I am a self-proclaimed romantic. Romance movies and Rom-Coms are my jam, I get extremely emotionally invested in tv characters' relationships, and (I can't believe I'm admitting this but...) I enjoy reading Nicholas Sparks, Nora Roberts and even some YA books all for the love stories. I just love reading/watching/hearing about love! 

The problem: It's all fake. All the movies, all the books.. love doesn't happen like that! The guy you can't stand doesn't always turn out to be your one true love and he most definitely does not always look like Heath Ledger (R.I.P. you wonderful, wonderful man). Our view of romance and love is skewed and while I think, for the most part, we're all aware of this, we still hold on hope that someday when we least expect it (but on a day when we've at least managed to put pants on) our soul mate is going to waltz into our lives.

 That's fine if that's what you want to believe. What's not fine is forgetting about the rest of your life and just going through the motions until you meet your perfect match. I don't think we do this consciously. But what I've noticed, at least with myself, is that a. I spend way too much brain power on imagining what my life will be like when I'm happily married and settled in life and b. I've started to associate happiness only with love. 

I blame the first part on social media. Thanks to bloglovin (follow me!!!), I've found a ton of amazing women who happen to have the most adorable little families (Weslie, Whitney, and Naomi are crazy cool moms y'all). Through their blogs and and other social outlets, I see and hear about their lives and how much fun they have with their families. It makes me want to be a cool, hip mom who dresses my kids in cute clothes and explores cool cities with my little fam. But what I forget is that I'm not seeing their everyday lives, I'm only seeing a glimpse. I don't see any fights they may or may not have with their kids or husbands, I don't see all the messes they have to clean up, I don't see how hard they're having to work. I only see the fun.

The second part I blame on my obsession with romantic movies. The ending of a movie will make or break my opinion of the entire film. Until recently, my criteria for a good ending to a romance movie was this: the girl/guy has to end the movie with their soul mate. Text book Disney Princess crap, I know. (I'd decided The Prince and Me was an "okay" movie because their future together wasn't as concrete as I'd have liked it to be...I'm a monster.) But then I watched Little Black Book with Brittany Murphy (not technically a true-blue romance but hey, Netflix includes it in the genre). I thought the ending was perfect and there was not a love interest in sight! I was legitimately smiling at the end of the movie and it was all because Brittany's character was happy. So simple but so true.

That was a lot, I'm sorry (I'm a piece of work). But hopefully with these latest revelations I can start to reign in some of my romantic qualities and remember that other aspects of life are just as important as finding ''the one." 

I love a good beat drop and song remix as much as the next girl (Caked Up is my ishhh), but there are times when I'll hear a new remake of an already great song and inwardly (or outwardly) groan.

As I was driving home tonight, I heard a new remix of John Legend song "All of Me" on Hits 1. I don't know if the version I heard tonight was a new one, but with this remix, they actually changed some of the song instead of just adding a back beat and upping the song's tempo. I cringed. This song is already so beautiful and well, popular on its own, why mess with it? 

When you add a dance beat or remix to a song, you take away from the lyrics. In some cases, that's fine. Some songs are made for the beats while the lyrics are just there to give you something to sing along to (examples include: "Stay the Night" and "Clarity" by Zedd. I mean their great songs but the lyrics are literally repeated with little to no variation 2-3 times throughout the song..). My problem with changing beautiful and meaningful songs like "All of Me" is that with the added beat, the song loses part of its ability to make its listeners feel what the artist wants them to experience. We end up getting wrapped up in the new back beat that we forget what the song is actually about.

Sidenote: I actually download the acoustic version of  Disclosure's song "Latch" because I think the lyrics of this song are so amazing and with the original song, I just wasn't getting the full effect of the words. Take a listen and don't be afraid to really feel the lyrics with this one. You can jam just as hard to this song as you can to "Turn Down for What." Trust me, I do it.

This new techno/dubstep craze that has recently (or at least I would consider recently) taken over the charts these days is wonderful. I don't want to take away from these talented artists because I download and jam out to most of their music all the time. But I think it's time we take a step back and remind ourselves that sometimes a song doesn't need a makeover just because it's starting to lose some of it's hype. More often than not, it's already doing its job of making us feel something, whether its the need to dance until our legs fall off or contemplate all of the complexities of the world, all on its own! 

Have any favorite songs that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Any great dance tunes? 

Lemme know! :)

I've been home for summer break for about three weeks now and it's been soo wonderful! I've gotten to sleep as late as I want, catch up on all my tv shows and pretty much do what I want, without having a care in the world. And that's how summer should be right? 

Well, maybe not. I've gotten to that point in my summer where I'm beginning to dread my days home alone with nothing to do. I need something to do to keep busy. I need to be working towards something. I need a schedule! Isn't it funny how everything you dread during those final weeks of classes before break are the things you eventually find yourself craving during summer? 

So since my frantic search for a summer job has come up empty thus far, I've had time on my hands to discover new things (i.e. I've had a lot of time to browse the internet and I've stumbled upon some fun things) and I thought I'd share them with you!

TV: If you're all caught up on your tv shows or you're looking for something new to watch, I recommend Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It's Andy Samberg's new show on Fox and it's hysterical! It's only had one season and the episodes are only half an hour long so it's a great show to start now before season two starts! 

MOVIES: I've been watching a lot of Netflix lately. No really, I'm ashamed to admit how much, but luckily I've gotten to watch a lot of great classics that I honestly don't think I'd ever have watched had I not had all this free time.

 Dirty Dancing, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, Clueless. Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

The thing about these movies is that I think some of them have lost their hype with my generation which means from here on out, a lot of people might be missing out on some spectacular movies! The thought hurts me really. So, if you've seen these movies, rewatch them because they deserve your love and admiration once again and if you haven't seen them, pop some popcorn and get to watching! 

Music: Lastly, I've recently stumbled upon a wonderful group of musicians whose music and energy are indescribably contagious. Again, they aren't really a new group so if I'm sharing old news with you, I'm sorry!

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

I heard their song "Home" a while back but kind of cast it off without really appreciating it and I hate myself for it. So this week, I went back and downloaded it along with a few of their other songs and man, oh man, are they something else! Once I fall in love with a song, I have to see if it has a music video, so that's what I did for "Home" and this is what I found.. 

If you don't find yourself smiling after watching Jade Castrinos sing, then you might not be human. 

But along with "Home" they have tons of other amazing songs as well! I'd recommend "Man on Fire" and "That's What's Up" (watch the video on this one!) for starters. They're definitely this summer's band for me! 

What do you want to be when you grow up? 

Throughout life, we are asked this question dozens of times and whether or not we actually know what we want to do, we're often times expected to give a logical answer. I remember early on in elementary school being asked this question. We had just had career day or something of the sort and naturally, after previewing all of these "cool" and "exciting" jobs, we were supposed to know what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives. The pressure to know what I want to do with my life has only gotten worse. As a junior in college, I am asked constantly what I plan to do with my business degree once I'm done with school. Literally, I feel like I'm asked about my future aspirations almost daily. 

Well guess what.. 20 year old me has as much of a plan for her future as 8 year old me did. 

I. Don't. Know. 

So instead of lying to my friends and family about what I'm thinking about doing with my life, (something I've found myself doing a lot lately) I've decided to share Linus' point of view.

That's it. My big aspiration in life is to be happy. Happy with myself. Happy with those who I choose to be around. Happy with my career choice - whatever it may be. Just happy.