Work Life Balance

I was talking to my mom the other day about my future, my goals, and then my career path overall. I realized that there are SO many areas that I am fascinated by and am so interested in, how can I pick just one? And furthermore, do I have to pick just one?

Can you be a successful human being who attempts to make money in several different, but equally emotional jobs? Can one strive to be a writer, an event planner, a crafter and a blogger? Can you balance being a mom with having a life?

I have said some very naive things in the past to people about gender roles and about what being a woman means in society today. I have grown a lot, learned a lot and have come to the conclusion that women should live the lives that work for them. Whether that is being a stay at home mom or working 100 hours per week.

But what does that mean for me? How do I the person choose the right path. I guess what scares me the most is that when you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to everything else. How do you chose what to devote your self to. Even if you devote your life to the pursuits that make you feel satisfied and fulfilled you are invariably giving up additional parts of your life, relationships, travel, family time.

How do you find the balance to do what you love, while developing your community and fostering the friendships. I think that that balance is something that everyone struggles with and will continue to find the line and the balance through out your life.

And maybe it changes over time, maybe some years you focus on work, and others it is on your personal life. Maybe that is how it is supposed to be, because it needs to reflect your needs.

Life is a choice, you are always going to be giving up something to do something else. I guess you have to say yes to the things that excite you and live in the moment. You may miss out on some great opportunities, but I think you will make a lot of great memories both professionally and personally. 

Monday Inspiration

Mondays are rough in general, but especially after a holiday weekend.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923931957/

I hope you all had a great time with friends and family this past weekend. I can't wait to tell you all about my weekend in Connecticut with Kevin's Grandparents on this Thursday's post!

But in the meantime, here are some great inspirational quotes from Pinterest to get you up and motivated today! Even if you are exhausted from traveling like I am, it is good to jump back into things, with great energy, to pursue your dreams and reach your goals this week!

What gets you motivated? Share in the comments!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923930155/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923931880/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923931917/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923930212/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/85216617923931914/

Would you like some more inspiration? Check out my pin board for some more thoughtful and insightful pins! http://www.pinterest.com/missmallory11/quotable/

Life is changing

What do you want to be when you grow up?

That question has plagued me since I was little. I have wanted to be so many things, but its hard to commit to one thing. Sure, there is no crime with switching careers through out your life, but I am having such a hard time finding one thing to pour my love into. I feel like a mess, I want to write, I want to plan events, I want to be a mom, I want to work from home, I want to try real estate, I want to work in DC, I want to travel, I want to even live abroad. There is so much that I feel like I can do, and want to try, but how do I know where to go?

I just get so impatient waiting for things. I mean I am being active, I am actively pursuing these things, but I feel like there is a bit of waiting to reap the benefits. I hope to be successful, and hope to grow in my career, but I feel like I have to start somewhere and grow.

My ultimate goal is to own an Event Planning business. As most of you know, I have been doing that on the side, but I am no where near being able to do that full time. But I am stuck, because I don't feel like I have the time or finances to actually expand and market it full time. So I need something to be a second love until I have the ability to make the leap. So what am I doing to figure out where I need to be?

I am starting to do some informational interviews. I am meeting with other professionals in jobs that I am interested in, and finding out if I think it would be right for me. I am really excited, I have my first meeting tonight with a Real Estate Agent. I hope that it opens my eyes to what the job is really like. I feel like that will be something that I can do and grow with and do while I develop an events career. I am excited to see if this venture will be something that I am interested in, and if it is, I will be excited to start the journey. If not, then I suppose I will find another professional and pick their brain.


Life is exciting and a total journey. I am loving my journey and loving the way my life is turning out! Wedding planning, jobs, DC, Summer, it's all happening and keeping me busy! Make sure you get out there and don't waste a day 

Financial Freedom

When I graduated school May of 2011, I had $57,676 in student loan debt. I was lucky that I found a job in Southern California that paid me about $30,000 a year. I lived on an extremely tight budget. Even if I hadn't have been saving to pay off debt, I wouldn't have had much extra. I tightened my budget and was able to pay roughly $100 extra on my loans. 

