i'm alive!

so, i think it's about time to resurrect this blog! my sisters have been nagging me for, oh, 1 and a 1/2 years now (whoopsie :P), so i think it's about time...school, soccer, family, friend, camp and other things *coughfacebookcough* have seemed to have stolen my time...but i'm alive! really and truly i am! i'm also updating my photography blog, as i'm getting more involved and immersed in photography (and more interested in doing it professionally), i thought it'd be a good idea to kinda re-think my "brand" or whatever you want to call it...i'm also contemplating (ooo big word ;]) combining this blog with my photography blog...but i'm still thinking about it...SO, go check out my new photography blog! hopefully i'll be more faithful to this one as well :/ but for now...goodbye tori dutt photograph and hello ria grace photography! :D

they're over!!

exams are over!! [for this year, at least...] now just one more day....then it's up to camp for 3 weeks on staff [please pray for that, too, i'm kinda nervous....]...yeay!! i'm gonna miss all my friends from school, but next year will be here before we know it!! anyways, thanks for the prayers!!

i put up some pictures from my sisters' soccer games on my photoblog...go check it out and let me know what y'all think!!













[click the picture]

new stuff...updates...

so, i just wanted to leave that post about the chapmans up for a while (if anyone was wondering why there was a posting drought...). please keep praying for them everyone. i'm sure they're still hurting and it'll take a really long time for this to fade a little. so just remember to say a prayer for them once and a while...anyways, here's a graphic i made for them...(i sorta stole the idea from ashlee's blog, great idea punt! love ya!)...














on a different note...i've updated my photoblog quite a few times with a bunch of random spring pictures and some pictures of naomi...check it out [click on the picture]...and let me know what you think!! :)













soooo, school is almost over!! yeay!! :D i am experiencing ambivalence (thank you mr. talkington...) over the end of the school year. i'm excited that it'll be over and summer will be here, but i'm also sad that it's over...see, i'm a remembering freak. maybe that's why i love journaling (thanks to jaina) and i freak out when i forget something and why i love photography. i mean, seriously, if i could video tape my while life, i would seriously jump at the opportunity!! (it would be a ton of film, but i think it would be worth it!) i also hate change (or most change....if someone wanted to change our bathroom or possibly build us another one, be my guest! i would welcome that kind of change!), so i don't want to let go of this year. i don't want to loose any of the friendships i've made this year...i don't want to give up my locker!! [i love my locker!! don't take it!!]... i don't want to forget a thing from my first year at "real" school...
anyways, so, all that to say that we're almost done with school...our official very last day is next thursday. today was our very first day of finals (*shudder*) but thankfully, we are now 1/3 through exams!! yeay!! if you all could pray for me and everyone at my school that we would remember everything and not be nervous, all that good stuff, that would be awesome!! thanks! today was literature and math, so it's nice to have those out of the way (especially literature...). monday is physics and history (i'm most nervous about history) and then tuesday is Bible and french (that should be the easiest day...i like both subjects! [i'm really going to miss my french class... :(])...sooo, if you could be praying for us as school winds down, that would be wonderful...
i think that's a brief overview of what's been going on lately...don't forget to be praying for the chapmans!!

wow...it's been a while

sorry everyone...it's been quite a while since i last posted...sooo sorry 'bout that...life has been crazy! for some reason, teachers decided to pile on homework and tests for the past 2 weeks...strange, i know! so, what's been going on in my life lately (not that anyone actually cares or checks my blogs anymore, but oh well!)?? well, last weekend, i went to the authentic beauty conference with a bunch of my friends (and my lovely sister), and it was awesome!! the speaker was bethany needham, our counselor's name was melissa, and they both rocked!! it was bethany's first time speaking at a conference, and she did an awesome job! :) she talked about the lies we girls believe and how we need to attack them head on with scripture and disprove those lies that satan is feeding us! a couple of her favorite verses were--
pslam 45:11- "The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord." (talking about God to us!! He's enthralled with your beauty!)
psalm 139:17- "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!" (God thinks about you all the time, and His thoughts towards you are precious!! how cool is that?!)
sooo, that's what happened last weekend....it was awesome!!
today was kinda crazy, i had a math and physics tests, and a Bible paper due! i was dictating my schedule for this week to sophie on sunday, and she was typing it into her phone (don't ask me why...), and all of it didn't fit!! that's one way to know your week is too full-- it doesn't fit in someone's phone!! :) anyways, then after i got home, i had an interview for camp (woop woop!)! mary is awesome!! hopefully i'll get to work there this summer, i'm so excited! :)
yup, so that's what's going on with me...tomorrow, my dad has surgery on his knee (please pray!) and friday we're having a group come to do skits and bekah's favorite church is coming, too, although she won't be able to see them because she's going to be flying to thailand (you can pray for her, too! i'm gonna miss her soooo much!!)

