I've Got the Blues

Happy Halloween this weekend! I hope everyone is excited to go out and have some fun that night! If any of you are wondering what I'm going to be, today is the big reveal because I promised you last week! So I'm going to be the 1939 Wicked Witch of the East. Yes folks you read that right. I'm going to be this one

minus the house. It's a pretty simple costume, all I really need are tights and red shoes which I have, but I'm going to jazz it up with a little green nail polish and a witch hat just to add to the costume. I guess it would make more sense to walk around as a house with feet, but eh, too much work. My inner Wizard of Oz fan girl is totally fan girling at this moment because I was in love with the Wizard of Oz when I was little. I think this will be the second time in my life I'm going as something Wizard of Oz themed.

Anyway, so this week I've got the blues, and no, not depression blues and I'm not singing about the blues, we're talking baby blues. And no, I'm not married and have never had a kid so not really, I just thought it would be creative.

This week we talked a lot about how after the children are born, a couple's relationship takes a strain and it goes down every time a new child is brought into the family. Like I said before, I've never had a kid strain my relationship with my invisible man so I can't say for sure this happens to everyone, but I would say this is pretty true for a lot of people.

Now, we talked in class about martial satisfaction going down because women tend to really bond with their baby and spend so much time with them that the husband starts to feel neglected. I think this would be very true for my relationship because I am the type of person who can only take so much touching and people in my space before I start to feel drained. I think if I spent a lot of my time with my baby, I probably wouldn't want to be touched by my spouse because I would just want some personal space. I could see that bringing my husband's satisfaction down because even though I had a baby and spend a lot of time with it, he still needs that physical love from me (and no not just sex), like hugs, kisses, cuddles, the whole enchilada. While I think it's not fair for me to not want to be touched all the time, I think I will need some time where I'm just by myself to recharge. I'm not saying I'll never be available for him, I just need some hands off time. I would kind of describe myself as being like a cat. When I want to be touched I am all for it, but when I don't want to be touched, well it looks a little like this:

Scary right? I don't think that would be fair of me to make my husband live like that, not knowing how to react to me or when to even talk to me. I think this is something I need to improve with because it's not fair of me to expect him to be available when I feel like it, but not be available for him.

So the other important part of avoiding the baby blues is involving the husband in every step of the way. I don't know what it's like to be pregnant, but I can assume that the man probably doesn't know what it's like either and so he can't relate to his wife and doesn't experience having a baby in the same way. I think the baby isn't real for the guy until it's actually put into his arms at this hospital. I mean, I'm sure he notices his wife changing, but he can't feel all the changes. I think one important thing a wife can do is let him feel when the baby is kicking because the mom feels it all the time and so it's probably second nature to her, but he doesn't feel it kick and so if he feels it, I think the baby will become more real to him. I also think it's important that the wife involves the husband in shopping and preparing for the baby. I think a lot of women assume he's not going to be interested in shopping for the baby and so they do it all themselves, but I think that's just because they haven't interested him in a way he'll respond to. I'm sure if you phrased it as "what do you think OUR baby should have?" he would definitely want to be involved because now it's his baby just as much as yours. And you never know, he could find the shopping experience enjoyable. But let him have the opportunity to surprise you. Also last point, I think there could be tension in the relationship if the wife is constantly at him for not doing things right with the baby. I know moms probably have a more ingrained sense of what to do, but if it's a first baby and I was the guy, I would be a little annoyed with her because it's like "Do you really know what you're even doing?" Just because he doesn't do something your way doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just a different way of doing it. Maybe he's afraid of hurting the baby and you yelling at him is only making it worse. So just cut him some slack and take a chill pill. I don't think he's intentionally trying to hurt the baby. RELAX.

So I think that's all I have to say about that. I mean I'm not a mom and I'm not married so if I'm wrong, don't quote me on any of this, but I think these are some good tips to keep in mind because marriage isn't going to be a cake walk all the time and if the baby gets in the way, it could make life miserable for both of you. Spend some time connecting and I'm sure your relationship will make it through the child stages. Also, have a happy Halloween and I'll see you next week!