Today, 1 year and 4 months later, I have paid of 9,520 of that student loan debt. This doesn't include not working and paying off about $2,000 in credit card debt. (I would pay a lot down and then would need it for something like a plane ticket home, or an oil change).

It is still crazy to think that here I am over a year later, and I have only paid off that much. My income did come up, I make a bit under $40,000 now. Cost of living is a little higher. But it feels great to have the ball rolling and to see some income. Its only going to go faster now. My projected pay off date is Fall 2015. But, I think I can do it sooner. I paid off my $3500 loan today. Tomorrow I start work on my next smallest, $6754.54.

When I do pay off my loan. I will be having a huge party that everyone is invited to. I don't care if we never have met, I want to celebrate the fact that I have become debt free and can begin to acquire wealth!

Thanks for everyone's encouraging words through out this time!

I hope that you all can be inspired or motivated to try this out for yourself and choose one small debt and decide to pay it off and get it out of your life. 

Let me know how it goes for you!

Why Mindy Kaling is my role model

Seriously, my role model. Before you judge me, or dismiss this idea hear me out.

Its no secret that there have been a lacking of beautiful strong women in the media. Most of them are jokes (Kim Kardashian I am looking at you) or they down play one side to be taken seriously (Read Tina Fey and Amy Pohler) Both of those women are beautiful! They are hilarious brilliant and gorgeous, but they both down play their looks for humor. (and both are super skinny!)

Here is what I love about Mindy:
1.She is hilarious, not in the oh yeah she is alright, but the sides aching hilarious. Did you know that she not only acted in the American version of "The Office" But she was a writer from basically the beginning. She wrote the episode where Michael Scott burns his foot on the George Foreman Grill.

Seriously. Comedic gold.

She wrote countless hilarious episodes, and now she has her own show the Mindy Project. It is so funny! She acts and writes for it. Its great! Watch a few episodes before you pass any judgement however, because, like The Office, it is one where knowing the characters makes it that much funnier. 

2. She is not crass. Here's the thing. I love Chelsea Chandler. She is snarky and witty and just overall hilarious. But she has a potty mouth. And many female comedians do. I can easily name 10 funny male comedians that don't swear and are generally safe for the family. Female? Not many, and certainly not many funny ones. Tina and Amy come to mind. but many other female "comedians" get their laughs from making sex jokes. And call me sexist, but I don't think its funny. Dane Cook, stomping around on stage talking about awkward sex stuff is alright, I giggle a bit, but for some reason when a woman does it, I get uncomfortable. Mindy acts like a lady, she is poised and she is funny. Which I will say, Tina and Amy do as well.

3.She is beautiful! Mindy is real life beautiful. not size 0, long blonde hair, 6 ft tall beautiful, but an attainable beauty. She is someone that girls can actually aspire to be like. She is a wonderful dresser, has great hair, but she is admittedly awkward, and doesn't expect herself to be ultra Hollywood skinny. Which I love. She is not afraid to look her best, knowing that her looks won't take away from her humor. This is where she is different from Amy and Tina. They are hilarious, I would go pretty far to say that they are geniuses but they often portray themselves in roles that downplay their attractiveness. That is fine, but they are real women, who have made great achievements professionally, why can't they be the full package?

I really hope that more women step up like Mindy, and that real girls can be portrayed on the tv. Here is the problem, tv is a reflection of societies ideas and wants. Society is not a reflection of tv. Meaning this, if we are tired of seeing unrealistic portrayals of women, we have to start pursuing shows with the realistic women we love. If people stop watching a show, it goes off air. Popular shows get reproduced (makes sense why there are so many Law and Order spin offs) 

#endrant

Maybe I have this wrong.

2 things people should know about me before I start this off.

1. I HATE conflict between people I love. It stresses me out to no end. Makes my insides squeam and crawl. I can;t sleep over it sometimes. Makes me anxious. This is just over two people I love fighting...not even me in an argument.
2. My family is full of the most stubborn, religious and caring people in the world, but boy are they stubborn. They are drawn right down the line on their politics and I am fairly sure that each one would die for their politics. They believe deeply all that they believe. Which is a great thing! I whole heartedly believe that both sides working together is the only way that progress happens and that both sides are fighting for a better world.

