself I’m never going back to school. I loved every single part of it! About three years in, a lot of changes started happening where I worked and I started getting burnt out for so many different reasons and couldn’t imagine doing it for the rest of my life both physically or emotionally. I knew I didn’t want to move into management or office life so decided to go back to school.
Why did you decide to become an ER nurse? I am in Nursing school.
I had an ER rotation the last semester of school, and I loved it so ended up doing my last capstone hours there! Before then I thought I wanted to do pediatrics or ICU but after both rotations, I didn’t see myself in either. After getting my license, I applied to several places including an ER I wanted to get into and never heard back/got denied-I can’t remember, I just know it was off the table for me. A few months later, one of my classmates reached out to me and told me that a friend of hers that works at that ER asked her if she knows anyone that wants a job there, so she told me, got her contact and the person told me to resubmit the application and got the job at the interview. I remember being so stressed out job hunting, but God has a plan and will place me where I need to be in His time.
Any advice for NP school?! Halfway done here and starting clinicals this May!
Yay!!! Halfway to go!! You can see all about NP school life in this post, but study hard and enjoy the tiny bit of freedom you have now because it gets SO hard to balance everything during clinicals. Second year is more in depth and application so take lots of notes in clincials and even though you’re tired, miserable, and so ready for it all to be over, make the most of it and enjoy it! Also, at this point, I started listening to lectures during car rides (I love Hollier’s) and also start practicing lots and lots of questions that have rationales! The Leik review book is also extremely helpful in breaking down all the important concepts.
How to deal with competitive/not very nice classmates in nursing school.
I LOL’d at this question because I had to deal with a few situations I completely forgot about along those lines when I was a nursing student, but I just stayed away from all the drama and didn’t feed into it. I had my very few close friends and just focused on my grades/my career. There will always be the student that answers your questions in clinical rotations or tries to be the teacher when the teacher is not there, etc. In the end we’re all human and it’s ok to not know everything and one of my biggest pet peeves in nursing school was dealing with people that acted like they knew everything. Once you accept the fact that that is who they are, you learn to accept them as a person and it really doesn’t matter what they say/think. In the end, they are human too, so treat them like you want to be treated, don’t let them rub you the wrong way, and don’t talk bad about them to other people. The most important thing is to focus on your grades, your learning, your character, and striving to be the best nurse you can be!
What do you want to do with your NP degree now that you’re done?
I would love to stay in the ER! If not, anything acute like urgent care or minute clinic. I don’t want a 9-5 office job.
Thanks again for submitting your questions! I had so much fun responding to them! See you all back here on Friday for a fun Spring post!
