Growing Up

I ha a conversation with my fiance this weekend about growing up. He's struggling with the fact that he's grown up a lot recently and his friends aren't keeping up. It's strange how differently two people can develop in just a few short months. Every choice we make, and the reasons behind our choices have a big effect on the future. Ben has made decisions lately that have made him proud of himself, and that's something I haven't seen him feel in a while. It's made me really happy to watch him choose to grow up and move forward the past few months. Being engaged at such a young age we get a lot of criticism. Most thing we're too young, too immature. We're growing up together. 

Negative Nancy

So I've decided that blogging brings out the worst in me, I'm a Negative Nancy. When good thing happen to me I make phone calls, the first one is always my Mom, then my Mawmaw, and then Ben y fiance. When I sit down to write though all that comes out is complaints. I promise in actually I'm not this negative and whiney but apparently things that bother me are the only things I write a hundred words on. I wonder why it's so much easier to point out the negatives than the positives, I was actually talking to my coworker about this the other day. All I ever hear her say about her boyfriend is negative and finally I was like, tell me what's good about him. At first she was thrown off and it started off surface level "he has a good job," "when he has money he spends it on me," but then as she got more into it she had lots to say. I'm going to try to focus on more of the positive in my own life and shake this negative Nancy thing.

More later

I'm obsessed with Marvel

So I've always been a fan of the Marvel franchise, I don't do comicon or anything like that I just enjoy their movies. My love for Marvel probably originated with the X-men movies and has grown exponentially with Iron Man, The Avengers, and my personal favorite Captain America. I appreciate all the thought that goes into linking the plot lines together to form this complex world of relationships. I'm currently watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. at this point I've watched everything on Netflix and am now suffering through crappy websites with various popups to get caught up with the second season. Daredevil is also on my list and will probably be my next binge. If you have Netflix I'd suggest you check these out, they really well written and developed plot lines with some cool special effects and some major eye candy, just saying.   

Life has been crazy

Life has been crazy since my last post. So here's a short update on my life. I got a new job as a waitress at Cracker Barrel, my first serving job ever so I'm both terrified and really excited. My fiance is joining the navy reserves and will be going away to basic training this summer. We are getting legally married this summer before he goes away and have set a date for a ceremony next May, this is two years earlier than originally planned. I have bought my wedding dress and I'm in love with it. I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to see friends before they graduate, study for my GRE May 11th, finish classwork, and start to plan a wedding. The end of the semester could not come soon enough.

Working Girl

I'm a working girl, always have been. I've always enjoyed the independence that comes with having a job and your own money. I got my first "official"job within a week and worked all throughout the rest of High School and worked two jobs during the summers. When I first came to college I had no car and a 17 semester hour schedule so I decided not to work. My mom likes to job around that I'm unbearable when I'm not working. Too much free time leads to too much energy which can lead to manic cleaning spells, grumpy moods, and other things my mother has labeled as "unbearable." To summarize I like work, I need work to keep balance. That being said work is driving me crazy right now. I work in retail, I won't say where to spare the establishment my complaints. I had never worked in retail until this last summer, before it was always childcare and food services. I've since learned that retail is not for me... too much down time. My shifts seem to last for days on end when business is slow. During this lag times I've taken to organizing things around my department, we all know from the title of my blog I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I drive myself crazy trying to make everything nice same styles together, sized, colorized... just like my manager likes it but it never stays that way fro more than a day. This alone would drive me up the wall, paired with my constantly fluctuating hours 23 one week, 8 two weeks later (this was legitimately my schedule this month). Finally I decided I needed to look elsewhere I wanted to go back to food services, I was a much happier employee then. I actually have an interview on Tuesday after this class. Hopefully all will turn out well and in two weeks I'll be at a new work home, fingers crossed.

Family

I tend to complain a lot on my blog so tonight I thought I would change my tune and talk about something positive in my life, my family. I have the warmest most accepting and supportive family a girl could ask for. I have three grandparents who love me and support me and one looking down on me from heaven. I have a mom and dad who aren't afraid to tell me I can do better and call me out when I'm not doing my best but are also my biggest fans and supporters. I have a not so little brother who drives me insane but will always be my best friend. I also have 9 younger cousins, who are more like siblings that know how to keep life interesting.

 

You could say we don't like to make normal faces in pictures...

More later...