I think it is easy to see all the differences in the arguments because we like seeing differences. We see something hear something that we don't like and we want to put as much distance from that person or idea as we possibly can. And in many cases that may be true, but can we see what we agree on?

A HUGE example is the war on welfare. Obviously more liberal minded people can feel that the government should take care of the poor and elderly and sick. Society should take care of them through the government. A Liberal can also see a Conservative as heartless because they don't believe that the government should take care of the aforementioned poor, elderly or sick. It is easy to look at that and say, well "Republicans hate poor people" but we forget that many of the Republicans donate large amounts of money to charities, churches and other institutions that help the sick elderly and poor (actually the top 1% donates more than the other 99% combined). They are just doing it in a different way.

What I am trying to say, and maybe i am not eloquent enough to articulate it correctly is that we are all the same. We have a passion, a belief, a view for a better tomorrow and we work so hard to see that happen. Would a liberal minded person vote for a Republican who promised not to change any laws affecting women's rights, gay marriage, or medicare? Would a Republican vote for someone who would not change those laws either but would fight to cut the spending?

 Both parties see a better America, both offer solutions to create that place. My thought is can we lay the differences aside and work for a tomorrow. Not a better one. Not a brighter one. Not a more equal one. but one where we are existing and thriving again as a country. One that offered real solutions. One where we accept that it takes sacrifice and hard work. One that teaches everyone what it means to support each other. One where we help our neighbors where the Gov't can't afford to.

We all want a brighter America. We all want the dream. We all can achieve the dream. But the reason we don't is because we have forgotten that it doesn't happen overnight, in years, maybe even in your lifetime. If you come to this country as an immigrant. you may not become rich, maybe your kids get an education, then they are successful and they propel their kids to be more successful. If you start out in poverty you honestly won't be a millionaire by the time you die. But you can improve, you can walk up the ladder. And as a country we can walk up the ladder. We can give everyone the rights they deserve and then teach them to better themselves. Teach them to go and take their future. But we can only do that together. Right and left coming together working together and loving together.

I hope it makes sense. Maybe I got it wrong.

The Brightside

It's easy for me to forget how lucky I am sometimes. I have a truly blessed life, and sometimes it is so much easier to look at the negative or the wants then to look at all the amazing things I am surrounded by. Every now and then it is good for me to take a step back and just remind myself of the great things that I have and that I am doing.

As many people know, I am in the middle of the interview process, waiting to hear back after they check my references. Waiting is killing me! You have no idea, I am impatient, love surprises, but hate waiting for them! This whole process has taken about 3 weeks and there have been times where I am discouraged or anxious about the whole process, but I need to remember that not only am I in the running for a full time position, in my field, but that I also am working while I am waiting and things are working out OK. I have been so blessed and lucky in this and there are so many less fortunate than I. I have also been able to start my own side business, not to mention Capital Couples, which I have been helping Kevin on.

Secondly, I have a truly amazing boyfriend. There are times when he exasperates me beyond belief, times when I would like one moment alone in our too small apt, but at the end of the day, I am still glad that he is beside me. Never have I felt as loved, cared for and cherished as I do when I am with him. I am lucky to have him in my life and can't believe it has already been 3 years. I am excited for this new chapter in the adventure that is our relationship. He is so good about finding new and exciting things for us to do.

Finally, the support I have from my friends and family is completely overwhelming. I can only begin to imagine my life with out them. It is nice to know that you have someone to turn to if anything were to fall out of place. I also have been making a few new friends in DC and that has been really cool as well.

So basically, this was a quick short blog to thank everyone for being so loving and wonderful, and a time to sit and reflect on all the great things, instead of the anxiety that life can bring to distract you from all that is right.