i think that's it...oh, and i put more pictures from sophie and meghan's photoshoot up on my photoblog (i finally got them all on the computer, edited, and ready to share!), so you can go check those out and let me know what you think!!
have a great rest of the week! :)

pride and prejudice

soo, last night was the last performance of the play "pride and prejudice" that my high school did!! i went with my youth group, and it was amazing!! one of the amazing seniors in our group, bekah, was elizabeth, and she did a spectacular job!! she had sooo many lines to memorized, and she did them all perfectly!! so, great job everyone who played in it, it was awesome!! and bekah, you were amazing!! :)

beautiful weather!!

wow, we've had absolutely beautiful weather this past week!! sorry for the lack of posts, the past 2 weeks have been really busy with school and such. so, hopefully more posts soon! :)

poetry

aaarrrrrgggghhhhh.....i have to write a blank verse for lit....for one thing, poetry is nice, but i can't write poetry. period. that's ashlee's department....soo, we have to write 10 lines, with no end rhyme, and every line has to be 10 syllables, and every other syllable is unstressed and the others are stressed (it goes stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, etc.) (it's official name is iambic pentameter)...sooo, at the moment, i have 9 lines that are sorta kinda iambic pentameter and sorta go together, and i only need one more!! so i should probably go write that....yea...

i just found this cool avviee...

soooo...

i was just checking out my awesome jc from a couple years ago's blog, and now i really miss berea!! :( hopefully (if i get my form thin filled out and sent in!) i'll be working there this summer, which would be awesome! :) soo, last week was my first week of "normal" school after vacation and interim...it was rather long...sorry if i was acting strange at youth group last night...i was just really frustrated...my day hadn't started off well (literature, and then health...health was what really killed it, we talked about abortion and all the horribleness of it...which was frustrating to me), and then just i guess the way people were acting at youth group didn't help any...whatever...anyways, sorry 'bout that! sooo, i think i'm going to get off the computer, brush my teeth, journal, put up pictures in my room, figure out what i want to do this summer (only 9 weeks of school left!! WOOP!), and work on my application for staff at berea this summer!! :) ttyl!
i'm going through this awesome devos book called "God's Priorities For Your Life For Teens" and it's really good! i would definitely recommend it to anyone. it has little short thoughts on a whole bunch of topics and verses and quotes from awesome Godly authors, etc., to go along with the topic. here are just a couple quotes and verses from the section i read yesterday on patience (anyone who really knows me knows i have issues with patience, and it was really good for yesterday...)
"God is never in a hurry" -Oswald Chambers
"The next time you're disappointed, don't panic and don't give up. Just be patient and let God remind you He's still in control." -Mex Lucado
"When life is difficult, God wants us to have faith that trusts and waits." -Kay Arthur
"Wisdom always waits for the right time to act, while emotion always pushes for action right now." -Joyce Meyer
"God has chosen you and made you His holy people. He loves you. So always do these things: Show mercy to others, be kind, humble, gentle, and patient." -Colossians 3:12 (ncv)
"But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently." -Romans 8:25 (nlt)