TBI Benefit Concert

Today is the TBI Awareness Concert, in case any of you aren't familiar with the acronym TBI stand for Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Keegan runs a TBI Club on campus that give some local individuals with TBI socializing opportunities. These opportunities are very important because TBI patients can have impaired social skills after their disease or accident which makes it hard for them to reconnect with loved ones or meet new people. The concert today is in the Blueridge Ballroom in the student union, that's the one upstairs across from Greenbrier theater. Doors open around 7  and admission is only $2 but they will also take up donations if you feel inclined to help out.  Several A Capella Groups will be performing including my own, One AcChord, and Hannah Adam's group, Ear Candy. This whole event was put together by a fellow CSD Undergraduate Hannah Adams so it would be really great if you guys could come out and support the cause. Hopefully we'll see you there!

Quick Sand week

This is the point in the semester where everything seems too hard. I don't know why it's this week, it happens every semester there's just that one week I decide I'm done. I call it quicksand week cause it come out of no where, the floor just falls out from under you and it's too hard to move forward. Not that this week has been academically challenging, it's actually one of my lighter weeks. I just it's just what this week marks. This week is the end of March. It's the mark of one month left in my Junior year. It's registration time which has forced me to think about A) Summer classes, What am I taking? Where and I living? Where am I working? Can I do all that and an Internship? B) Senior year, which means one thing... grad applications. Add on the fact that my A Capella group has less than 5 rehearsal until the showcase and my fiance has decided to join the military and wants to talk about moving our wedding up and I feel like brain is about to explode from the stress. Quicksand that sounds about right.

More later

RESERVing Judgement

So this weekend my fiance told me that he want to explore the option of joining the military reserves. My first reaction was shock, then disbelief, then I was pissed, and now I'm in research mode. He views the reserves as a way to fund his education, do something productive with his life, make his life more structured and disciplined,  and support our future family. I can't  help but repeat the word deployment over and over again. I know that reserves are not as likely to be deployed as active troops and that in most cases deployment is voluntary but I can't help but think about what could change in terms of warfare in the next six years active and two years inactive of his contract. I'm incredibly proud that he wants to take on such a daunting task as boot camp and the training after and I do think in a lot of ways he is well suited and will excel but I know he doesn't want to be deployed and I certainly don't want to be without him for an entire year. We're looking everything from the reserves of all five branches to the NC National Guard to figure out what is the best options for his needs and his situation. I'm developing a list of questions for the recruiter scowering discussion forums, blogs, and websites trying to get as much information as I can. If any of you have first hand experience with any of this I'd love to hear about it feel free to comment or email me.  

My Roommate

At the begining of the year everyone loves their roommate, you're best friends. It's all fun and games cooking together and decorating your place. Fast forward to second semester and she's your worst enemy. It's that time of year. I don't know how it happens, I've heard about it plenty of time but while my roommates have gotten on my nerves in the past I have never felt to much dislike for a person I once counted as a friend as I do right now. To make matters worse we've been best friends since my junior year of high school and have an enormous amount of common friends.

It all started with a fight, she was seamed about something I put on facebook and instead of talking to me about it she just let the frustration built up until she had a dramatic meltdown. When I say dramatic I mean truly one for the movies there were insults flung at me that knocked the wind out of me.  I apologized for the imagined insult but she was already to far gone on the crazy train and eventually the things she said to me ended our friendship.

But that's not what's important right now, my point is ever since I decided she's not my friend and stopped making excuses for her everything about her seems unbearable annoying. The way the blows through money, her inability to unload the dishwasher, she way she talks really loudly on the phone to her mom every night, they way she "forgets" to buy toilet paper even after constant reminders, the way she laughs, and her frequent lateness on our power bill. All of it drives me insane now!I think it's interested how we make excuses and allowances for the people we care about and as soon as we stop caring we see them through new eyes.

Death to the Financial Aid Office

So my FASFA has been selected to be audited this semester for some reason, I guess it's random because it's never happened in the past. Basically what this means is they request all this paperwork asking the EXACT same questions as the FASFA... why? I don't understand. This is made more complicated since they require both mine and my parent's signature on everything and I do not go home more often than once a month because of my work schedule and all my Tax papers are in a file at home. My FASFA was submitted February 8th and I'm still dealing with this paperwork nightmare thanks to the University. I'm so annoyed and fed up with the whole situation.

Grad School

GRAD SCHOOL.. I feel like this phrase has been echoing in my head all week. The daunting anvil hanging over the cartoon character's head just waiting for the SPLAT. Grad school has been the one damper on enjoying my under graduate career, the one thing that makes it terrifying to pursue my dream job.