A Walk Down Memory Lane, that you may remember

Moving away is hard. It is hard to leave the people you love. Whether its to go to a new place filled with people you love but don't necessarily know too well, or to a place where you know no one, its hard. And while change is exciting and fun, its also scary and stressful. But you make some great memories doing it. I have friends in many different places, all with my own experiences and memories of them. And its so fun, from time to time, to go creep on their facebooks, to move from person to person that I went to high school with, was best friends in 1st grade with, or even just met at a random event, it is great to check them out and remember what we shared in that moment, or even who I was at that time.

I love looking at peoples pages of who I went to High School with. Its great seeing the lame lives of people who bullied me, or the great things that my favorite friends from them are doing. Its so weird to look at the lives of the people who you used to be so close to, but after one summer all drifted apart. Its fun to remember that perfect summer with your best friends, spent by the lake. Or the surprise party you threw for your best friend. Or the awesome trip to the zoo with my favorite person in College and her friends.

The weirdest part for me, is to look back through all these years of friends and acquaintances and to remember who I was then. My life and personality has been constantly developing and changing and growing to make me the person that I am today. I have become that person through a lot of different experiences and relationships and realizations. It is really great, but weird to see what was important to you at those moments.

I am looking to start a new location, and a new chapter in my life, and I am excited for it, but at the same time, not sure how ready I am to move on. I get bored easy when I stay in one place for too long, and so I want to be somewhere new for a while and just move around, and explore the great things that this earth has to offer while I can. But it is really hard to do, to leave behind all you know.

I guess you just have to trust that there is a greater plan that is being put into motion and that it is just about trusting that you are going to end up where you are meant to end up. And that is all that you can really do.

I am a mountain.

Ha I wish. There are so many things I wish i was good at. One thing even. That at the end of the day I am this. I am not though. I have strengths, everyone does, I have things that I can pick up easily but i am in no way good. Marilyn Monroe has been somewhat of an inspiration for me lately. I have tried so hard to pretend that things don't bug me. That I am completely happy where I am and with who I am. That my goals are close and attainable, That i have no feelings of inadequacy.

It is hard. I have things that bug me. In securities that creep out. I could blame the tormentors of my past. But i have to acknowledge that it is I who give those claims weight. I am the one who lets it get to me. I still have wants. Needs. desires. requirements.

Truth be told, I will settle for less than i actually want unless i really push my self to not do that. It is hard.

I don't want to be this way. But who really does?

Life is what you make it, Sure, but there is only so much that you can do at a time. I can try but i am who i am. I have things that i need and want and it doesn't matter if i constantly repress these desires, I always want them. I have the normal desires; to be loved, to be successful, to thrive, to be wealthy. But there are other things that i want that sometimes i am embarrassed to say.

It is scary and hard to admit that your life is not where you want it. But admitting it, if only to your self is the first step in changing it i suppose.

I am a real person?

My Brother is graduated from High school. 

Yikes. 

I remember when I graduated from High School. It was not that long ago. I wanted to be anything and everything. I had like 5 potential jobs for my life. They were all grand, let me tell ya.

I was going to be a writer, own a book shop, a historian and part time archaeologist, I was going to see the world, probably join the peace corps and definitely win the Nobel Peace prize...or a tony.......

I had great dreams and was so free. I wanted to do everything that I could and wasn't about to let anything get in my way. 

When I look back on these 4 years since high school. I have accomplished a few of my goals, I got to see Europe, (though all that trip did was make the list of places to see grow even longer), and I have continued to write (the book has never been finished, but i do practice on the internet every now and then)...

And my list has definitely changed and matured, I mean I want to find a good job, I get to move out and have my own place, and I moved to California. I have grown up a lot in the past four years. A lot in two years and then a lot more in the next two years. 

I hope that in the next 4 years of my life, I will continue to grow but also not forget the dreams that I had when I was younger.

Being on this side of graduation I want to stress to all the younger people in college or heading there; don't waste time. Do exactly the things that you want to do. Don't worry about what people will think or if you will like it, or if you are nervous. The worst that can happen is that you fail at it. But at least you tried there are times that i look back at school and think what if? I am happy with where my life is, but there are other choices that i could have made in college that i wish i had, because when i look back i realize what i was afraid of really isnt a big deal.