pennsylvania and interim

soooo, as most of you know, i had school vacation for the past 2 weeks, and my family and i went to pennsylvania to visit a family we haven't seen for a while. we were there for all of last week, and i had an awesome time! :) we went into philly 2 days, stayed overnight at gettysburg (with our pillows!), went to lancaster, a.k.a. amish country, got to see a family from our church who moved down there and got to meet their new daughter!, and had a lot of fun with our friends! it was so much fun, and i miss my friends so much, but i have a lot of awesome memories and a whole bunch (a.k.a. 100's!) of pictures to remember the trip!!
so, after the past 2 weeks of vacation (which were awesome!), we're back to school again. at my school, we're having a week of "interim" where we have a morning and afternoon class all this week that are different from regular classes (like this week we have fencing, medical specialties, ballroom dancing, hip hop, computer programing, scrapbooking, and a lot more!), and even though this is my very first one, it's been a lot of fun so far! :) i'm taking an all-day class called digital imaging, which is just awesome! i get to take pictures and play with photoshop all day, what could be more fun?! so far this week, we've photographed at my school, 2 town's centers, a church and library in boston, and we've been to a photography museum (which had a really cool exibit with photographs from ellis island by stephen wilkes). it has been so much fun!! it was kinda funny, because we went into boston today, and when we were walking back to the t, we passed a big group of people all with the big "pro" cameras, and we were like, woah, they're doing the same thing we are!! it was pretty cool! :) so, i've taken a couple 100 pictures...maybe i'll post a couple on my photoblog...idk...
anyways, just thought i'd give y'all a brief overview of the past couple of weeks for me! :)

you're so kidding o_o

this is insane, i don't have school today!! o_o the reason why this is so insane is that we've only had 1 snow day this school year, so it's rather surprising that we wouldn't have school day. soooo, i now have a whole day ahead of me, and no vocab quiz!! yeay! :) i don't know what i'm going to do with myself! sooooo, you know what would be really funny? if it didn't even snow. ha. that would be crazy. but my mom assures me it will snow, so, we'll see! it hasn't started snowing here yet....
today's the famine (hopefully!)!!! yeay! i can't wait, and hopefully we'll still have it even with the snow...i hope so...
anyways, that's my random story for today, hope y'all have a wonderful day! :)

prayer, please

ashlee's going to shadow someone at my school tomorrow, and she's also doing an interview, too. she's in the process of applying for my school, so if you could pray for her, that would be awesome! pray that she wouldn't be nervous, and that she and my parents would have peace about her education, and just calmness knowing God's in control of everything (we definitely learned that with my education!)!! so, i'll try to keep y'all updated with ashlee's education, but for now, just pray for her! God is totally in control! :)

I SURVIVED!!!!!

i survived midterms!! *sigh* they're finally over!! (don't anyone say anything about finals. *grrr*) they were o.k., i guess, to quite as tough as i thought they'd be, but still my first, so they were definitely different! :) yea, so, now it's back to regular school on tuesday (yeay for 3 day weekends!! :)). we had history and physics last wednesday, Bible and french thursday, and math and literature on friday! so...anyways....go check out my photoblog! :)

nothing...

i have nothing really to post about...school's going pretty well...soccer's almost over, i'm happy and sad at the same time...maybe i'll actually get some time once it's over...but i love playing...hopefully i'll be able to play indoor...naomi has a game tonight, under lights...should be pretty fun! :) i got my progress report...if you seriously want to know my grades...e-mail me...well, i guess i'll talk to you all later! :)

dream deferred

dream deferred
langston hughs

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

*deferred means put off

that was the poem we discussed in literature class today. i though it was pretty good. we have been learning not to just read something, but to read it and dig deep into it to find a hidden meaning to the words. the part i really liked in the poem was how the author sort of described the different things that could happen to a dream that has been delayed or put off. i liked at the end where he says "or does it explode?" to me, that's like if you delay a dream, while you're waiting for the opportunity to carry out the dream, determination and excitement to carry out the dream to your fullest ability grows inside of you. i just thought it was a pretty cool poem!

no time at all...

i know, i should be posting more to tell you all about my adventures in "real" school, but with "real" school also comes "real" homework and also "really" no time! so, as some of you know, i leave between 6:50 and 7:05 in the morning and get back around 6, then i have to eat, do homework and sometimes shower (if i have time) before bed, so i think i have somewhat of an excuse formulating at the moment for not blogging for long periods of time!! i really would like to post so much more, but i have no time!! today was just kind of one of those blahhhh days...i really needed a hug, and not just any hug, but a hug from bekah, and i didn't see her 'till after school, so today wasn't exactly the best day of my life. but, whatever, everyone has those days...now i have to go to soccer practice...that has been going pretty well. i'm on jv, but i'm what's called a "swinger" (i'm on varsity, too, and do things with varsity when jv doesn't have anything. i'm also one of the captains of the jv team, which is pretty cool!! jv's had 2 games, we were supposed to have 3, but the other team didn't show up for the first one. we won the 1st one, 2-1 and lost the 2nd, 6-1. :( our next game is wednesday, and if anyone wants to come watch us, let me know, and i'll give you our schedule!! alrighty...now i really have to go get ready for soccer...talk to you all later!! (i miss all you hsers sooooo much!)