Love,

Liz

P.S. The pictures are from Google.

Baby Don't Hurt Me No More

Howdy! Can you all believe October is almost over?! Like seriously, where did all the time go? Speaking of which, Halloween is coming up and boy am I excited! Now I'm not one for all the scary junk, but I do like to dress up. And I go ALL out. For the last 3 years at least I was a flapper and this meant I was a legit flapper, not just someone who put a feather in their hair and called themselves a flapper, no I did my research and looked pretty legit if I do say so myself. Anyway, I've decided to retire that getup because eh, I wanted to do something new. Now, I'm not going to tell you guys all of my Halloween ideas because I'm very particular about keeping my costume ideas a secret because they're pretty creative. I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to it (yes I know I'm lame, but whatever. I have to have some fun don't I?) So since it's closer to Halloween, I guess you'll just have to wait and come back next week to read what I'm going to be because I'm not spilling the beans! Ha, incentive. Anyway, I suppose I should stop rambling about my life and get to talking about my class, you know the drill.

So this week in class we talked about a topic that is VERY popular among people my age: love. Yes loooove *said in a sarcastic sickeningly sappy way*. So we actually talked about that yesterday in class and my professor Brother Williams (at BYU-I we call our professors by "brother" and "sister". Yeah, it kind of weirded me out too, but you get used to it. It's actually like being at church 24/7) posed the question "what is love" to which most of the class started singing, "What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more". Yeah, REAL original guys. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but these are just the thoughts that go through my brain so yeah...anyway so we had to get with some people and discuss what love meant to us and in my group we were all like "pshh, beats me". I basically said that I think the world's definition of love is the passion that they feel with it, the overwhelming feeling of being with someone. I don't know, that's a pretty philosophical question so I was just kind of stumped. Apparently it is actually very hard for the professionals to define as well so I guess I'm not too lost, which is good. Then we discussed if love means different things in different languages which I think English should have because we have one word to describe everything we love like "oh my gosh I'm in love with this chocolate right now" or "I just love you so much"! I mean, I guess you can differentiate based on how they say it, but it's still kind of confusing. In Greek, they have four words for love: eros, philia, storge, and agape. Eros is basically romantic or sexual love, the kind that gives you warm fuzzies when you're snuggled up to your one and only...ugh it makes me sick (bitterness alert). Philia is basically brotherly love, storge is parent/child love, and agape is service and wanting to improve other people's lives. If I totally butchered those, I'm sorry world, I'm just going off of my notes. So then he asked if we can have all of these for our spouse and we mostly agreed and I think we need all of them because if we really love our spouse, we will want to have that romantic relationship, be best friends with them and love them in that way, want to protect them, and then just wish for their well-being just because. I think in a worldly sense, people think love is just those feelings you get for loving someone romantically and I think that's why a lot of people feel so unfulfilled because they crave a deeper kind of love than what happens when two people first get into a relationship because most married people know, once the passion wears off, then what? To put it bluntly, I think a lot of people suck at developing companionate love because people are selfish, they spend too much time worrying about what they will get from the relationship when they should be worrying about the other person and then their needs will just come.