So congrats all you high school grads. You are about to head out on the great adventure towards adulthood. =)

Ode to Google.

I have recently re-established my love for stand up comedy, and have started playing it on my Pandora Channel. (Thank God for Pandora right?) It is great. I get to listen to funny segments from the greatest comedians, Jerry Seinfeld, to the not so great, Frank...that guy who had a comedy central tv show for about a minute. I love it. If i was funnier i would be a standup comedian. It would literally be the best job ever, but because thats who my life works, i was born a girl and well, 99% of female comedians arent funny. 

But something that one person said really struck me. He said we are in the age of google. If you arent getting perfect grades in school you are either retarded or you are lazy. You can type in something from your bed and get hundreds of thousands of pages on it. You can lay in bed and type a few words in and have enough information to write a complete encyclopedia on it. 

Not too long ago you had to go to a library, go through all the cards in the dewey decimal system and then search the library to find one of the seven or eight books you were looking for. talk about terrible! I would have probably failed school because when i research something. I will spend at most an hour locating and gleaning information from these places. Thats it. One (1) hour. If i have to spend more than that, i am many things: angry, disgruntled and i stop caring. I will then proceed to stop caring for the rest of the semester. 

Thank God for google.

The worst part of this whole thing is that we are still stupid!!! We have the world of information at our finger tips, literally less than a minute away and still we cannot seem to educate people enough for real conversations. I am so disappointed in society. 

Well time for me to sign off. Dont want to miss "Only in America" with Larry the Cable Guy.....

;)

I wish I could budget like this.

I was reading the news, because I like to be well informed and hate doing homework. But I stumbled upon this. (Thats a hyperlink you can click it. I am proud that i figured out how to do this. Hey future employer call me and hire me! Look at how good i am at the internet!) Anyhoo, as I was reading I stumbled across this little story.

On the surface it seems good, then you think about it and it is bad then it gets better then worse. Let me take you through my thought process while reading it. For those of you too lazy to click the button, here is the title and my thoughts will be italicized.
 "US to give Libyan rebels $25 million in aid"
Ohhhhhh thats nice of us. We need to help out and rid the world of dictators and make the world as free as america.........wait $25 million.......thats a lot.

It goes on to read that we will be donating items that are needed for the Libyan people that we already have in stock. While this is great and we should be looking to help our neighbors, there should be other ways that we can do this. The government was just on the verge of a shut down and only agreed on a budget to take us through to the fall, but then we will be facing the same sort of issuses again. To me, it doesnt seem like donating $25 million is the best thing for the government. Does our government not realize that they dont get tax write-offs? that they are still going to be in debt when the new financial year comes and that they wont be recieving any money back? Hiliary Clinton was one of the people who advised Obama to sign on this, and i am going to keep bi-partisianship out of this, because helping out those who need it is a noble cause. But what if we are close to being one who needs help.

France, Italy and The United Kingdom all pledged soldiers to help in the "battlefield stalemate"

This is a scary world that we are living in. America has been a superpower for so long that now we feel like we are invincible. However, we are not the prosperous country that we used to be. Our money has flown away and we are on the verge of bankruptcy and owe more money than we are worth. Can we really afford to help Lybia financially? Is this another example of us spending money that we dont have? or is this America taking the stand for what is right?

It is tough to deny help, we have always been support for the weak, we have always helped those in need and surly with our own wars to fight we cannot spare many men to go over and help in the fighting like our European brothers are doing, but is exhausting an already exhausted account the way to do it?

motivation

Well, It has been a long time since i have written anything. My life has been crazy! I have been working on this internship, my classes, my two other jobs then, of course, managing a very healthy social life. It is exhausting, but someone has to do it. Today though, I end a mini journey that has been nothing less than an adventure. I have meet a few famous people, learned a lot about script writing and how the whole process works, I have learned how to fake working while spending 99% of my time on facebook, collegehumor, youtube, cracked.com, and obviously stumbling. haha

It was so hard to sit for 8 hours a day and just read a script then write coverage on it. It was hard for me not because I dont like reading, or because I don't enjoy writing (im a half hearted blogger, i obviously enjoy it). I just cant sit and do the same thing for 8 hours with no real break and not even be getting paid for it. Sure i get school credit, but anyone who knows my school ethics will know that credit doesnt really mean much to me as far as motivation goes.