i really am alive!

just letting you all know again that i really am alive!! school's going really well, it's now been a week, and i'm not terribly stressed out or tired (yet!)!! soccer is awesome!! i'm on jv, but they want me to play and practice with the varsity whenever the jv doesn't have something, too. tomorrow varsity has a game and jv has a game friday, so i'm looking forward to those!! all the teachers are really nice and great! the kids are, too! so, just wanted to let you all know that i haven't fallen off the face of the earth (all though that might be kinda funny, in a scary sorta way...). i guess i'll talk to you all later, and please don't stop praying! i've gotta go finnish my homework!! :)


we will never forget...it's been 6 years since the terrorist attack on the trade centers. remember to pray for the familys of those who were killed, and never forget that God knows what's going on, and He's got it all under control, even when we're lost and confused!!

soccer, school, and random

so, i survived preseason!!! yeay! last week was really, really, really busy! it started off on monday with the 9th grade retreat for all the freshmen. it was pretty cool, and i think it was really good to get to know people before the first day of school, so you aren't walking in on the first day and knowing 2 people. so, i met a lot of people and a bunch of the teachers, too. the retreat went from monday to tuesday, and we slept over at a church. on tuesday afternoon, i started preseason for soccer. it had already started for everyone except the freshmen on monday, but we couldn't go because of the retreat!! sooo, my coaches (coach mike [he's a character, that's all i'm supposed to say!], coach scott [he's great!], and coach becky [she's great, too!]) are awesome, and so are the captains (jamie, kelsey, and holly)! preseason was really, really, really intense!! we did a lot of fitness, like running/sprinting, push ups (real ones! *cringe*), sit ups/crunches, and things like that. it was most definitely intense, and i was sore for the whole week except for thursday and friday. oh, we had 2 sessions in the afternoon which made up preseason, session 1, which was from 1-3, and session 2, which was from 5-7. so, on wednesday during the 2nd session, all the freshmen and sophomores scrimmaged against coach mike's club team! we won, 1-0, but it was just a scrimmage. it was pretty fun, just to get to actually play, but we were pretty bad, seeing it was the first time playing together! oh, another thing, on wednesday's last session, the coaches said that they were going to post varsity and jv teams the next day. so, i'm on the jv team! all the freshmen (except for 4) are on it. well, now it gives me something to work for! :) on friday instead of our sessions, we had a scrimmage against a public school. it was good, i guess! we played a 40 min. half, two 20 min. quarters, and then 30 more min. mostly the varsity team played for the 40 min, and the 20 min quarters. then the jv team got to play for the 30 min. at the beginning of the 2nd 20 min quarter, our coaches were telling everyone where they were going to play, and he said something like "and tori, you're going in on defence with jamie. we're playing 4 now" (we had been playing 3 in the back before that) "just listen to jamie, and you'll be fine." i was just like O_O no way! i think i was the only freshman on the jv team to play during the 40, 20, and 20 min. i thought that was pretty cool! jamie is totally awesome! she's an amazing soccer player, and really patient and just great! soo, i got to play center back with jamie in the last 20 min, then i played center back with emma and jamie (during the 30 min)! we lost something like a lot to 0, but it's all good! soccer is so much fun! :) all the girls are really friendly and just plain awesome! so, jv has practice every other day, while varsity had it everyday, but next week, there's a tournament thingy for the varsity, and the coach said he wanted me to play with them! another O_O no way! moment! lol! so, we had a busy week, and next week is the start of school (the 4th is the first day), so that's going to be interesting!
a couple random things, i found my locker!!! it's pretty cool! there are 2 different kinds, little gray ones and big blue ones, and i got a blue one!! :) happy, happy! and i opened it all by myself a bunch of time! now the question is if i'll be able to open it during school! so, if you all could pray for me, that would be totally great, i'll definitely be needing it! :)
another thing that made the week a little busier! we had orientation on thursday. it was pretty cool, saw a bunch of people i knew, and got to know the layout of the school a little better!
so, i guess that's all for now, happy 1st of september (already!)!!