My name is...

There is something that I am extremely passionate about in life and talk about constantly: nicknames. I’m obsessed. It mostly stems from me talking fast and being lazy. If you have a name that is more than two syllables (sometimes even one) and we are friends, there is a good chance you will never hear me say your real name. They aren’t even always clever or mean something; I just drop sounds from your name. For example, one of my best friend’s name is Caitlyn. I just call her Cailyn. Same name, I just don’t say the ‘t’. Or sometimes I add sounds that just kind off roll of my tongue when I say your name. My friend Alyssa is called Lyssa Lei.

I even take it upon myself to make up nicknames for myself. Here are some of the many names that I have:

·      Tori: it’s a nickname, my real name is Victoria

·      Toto: I made that one and have begged my friends to use it. Hence the name of this blog.

·      TorTor: my brother has been calling me that forever, it used to remind me of a tortoise.

·      Toody: I don’t really know how that happened, it just did.

·      Toe: this is from my friends making fun of how much I like nicknames…

I have so many more that do and don’t make sense. I just think that it is so much more fun to have nicknames for people. Normal names are boring. So, give yourself a new nickname! Flip to the first letter of your name in a dictionary and see what you find! Or look at one of those nickname charts that are themed with stuff like your Mafia name or Fairy name. It’s fun, I promise!

Stay beautiful,

Toto

Be A Better Friend

I recently threw a surprise Alice and Wonderland themed birthday party for my roommate/best friend. It was the most fun and stressful thing I’ve done in a while, and that’s saying something. Personally, I’m a control freak. I admit it. I even assigned everyone who was invited a costume so we would have all of the characters. Obviously the birthday girl was Alice and I was the Queen of Hearts, duh. I have always thought that birthdays are really important and tend to feel really strongly about making my friends birthdays special and this one I went all out. Another friend and I had been planning this party for months. The party had its own Pinterest board… it was real.

But planning this party has really made me think, why don’t we do things like this for our friends more often. I’m not talking about throwing a big party, although that’s nice too. But just doing something nice that is a little extra. How easy is it to just assume that our friends know how much they mean to us? I mean, you see them all the time they must know right? Maybe not. Yeah, they know that you like to hang out with them, but I also like to hang out with Netflix. And no matter how much I love Netflix, I love my friends more.

So buy your friend a coffee just for the hell of it. Or if you really love them, buy them Tiffs Treats (if you’re from Austin you will know what I mean). Or buy them a sassy cat card, that’s my favorite thing to do. Just let them know that they are better than Netflix. And who knows, maybe you’ll get something in return.

Stay beautiful,

Toto