So as i sit and waste the last 3 hours and 30 minutes (thank you God) of this Journey, i hope to reminisce and day dream about what i will be doing with my spare time. In my mind I plan on doing the far fetched: taking a pilates or yoga class, getting into Pottery or Painting, buying a sewing kit and making myself a new wardrobe. probably buy a puppy named fernando and then study german. I could go on and on, the most far fetched would be inheriting a gold/diamond mine (I'm not really picky) and then traveling. But as my mind runs wild and my eyes start to droop i realize what i really want most is to sleep. I probably will spend my first month off sitting in my bed all day i may even get out on a really nice day and head all the way downstairs to plop my butt down on a pool chair and work on that tan. By the time that I am ready to stop lazing and start actually doing something it will be May 13th and then I will graduate and need to start working full time.

I can pretend that that wont happen, and maybe i can pledge to do at least one productive thing each day...but that probably will fail too......ugh motivation....at least I graduate soon.

Social Change

Last night I was in our student union building and I saw a group sitting in a circle reading and writing poems about equality and fairness in laws. The demographics of this group were as follows a man who is openly gay on our campus, a black student, two women who are also openly homosexual, and then an Asian student. The subjects of their poems was about equality and about feeling underrepresented and oppressed. They talked about how it feels to be underrepresented and how much harder they have to work at it. They then went on to criticize our forefathers for not figuring it out earlier.

 This is good. Spread awareness, but as I was listening to them I began to get irritated with them because I wanted to know how they thought that this help.

Awareness on CLU's campus is fairly high, we are a fairly supportive campus, and even if we aren't actively fighting for the rights of homosexuals we are indifferent. So what is the point of a forum of talking about your feelings?

Civil Rights movement, Women's Suffrage, even the revolutions going on in Egypt, all have one thing in common. Action. This is not a blog about my position on any of these issues nor about my political stance, just my thoughts on the actual movement.

What is the point? The types of people who will attend forums or will come to hear people speak on issues are the type of people who agree with what is being taught or spoken about. So in doing a presentation like this, your supporters will show up, but it wont be reaching the audience that they were hoping for. They arent going to be changing any minds, it was sounding like complaining. Dr. Martin Luther King didn't just talk about how it felt to be a black American, he encouraged people to peacefully resist things that made them feel oppressed. Not riding the bus, have a peaceful march, start integrating schools, and a great movement happened.

On May 17, 1954 Brown v the Board of Education passed the law that made segregation in schools unconstitutional in Virginia. A year and a half later, Rosa Parks resists moving on a bus and mothers the Montgomery bus movement. In 1957 they desegregated Little Rock, after that, the movement took off with sit-ins, voter-registration and many nonviolent marches. All of this is ACTION. No one remembers when the black mammys talked about feeling oppressed or discriminated against. Talking about how your feeling only is effective after you have had some sort of action to go with it.

The Women's suffrage movement was the same way, they protested and did things that were radically frowned upon to gain awareness and support, but they did it in a way that they were still respected members of society and they showed how strong and independent they were as women.

All this to say. Any new movement in the world, it takes action with the willingness to talk to actually change anything. You cant talk about your feelings as the minority and then expect that people will be willing to step outside of their comfort zone and make a huge change. You have to pressure them.

Finally, you absolutely cannot blame the sins of our fathers on us today. Do not say that because 600 years ago, when Christopher Columbus "discovered" America and then started the movement to colonizing America, that i should still feel guilty about it. I don't think I should feel guilty that my forefathers committed crimes and stole the land from native Americans, because there is nothing I can do about that. noting I can do to change it. And if my forefathers hadn't taken it, then someone else would have. Don't say that because African American's are not completely equal that that is a failing of our forefathers, that is a failing of us. Our forefathers, in the course of less than 30 years, African Americans went from being the butt of the joke and the subservient race, not allowed to go to school with white kids, to becoming prominent figures in society. That is a major win.