Now I'm going to say I don't have experience in this department and at this point you might all be thinking "oh hogwash, why should I listen to you when you have no idea what it's like?" Well, you might be right about that. I don't know what it's like to be romantically in love with someone frankly because I haven't met anyone who I would want to feel that with (okay sort of one person a little bit, ). Sure I've gone on a decent amount of dates with guys (by the way, I'm not dating anyone if that isn't clear. I'll let that one sink in), but none of the boys I have met at BYU-I are worth their snuff. And why would I say the guys at BYU-I aren't worth the time of day? I'll tell you why: they're selfish. Most of the guys I have gone on dates with only wanted one thing and that was to noncommittal make out for however long. I have one story in particular which I'll share with you. So about a year and a half ago, my good friend (I'm not mentioning names, but guy I went out with, if you're reading this, you know who you are) decided she wanted to help me out because apparently I'm lonely, and she wanted to set me up with a guy so we could go on a double date. Naturally I wasn't going to say no because I suppose it's good to get out once in a while, and so I said yes. The guys show up and take us to the store to get some stuff for making some dessert and then we were going to watch a movie, the usual not very creative, cliche, Mormon date (this is a cue to think outside the box. If you take me out on some cliche date, it's not good because it looks like you put no thought into it and you use this idea with every other girl) and during the movie, this guy eventually puts his arm around me which I thought was pretty good since this was a first date. They drive us home at curfew and this guy says we should get together again blah blah blah, end of date. I hear from my friend a few days later that apparently that wasn't enough for this guy, apparently he wanted me to be all over him because he liked to make out with girls he went on dates with. WHOA SIR. If he had been there I would have slapped him. I can't believe he actually thought I was going to make out with him on the first date, like seriously who does that? Desperate people? Well I was like good thing I'm not seeing that douche canoe ever again.

So yeah, guys are jerks. And I won't get into the story about a guy who was using me as a placeholder while his missionary girlfriend was away because you probably don't want to hear it. Maybe if it comes up again this semester I'll enlighten you with the details, but that about sums it up. Oh don't worry, he didn't get any if that's what you're wondering. He was shut down HARD. But enough of that. Basically, when I was in high school I was so excited to come to college to meet mature guys, but it seems like they're just stuck in the high school phase. Even the returned missionaries are bad, which are mostly who I've gone out with. It's like the second they get home they're like okay, let the douchebaggery commence. Ugh morons. Do you seriously think you're going to get an amazing girl with that attitude? So to sum up yes I don't know what romantic love is like so I can't sit here and preach about how amazing it is, but I'm going to hold out for some guy who really proves he's worth it because I'm only going to go to the next step of dating with someone who is serious about me. I know my man's out there somewhere and I know he's coming, I just have to be patient. Sometimes it seems hopeless and I wonder what's wrong with me, but maybe that's just because I'm being saved for someone worth my time. I'd like to think that because if I've been doing all this work to make myself better, my man had better be on my level.

I want someone who wants the romantic stuff, but takes the time to really be my friend. I want someone who will work beside me. I want someone who will encourage me to chase my dreams because he believes in me. I want someone who loves his Heavenly Father and will put Him before me any day. I want someone who I can laugh with and probably at me because let's face it, I'm hilarious. I want someone who will protect me from other people, things, and even myself. I want someone who listens and does the little things because the little things matter. I want someone who would rather just do nothing with me than doing something extravagant. I want someone who has ambitions and dreams of his own with a drive to pursue them. I want someone who will love me at my best and at my worst because I can't promise the honeymoon stage will last forever. I want someone who doesn't tell me things are impossible, but tells me I can do it and will help me. I want someone who will love our kids. I want someone who is a worthy priesthood holder. I want someone who sees things from a different perspective and has the courage to voice his beliefs because I'm not going to be the leader all the time and make all the decisions. I want someone who wants the best for me even if he's mad at me. And I want to be all of these things for him, and more.

Ladies and gents, hold out for the person who will do these things for you and whatever else you want in a person. Hold out for someone who is worth it and isn't just there for kicks. I know the warm fuzzies feel nice and believe me, I have felt them briefly with one person before, but that's not all what love is. Wait for someone who just wants to be your friend with no strings attached and you'll find him/her. It seems life really starts to turn around when you're focused on becoming your best self and serving other people. I'm still in the process, but I have faith my person is coming.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great weekend! I know I am! I'm going to be carving pumpkins! See you next week.

Love,

Liz

Gender and All That

Hello everyone! Happy 3rd week of October! I can't believe it's already halfway through the month, time really goes by when you're having fun...mmm...nope, that's a lie. It goes by no matter what you do and even though you try and wisely use every hour of the day you find yourself falling behind you're like stop time stop...but I'm not speaking from personal experience or anything...