Lately though I'm trying not to see this as scary but as a challenge to be conquered. Through the many seminars, online research, review books, and practice tests I've been swimming in this week Grad School suddenly seems more attainable. Not to say it isn't still scary but I'm choosing to use it as a motivator not as a deterrent. So when the FedEx guy delivered my GRE review books today instead of crippling fear I felt determination, now hopefully I can ride this wave of motivation through next year.

More later...   

Is it that time already?

So it's dawning on me that Spring Break is next week and it's a down hill slide to senior year after that. It's hard to believe that we have less than two months of our Junior year left. It feels like it was just yesterday when I was a homesick freshman contemplating community college. Tonight I'm going to a graduate school seminar and I can't help but wonder when I got so old. 20 years down and it went in a blink of an eye. It reminds me of a song by John Mayer.

Don't know how else to say it, don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't but honestly won't someone stop this train

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand
He said turn 68, you'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
Don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train

I may be the only person that feels this way

I may be the only person that feels this way but... I was disappointed to have classes canceled for the third time in a row. Don't get me wrong I love the extra sleep as much as the rest of you but I get nothing done! Midterms are coming up and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface in some of my classes. I've had an Audiology test on the inner ear postponed 3 class periods, the first was a relief to have the extra time to study and review but now it's just getting ridiculous. I more than ready for Spring weather and to get back on schedule.

Wedding Plans

Let's talk Cake
For fall flavors I'm thinking maybe pumpkin spice

I love the simplicity of this cake design and if I end up putting sunflowers in my bouquets I think this could be cute

 I LOVE this cake holder and the antique details and the way the icing is textures resembles a wedding dress

 I think this strawberry shortcake wedding cake could be really cute with the theme and venue I have picked out and I'm thinking about doing BBQ and keeping the reception casual so this would be a good fit

 This cake has two of my color white and grey already incorporated and the vintage lace is another thing I'm putting in the decorations 

Burlap and tree bark are two things that are all over my decorations so this cake would really fit in

I La ah av to Sing

I don't think I've shared that I'm in an A Capella Group here on campus, some of you may have seen us perform last semester. Singing is something I've done my whole life so getting involved again on campus was a big comfort for me and has brought some amazing people into my life. This is my third semester in the group and it's been an amazing experience. A lot has changed in those three semesters our leadership, rules, song repertoire, and even our name. We are now known as One AcChord and we are very excited to be presenting an entirely different group then we've been in the past. We've increased our rehearsals, thrown out our old songs and started from scratch, and we're working our butts off to be better, to be respected in the A Capella community. I'm very proud of the changes and progress we've made, our first perfromance is going to be Friday the 27th at an event in Cross roads put on by the music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha at 5:30 if any of you want to come out and support. 

Snow

Snow,
I've never been a big fan of the cold.
I suppose snow is better than rain, until it melts.
Nope I'd perfer a rain shower in the summer over snowfall any day.
Spring semester is always made more complicated by the appearance of snow, don't get me wrong I love the occasional class canceling as much as the rest of you but I have a hard time with the not knowing. Waking up at 6 am to check your email and getting a notice on a door once you've already trekked across campus. 
I'd much prefer to get up at eight am every day if I could be comfortable in shorts and feel the sun on my skin.
So while everyone is celebrating the snow tonight I'll be dreaming of sunny skies.

  

More Wedding Planning

To we've talked about what season our wedding will be in, Fall. So now let's talk about setting. I'm a country girl at heart I love my small town hometown and went to the small high school in the country horse pasture on one side and cow pasture on the other. My fiance is from the same hometown so I want to have a rustic country style to our wedding therefore the only setting that makes sense... a barn.

I'm absolutely in love with this idea, I want to have the ceremony outside the barn and the reception indoors. I have absolutely no idea where I'm actually going to find this perfect picturesque barn but I'm determined. If you guys have any ideas of where I could look let me know.

More later...

New Obsession

New Netflix obsession... LOST.
I've watch the show before, back when it was airing live.
Talk about a complicated plot line,
I can only remember bits and pieces of the story right now I have
Polar Bears
Crazy French Woman
Sawyer=Not Sawyer
Lock can walk now
Jack sees his dead father whose casket is now empty
Sun speaks English and was about to leave her husband
Charlie was a good kid before rock and roll and drugs
Kate's a felon with a heart of gold, still not sure what she did
Walt's mom died and Micheal just got him
Sijed used to torture people and fell in love with one of his "victums"
Seriously what other show has that many complicated backstories within the first 10 episodes and that's only what happened before the crash, not to mention all the island craziness.
Should be a wild ride

More later...