I am not saying that the movement should be finished or has completed a goal, but don't criticize the work of our forefathers, changing the views of a whole nation is a lot harder than you think.

Youtube, the down fall of society.

This is the both the saddest and most awesome thing about the world today. This poor man in the projects rescues his sister in an act of fearless chivalry. He then spreads his caring nature towards other members of the community, warning them about the man who, and i quote, is climbin in yo windows, snatchin yo people up, trying to rape 'em. This video went viral and swept the world simultaneously with hilarity and shame that this is what we have become. Not long after this video came online, the auto-tuned version came out. (Thats what is featured above) Giving youtube watchers more opportunity for laughs, and new catchy songs.

Too bad it didnt stop there.

If anyone had met him pre 2010, they would have laughed at him and then walked away and told stories about times that they had met a crazy person. We literally are teaching the world wide viewers that Americans are shallow, and we will make you rich and famous if you are uneducated and poor.

This is not as big of a deal as

But....what can you do?

Why 80's movies will always be the best...

E. T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day off, The Goonies, Revenge of the Nerds, Flashdance, The Princess Bride, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Fast Times at Ridgemont High; these movies defined a generation. If you have never seen these, you should. Right now. Turn the internet off, and watch them. These are among the greatest movies ever made. There are a plethera of reasons why they are so great, but

 I was born in 1989, which i know, this hardly counts as the 80's, though i still say that i am an 80s kid and it is a claim that I will hold on to forever. I wish I could say i grew up on these movies and they defined my generation (though we do have even stevens, fresh prince and pokemon...so thats cool too I guess). These movies though, they were all about the underdog taking the day and defeating the bully.

These movies full of teen angst and the underdog coming through struck a chord with the public of the 80's that refuses to die. Many of these movies I own, though all I have seen and plan to own one day so that i can inform my children of 'who they're gonna call' or why E. T. wants to phone home. But more than these famous lines there is so much more. hence:

My Top Five Reasons Why the 80's Makes the Best Movies (In Parts, so this is part one)

1. The music
All of these movies have wonderful soundtracks that we still listen to. I bet everyone reading this knows the flashdance dance where Jennifer Beals is dancing really fast and of course the scene with the water falling on her. It is still referneced almost thirty years later. What about Footloose, where Kevin Bacon dance punches out his rage and frustration in a warehouse. Top gun-Highway to the danger zone? Revenge of the nerds --I just saw a family guy episode where they played the final scene out with the music and dancing. And of course no halloween party is complete with out playing Ghostbusters at least ten times an hour. (I know there isnt much halloween music to choose from but still).

The 80's created and perfected these musical dance numbers that will continue to be referenced and parodied for as long as society finds it funny to parody and reference things, which im sure will be a long time from now because well, 80's movies are awesome.

Baby Brynn is here!

This morning at 6 am, my aunt came into my room telling me that my cousin Dailynn was fully dilated and that it was time to get the baby out! I rushed over to her house and fed their adorable toddler and then put her to bed where i caught a much needed nap. (i now am aware why mothers have their children take naps until the child absolutely wont sleep anymore. Naps are lovely)

Two wonderfully solid hours later, and i was awake and happy. I was pondering life in general, which is something that comes easily when a new life enters this world. It is just amazing that we were all once that small, entering into this world so pure, innocent and so entirely dependent on another human being. It makes the rest of the day's issues and problems seem less important. and it makes me see my future as so much more exciting. I cant wait for my turn (dont get me wrong. That time is not anytime soon, but i am looking forward to that time in my life.)

We treasure life so much. It is almost bizare. What is it about that person sitting next to you, the one in your apartment building, the co-worker that we never talk to, what is it about them that we cherish. I believe that we would be hard pressed to find someone who would not fight for another person's life. When we are faced with life or even death, we are so much more loving and inherently good than i sometimes think we are. I know that most times we see humans as being terrible or inherently evil, but i think that everyone has good in them and that there are times when even the worst human can surprise you...

Anyways welcome to this crazy world Brynn, we love you!