So this week in class, we talked about a HUGE topic in the media right now and by the title of this post, I think by now you know I'm going to talk about gender, but more specifically, gender roles and such.

Now, first I'd like to say don't get your panties in a wad, you all are free to have your own opinions of what gender means, but this is mine. So at the start of class,  we started out by discussing a quote by G. Steinham: "We badly need to raise our sons more like our daughters". Um, excuse me? Yes I understand women have been oppressed in the past, seriously as a female I say "go, fight, win" to all my fellow females, but really? Why do we need to turn men into women? I believe they are men for a reason because 1) their divine nature  2) they're physical bodies 3) why do we need more women in the world? Personally, I like being around guys better because women can drive me up the wall! It's like yes we know we have this need to connect, but seriously, can ya give a girl 5 minutes to herself without peppering her with all the questions like "OMG you look so cute today, where'd you get all your clothes" "how was your day?" Yes, thank you for the compliments and asking about my day, but I don't really feel like talking right now so I'll just go in my room now. Like do girls just not pick up on body language as fast as everyone thinks they do? I mean not speaking from personal experience or anything, but sometimes girls are annoying.

This is actually one of the things we discussed in class this week. So in the girl mind, whenever people don't talk, this means they're upset and guys are just enjoying the silence. Personally, I'm with the guys, I like quiet car rides home and just being quiet in general and when people feel the need to talk the whole time, it kind of gets on my nerves. I told this to my coworker and he was like "You'd be perfect for any guy, seriously, we don't need to talk all the time!"

But I think the differences between guys and girls are awesome and we shouldn't try and mesh ourselves together because we need each other. We also discussed how female and male babies are treated differently: females tend to be coddled and boys are kind of left on their own, but I think this is really important because as the providers, presiders, and protectors, they need to know how to take care of business and not get emotional all the time. And I'm not gonna lie, sometimes it is nice to have a stronger person around to open the pickle jar or lift something because why would I strain myself when you can do it with no problems? I mean believe me, it's taken me a while to get to this point, but I'm glad I did because now I can have my pickles and you feel like a man. Win win.

While I do have all sorts of girly tendencies and I still think I think like a girl like according to what I said above, I think I was a little more coddled when I was little, though I would also say I kind of have a few masculine ways of doing things. It's funny because I think this is the reason it's hard for me to live with roommates because they want to connect and talk and I'm like eh, I'll be in my room thanks. I have a friend who calls me the "man in our relationship" because she'll ask me about something I give one word answers and I can tell she thinks that's not good enough. I'm sorry to all my females friends, but I've been like that since I was little. My mom says I was the one who asked for fire trucks and dinosaurs even though I still had dolls and Barbies growing up. I think I was coddled a little more than my sister though because I had asthma growing up and so when dad was teaching everyone how to do yard work, I never got to learn because mom didn't want me to start having breathing problems. Thanks mom. But even though I'm quieter, I still think my divine role is to be a mother and I wouldn't trade being a woman, though I could do without the monthly visit from dear old aunt Flo.

Which brings me to something else we discussed: transgender. Now, I don't want to judge anybody too hard, but I just don't think this is right. It really bugs me when people think they can change their gender and then act like they know the struggle. Um, no, you have no idea what it's like to be a woman. Take Bruce Jenner for example, oh excuse me, Caitlyn. It really bugs me when this guy changed himself into a "woman" and then parades around acting like he knows what it's like. You have NO CLUE what it's like to be a woman and it just really bugs me because people are trying to mess with something that has been decreed before our earth life. Gender is an essential characteristic of who we are because we all have different things we were put on earth to accomplish ( https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng )Women are here to give birth to children and give them physical bodies, while men are to provide the spiritual salvation by having the priesthood and giving blessings. Even though we are different, we complete each other and we need each other. In the Bible, it says that Eve was a "help meet" for Adam, but when you look up meet in the Bible Dictionary, meet means something fitting, proper, qualified, and suitable (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/meet?lang=eng&letter=m ). Eve wasn't lower than Adam, she was on his level because she completed him. Men can do a lot of things on their own, but without women, they can't progress and it would be kind of a waste to be on earth.