Wrestling

I watched my brothers team win the State Championship this weekend. I stood in the bleachers of the gym I walked through countless times during my high schools years and screamed my head off as a kid I'd known since he was 13 win the final match naming us State Champions. It's an amazing feeling to see boys you've seen grow up work hard and earn something they've always wanted. Some of the boys on the team I've known since they were eight years old, my brother of course I've known even longer. I watched all these boys I'd seen grow up into men tear up as their coach accepted the trophy and all their hard work paid off. These little pain in my butts are now seniors and state champions, it's crazy how fast time goes by. I remember when all these guys were the freshman JV team and my fiance was the one winning a state championship it's crazy to think that so much time has passed.Three of the little boogers will be up here at App next year, and in a little over a year it will be their school and no longer mine. Crazy stuff.

More later...

 The seniors boys I've watched grow up

My knothead younger brother, my dad and coach on the left, and head coach Carey on the Right

Pregnancy

So I was just watching the episode of Friends when Rachel gets her sonogram and it got me thinking about how there's an extremely bizarre thing about me that I have not shared on this blog yet. Pregnancy freaks me out.

I know now you;re thinking you're only 20 years old it's not weird to be freaked about pregnancy but you don't understand, the actual phenomenon of growing a human being inside you completely and utterly grosses me out. Yes I know I sound life I'm 5 years old when I say pregnancy is gross but I have several reason why I think this and I stand by them.
1. They have gills, literal gills like fish people or something
2. They twist your body into a completely different shape from which your body can never recover
3. They feed off your nutrients, similar to a parasite
4. During birth it is not uncommon to break bones, my grandmother broke her coccyx twice giving birth to my dad and his sister
5. Breast feeding, I can't even explain why this is so disgusting to me. For one the fact that your body is producing a liquid that is being fed to another person...   bodily fluids are not for consumption. For another thing women just whip it out in public like it's totally normal and socially acceptable.
I'm sure I could go on but you get the point I'm making. The whole pregnancy is a natural beautiful thing is a load of bull shit to me. Breast feeding makes me gag and the idea of a human being inside me sounds like something out of a horror movie.

All this is not to say that I don't like kids, that couldn't be farther from the truth. I love kids, I come from a big family of which I'm the oldest so I have plenty of experience taking care of the little boogers. Ever since my fiance proposed my dad has been on me about having kids. Not now of course, I'm 20 he's not that old fashioned but eventually. See my dad knows my views on pregnancy and he thinks I'm ridiculous, but then again he never has to go through that. Anyways my point is you don't have to be pregnant to be a mother. Not that I'm sure I even want that I might just be the cool aunt to my brother's kids. Just some food for thought

More later...

Friends

WARNING: If you haven't seen Friend you probably shouldn't read this post there might be spoilers.             ----------------------------------------------------------------- So I have a new obsession since Friends came to Netflix. My future roomie is obsessed and owns all the seasons so I thought I would give it a shot.. big mistake. I can't stop, Friends was released to Netflix on the 1st on January and I'm currently watching Season 7 Episode 6. In my defense the episode are only about 22 minutes long but still 7 season in one month, even I think I'm a little pathetic. Also it's on right now as I'm typing about my problem I'm indulging in it. I now know all the lyrics to the theme song, Phoebe's go-to allias, and all the inside jokes. What I don't know is if Rachel and Ross will finally get back together and if that happens what happens to Joey and Phoebe... If you know don't tell me.

I also recently took a BuzzFeed quiz and discovered that apparently I'm Monica Geller. Which I have to say is pretty accurate Monica is: Too loud, check  OCD,  check A good cook, well...So maybe I'm not exactly like her... Anyways it's a great show I'm obsessed and slightly ashamed at the level of my obsession. 

More later...

Wedding Details

So I mentioned before that I'm engaged, needless to say that my pinterest activity has spiked since the ring was on my finger. It's a work in progress and is constantly changing as I change my mind. My wedding pinterest board is my baby, it's a private board because I got tired of all my friend repinning my entire wedding... obsessive, maybe. Anyways I'm not sure how I will come up with three different posts every week so I'm thinking maybe every week I'll make a post about a new detail of my wedding planning.



So this week I'll talk about the season. We have chosen to have a fall wedding after a lot of debating. I wanted a Spring wedding because it's my favorite season and Ben said we would have to have an indoor wedding if it was in the Spring. I wanted an outdoor venue so I settled for fall. Here are some of my ideas for tying in the fall season into my decorating.

I'm not sure I'm on board with some of these ideas so let me know what you guys like

More later...

Time

I've been thinking about time this weekend. I'm home for the weekend visiting with my family and my fiance.

Yesterday I went my brother's wrestling tournament, he has been wrestling since he was eight years old and this is his last year. Next week his team will go to State's and in less than three weeks wrestling will no longer be a  part of his life. It's strange to think that something that I've grown up around, people that I've cheered for, and families that I've grown to know will all be distant next year. It's been creeping up on me, I used to know the whole team when I was in high school, dated a few of them was friends with all of them and my Dad was the coach. Now the only team members I know were freshman when I was a senior in high school and soon they'll be in college.

That's really what I'm getting at, I'm closing in on my last year of college. Granted I still have Grad School I'm not being pushed into the big bad world just yet, that is if I make it. That's the fear of every CSD student. Not making it. Being stuck with an undergraduate degree that doesn't allow you to practice, being a college graduate with a great GPA and knowledge of a field in which you can't work. Scary.

More later...

Midnight Snack... at 11:41

I'm currently making a midnight snack of Velveeta Mac and Cheese, jealous I know. I needed something to do while my noodles are boiling. If I don't stay busy I tend to hover, this happens at the microwave too, they tell you that gives you cancer. I think living gives you cancer, eventually. My Grandfather lived a very healthy lifestyle, minimal microwave hovering and he still got cancer. Granted he was a smoker... but he didn't suffer from lunch cancer. It's funny the things they tell you to do or not to do and the reasons they give to justify them. My midnight snack just got a little too serious for me so...

EDIT: 1/27/15 I just read over this an realized that it sounds incredibly depressing so I'd like to expand on my point with a slightly less depressing example. My point is there are so many things we accept as fact because of their source, or sometimes simply because they've heard it for some long. Take police officers, they are authority figures which we are taught to respect and obey. Officers of the law are able to push their will on individuals who don't have a full knowledge of the law. We as Americans have rights but we forfeit those rights, right to refuse a search without probable cause, simply because we trust their knowledge more than our own. The same way that when our parents told us about the tooth fairy or our siblings told stories of the boogie man we accepted them as fact without considering the validity. We respond to authority like that of the doctor in my more depressing example above.

More later...

Microwave Society

You always hear people refer to my generation as the Microwave generation, we want everything right here and right now. No patience. I don't think that's necessarily true, I think that it extends beyond my generation and infects the society as a whole. 

I got to thinking of this today when I was riding the bus home, my bus driver was in a real fowl mood fussing at passengers for running to the bus instead of waiting another 15 minutes in the rain for the next one. Blowing his horn at cars in front of him for patiently waiting for a pedestrian to cross the street. He's sitting in a warm bus getting paid to drive around and can't spare a moment of his time to allow a students to cross the street in the pouring rain and cold temperatures.

We have become so self absorbed that we think the universe revolves around our schedules. We put others in danger by reckless driving because we didn't leave enough time to get to work. We tap our foot at waiters who don't get our food out in the first ten minutes while we chose not to spend time cooking for our families. We see our time as being beyond valuable while other people are simply tools to achieve our means or barriers that are in our way.

When did we become so self absorbed, and how do we fix it?

More later...
 

Hello My Name is...

An Introduction, the way every paper, every class, every relationship begins. A "Hello my name is...", well hello my name is Tori Blanton and I feel incredibly self conscious and slightly self absorbed to be writing a blog.

This blog is meant to make me more comfortable with writing, something that I wouldn't associate with the word comfortable right now. I guess we'll see in time if it achieved the goal, comfort that is. I guess from the title of this blog you know a bit about me already, I'm a CSD major and a control freak... let's be honest that's most of us. I make lists, write in my planner religiously, and organize my closet by colors and yet still manage to procrastinate my homework to watch one more episode of my latest Netflix obsession. (Currently it's Breaking Bad and it's playing now in the background) My blog posts will consist of a lot of complaining, maybe some discussion of whatever my current Netflix obsession may be, possibly some thoughts as I begin to plan my wedding, and more than likely a lot of stressing out about the future. Stress is one thing I do well, I like to refer to myself as having a healthy level of stress. What I mean by that is I have enough stress to keep me motivated, to keep me on my toes. Without this healthy level of stress I become an unmotivated layabout whose deadlines don't get made. On the other hand too much stress turns me into an over eater who never changed out of sweats. I live my life balancing on the barrier between these two extremes in order to keep myself sane. (Although I'm not sure any of us can claim complete sanity). I'm sure at some point in the semester I will slip into either of the two extremes and you will more than likely ear about it.    

More to come....

Later Readers

(was that cute or corny? Jury's still out)