So all in all, we are male and female for a reason. It is who we are, who we were, and who we will be. It can't be changed and we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord.

Thanks for reading, hopefully you all aren't too offended, and I'll see you next week!

Tradition, tradition!

Howdy! Sorry to be throwing everybody off, but I decided to write my post a bit early this week because we talked about traditions in class today and that just seemed like a really good topic.

And in case anybody was wondering, yes I got the title for this post from a beloved classic "Fiddler on the Roof". (Sidenote: I love musical theater so if I ever say something that sounds like a reference to a musical, it probably is!)

There he is, the man himself, in all his glory. Tevye is awesome!

Anywho, so today we talked about what traditions are and basically what we came up with is a tradition is part of a culture because it is celebrated/held in certain groups and they are inherited patterns of thinking and behavior.

So that got me to thinking, what are some of my traditions that I've picked up? And yes, I brainstormed all of these during class while I was doodling in my notebook and not really paying attention (sorry Bro. Williams). ;)

So I'm sure like me, most of you think traditions have to be something huge like a holiday thing, which a lot of mine are because those are the ones that come to mind first, but one of my fondest memories is every Christmas Eve, we have our family party and by "party" I mean all of us eating a cheese ball and lots of other unhealthy stuff, then we gather round and my Dad reads us "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". It's literally the best thing ever and even though we're adults, I still insist that he read it because my Christmas is not complete without it! AND he always reads it in this Grinch voice that totally rules!

We love it so much that one year we all got our own books! 

AND is this not the best Christmas sweater you've ever seen?? It's green in real life and AWESOME! Oh yeah, we go all out!

And this is probably one of my top 5 favorite movies ever.

But I'm not here to sell you on the Grinch, even though all of you should live and breathe the Grinch. Just sayin'...

Another holiday we like to do things for is Thanksgiving and while I'm on that subject, in my family we DO NOT celebrate Christmas and start decorating until the end of Thanksgiving day, otherwise that's just sacrilege. So what we do is my sister practically makes the whole freakin' meal because she's the Iron Chef of the house and my dad makes these AMAZING rolls that are SO good that I'm starting to drool just thinking about them. Pity I'll be missing them, again, this year. I'm not bitter or anything...

And then another one is not huge, it's something we do every week, but every Sunday we gather around and usually have some big dinner like corned beef and cabbage, roast, or stew during the winter. It's freakin' good. And then because we just have done this for year, we have FHE right after that because my parents just did it for years so it's kind of weird to have FHE on Mondays while I'm at school.

That reminds me of something else we talked about in class today: we talked about marriage and how when people get married, sometimes traditions can be tricky because everyone is so used to doing things their way, that they can scarcely bare to think that they'll have to *gasp* compromise! I mean I'm not married, so I can't judge what I'll be like when I get married, but I do know that if I don't get to spend Christmas Eve with my family at least once...I will be one very unhappy Liz. And not to be a baby about it, but it's hard to let go of what you've known for so many years. I'm sure I'll be able to work something out so I can start new holiday/family traditions, but I hope I still get to carry out some of my traditions with my family someday!

Hey! Why don't you guys interact! Comment below a tradition you had growing up! That would be fun to learn about because it's interesting to see how other families work!

Anyway, as always, have a SUPERB week and I'll see you next week! :)

My Kid is My Therapist

Hello my lovelies...and loveliers? Not sure how to make that sound more masculine, but all the same, hello again! I hope you've all been having a fabulous week! My week has been full of school, work, and laying in my bed every morning saying to myself, "If I don't go today, how much will it effect my grade?" Don't worry, I haven't skipped...yet. ;)

Anyway, so this week in my family relations class, we were talking a little bit about roles people have in their families, unspoken rules in the home, and patterns because we're talking about family systems theory and how the things we do affect our relatives down the line.

So first I think I'll start with roles. I'm not an expert on marriage by any means simply because I am not yet married, so please don't shoot me down. :) In class we talked about how family members often play a certain role and it got me thinking, what was my role growing up? Then I started thinking about the career I am aiming towards which is a family lawyer. In my mind, being a lawyer is basically it's like being the mediator, going in between the judge and the client, or simply just between clients. Whatever the situation calls for, I'm basically there to make sure nobody does anything stupid. And I was thinking, hey, I've basically been doing that my whole life. My siblings liked to use me as the person who went and asked mom a question or if we could do something because I was usually the one who was on mom's good side and so if I asked, she would usually say yes. I was also the person who would go to my siblings and kind of talk to them on a more personal level when they would get mad because otherwise they would probably do something dumb to get themselves grounded. Also I was the person my mom would go to if she wanted to talk about something, not like she didn't talk to my dad a lot, but I guess I was just "on her side" a lot of the time. I think this is fine in some instances, but I can see how it can be damaging because when I was home this past August, one of my dear siblings kindly informed me that I was one of the "feds" (this is a term meaning I am part of "the man" or the people in charge, something like that). Personally, I'm okay with this because I believe that if my siblings tell me something kind of concerning, I should inform my parent because I'm not really the person who should be helping my siblings, it should be my parents.

Nonetheless, it was still kind of awkward to be called a fed because it's like there was a divide in our family. I think a lot of the time, families can feel divided and there are alliances formed in order to back each other up. This can be damaging for a family because we're supposed to be able to talk to each other and be united, not tearing each other down (by the way, I'm quoting my mom here so mom if you're reading, hi, and I listened to you so don't worry). Still, I don't think I'm completely a fed, there are times when I'm just a sibling so I would count myself as a double agent. And what I said before about parents talking to children about issues, I think this is fine if the child is old enough to really understand what is going on, but I don't think it's okay to basically consider them to be a personal therapist. I had an experience when my dad was deployed when my mom really relied on me to basically be a second adult in the house and I remember thinking, "I'm only a kid! I'm not mature enough for this!" Parents, please tell us things and keep us in the loop, we want to be included, but if it's something that pertains to your marriage, please keep it to yourselves and work it out with a professional if necessary. Kids aren't supposed to be the therapist, we're not mature professionals who know what to say and do, plus it kinda divides the parents and makes the situation worse.

Secondly, rules. Now, at first my teacher was like "write down 10 unwritten rules in your family" and I thought this was going to be challenging, but once I started going, it was actually kind of funny to read what I'd written because they were rules that you basically had to live by or else you'd get your head taken off.  I don't want to go into too much detail and write all of them down, but a few that I wrote were, "Don't sass mom during family night, otherwise it leads to a lecture", "don't mess with Ben or he'll tattle which leads to another lecture", and "we expect you to practice the piano because we paid for lessons and if you don't you'll get a lecture about that, but don't practice when we're home because it annoys us because it's loud. So basically never." As you can see, most of the time we tried to avoid anything that led to a lecture because those could go on FORever.

Those might not be too big, but I just thought it was kind of funny to see what really shaped my point of view growing up, especially when it comes to living with roommates because it's tough to live with a bunch of people who grew up differently! Sometimes I wonder if I'll have these rules in my house, but I guess I'll just wait and see.

So I think that's enough of my rambling this week, I hope you all have a good weekend, happy October 3rd tomorrow (Mean Girls day), oh and if you're LDS or not LDS, watch General Conference this weekend! I am so excited to see who the new apostles will be and hear some council from prophets who have been called of God. If you're interested, the sessions are on Saturday from 10AM-12PM, 2PM-4PM and Sunday from 10AM-12PM, 2PM-4PM mountain standard time. Oh and there's also a priesthood session for the guys, but I have no idea what time it's at.

Here's a link if you're interested: https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng