Dad Is Great, He Gives Us Chocolate Cake

Hi! Happy Thanksgiving this week! I hope everyone is able to spend it with their families and friends. I'm down in Utah this week spending it with my dad's side of the family and it's been pretty great so far! It's nice to get away from all the hullabaloo of living in a college town and get to spend it with people I care about. I would LOVE to be back in Virginia with my immediate family because up until I came to college, I was with them every year and so it's still kind of hard not to be with them, but I'll take my extended family any day!

Anywho, so this week in class we talked about dads which is one of my favorite subjects because dads are awesome! I think it's sad that a lot of people don't put a lot of emphasis on fatherhood because in this day in age, a lot of guys just don't stick around.

To lighten the mood, I thought I'd put up some pictures of me and my dad because he is awesome!

This is when I first met my dad. He was in the Air Force when I was born, but I got to meet him a few months later.

Dad and I. We were a couple of cool cats. 

The fam before my siblings. 

And last but not least, dear old dad and I before I went off to college. I'm getting a little farklempt!

Anyway, so there's a taste of memory lane. So we discussed in class that dads have a HUGE influence on their children! I feel bad for people who didn't have a dad in their life because I don't know where I'd be without mine! Sure my dad wasn't perfect (I mean who really is?) but I love him a lot and he means the world to me! He's worked long hours at a job to put food on the table for us, he's been to EVERY performance he could make it to because my siblings and I are into music at school, he drives us around like the chauffeur, and so much more! 

My dad has taught me a lot in my life. I mean, he's not my mom, but that's okay because he's not supposed to be. Dads have just as much influence on kids as moms do. Children need to be brought up in a home with a MARRIED mother and father because kids need the influence of both. 

In class we also talked about how women can help men want to be dads and it basically came down to appreciating what they do for the family! I feel like a lot of guys have to skate through family life not getting much appreciation for what they do because they do a lot like providing clothing, food, shelter by working long hours all week, being there for their kids by supporting them at school, and the list could go on forever. Basically, guys just need to know they are being appreciated and know they're doing something right!

I think I'm going to wrap up for now and I hope everyone has a spendid Thanksgiving and you all eat tons of turkey and pie (or whatever you like to eat, and if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, have a great week!) Sorry if this post is short, but I'm just not into my homework groove right now...

Love,

Liz 

Alpha, Bravo, Do You Read Me? Over...

Hello all! Guys I am LITERALLY on cloud nine right now. Like, it's insane! So like last week when

I mentioned I would talk about the guy I like if anything happened, well it happened!!!!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Okay so let me lay it all out just so we are on the same page. So on Tuesday I was sitting there and was like okay I need to talk to this guy and I sat there and I ended up putting pressure on myself meaning it didn't happen, I end up psyching myself out by thinking about how weird it was to just walk up and talk to him or how everyone would judge me. Well, that night I got a visit from my Relief Society president (shout out to Tessa) and we were talking about life, things like school, how much I hate sociology, the norm. Well we started talking about dating and I mentioned there was a guy in one of my classes who I liked and then I lamented about all my failed attempts at snagging him and you know what she told me? She gave me probably the best advice I have gotten in a long time. She told me I needed to just talk to him, which I then tried to make excuses about, but then she said "you just need 20 seconds of crazy courage", you know those times when you just get a bee in your bonnet and just do things? Like that. So I made a plan. I decided to just get over the fear and so I just sat by him. And the conservation just started flowing. It was incredible! Like now that I've done it, I can't believe I was making it more complicated than it needed to be. Silly Liz. And I also realized I'm not as rusty or bad at flirting as I thought I was.

YEESSSSSSS!!!!

So anyway, that is that. I'll keep you posted if anything happens, but for now, just know I am so excited I took the leap of faith and just did it. It's so amazing what can happen when you just trust and let go of all your fears.

Anywho, so...I'm so distracted that now I don't remember what I was going to say, oh yes. So I know how much you would love me to keep blabbing about my life because it's SO entertaining, but we must get down to business, to defeat the Huns...no Liz! Real business.

Ugh fine... 

So this week in class we were learning about communication and conflict, which I have realized is something I still need a bit of work with. Sometimes I think I'm communicating when really people are just in the dark. Especially guys, but I think they're just clueless to a lot of things girls do so I don't feel too bad about that. Now, we learned in class that most of what we communicate is actually not what we say, only about 14% of what we actually say is actually how we feel. Most of it is nonverbal like body language and our tone of voice. Now, I would say this is pretty accurate because sometimes my body seems to tell people what I really mean when I don't actually want to say it. I think this is a problem a lot of girls have because we expect men to understand us by our body language, but really they have no clue. Like in my experience, I have to actually say what I want and then they do it. This makes me think of a funny example of my parents. So in my family, we like any excuse to get ice cream because we are ice cream people. So my parents were going to stake conference and my mom wanted to stop off at a McDonald's for some ice cream because it's her favorite. They're driving down the road and my mom is subtly hinting she'd like my dad to stop, but he doesn't. We have a TON of McDonald's on the way to our house and so basically, mom didn't get ice cream and she was mad. She tells me later that "I kept telling him to pull over and he didn't do it once". At the time, I was like oh my gosh what the heck, but then when you think about it, he probably would have stopped if she had actually said "I would like to stop for ice cream. Pull over to the next McDonald's." It just goes to show that men and women really need to talk more because there can be a lot of hurt between them if they don't understand how the other person is thinking and feeling. Ugh humans, when are we going to learn? 

Sometimes we might not want to bring something up because it doesn't seem like it'll be a big deal, but we really need to do it because it could lead to problems later. I had a conflict with a coworker recently and when I decided to just say what I was thinking and talk about it, the problems just went away because we had a greater understanding of how the other person saw the situation. So it ended up working out in the end to just be open and willing to talk.

Anyway, I hope all of you have a GREAT weekend and don't worry, next week I'll let you know how it goes. ;)

Love, 

Liz

Gifs are from Google.

You're Testing Me

Hello all! This is a regular post again, not me bragging about my blog or anything...because that would be prideful. ;) Anyway, this week has been...eh and I say that as has had some good moments and bad moments. I think I'm so far into the semester that everything is just ugh can I be done now?! This week I've been especially exasperated with boys because they just don't seem to ask me out on dates. Now, I'm not saying they all need to be clamoring for my hand and at my door begging, but I'm just saying a nice date where we go out to get to know each other, to become friends first before anything serious happens, would be ideal. But no. The guys are just too busy doing something else or they're just afraid because everyone seems to think any male-female interaction will lead to marriage within 3 months. Um no. Yes, I would like to get married, but I think it's important to be friends first and if guys would just man up and ask us out, we could all get to know each other.

As you might be able to tell, I have a pretty assertive personality and so this whole "sitting around waiting them to ask me" thing is really driving me nuts. I'm trying to have faith and know that my future spouse is out there, but I think faith also requires action so you'd think I'd be asking the boys out, but they don't seem to like that too much, they think it makes me "aggressive" and "desperate". *head desk*

And again...

What would you like me to do gentlemen? Sit here until I graduate? Um no. But I also don't want to come off as aggressive because guys have huge egos and like to feel like it was all THEIR idea when we all know who REALLY was doing all the behind the scenes work. Am I right ladies? But anyway, there's this guy in one of my classes whom I would like to go on a date with, but I just don't know how to go about doing this. I think he likes me because with all my psychology knowledge I was able to kind of get an idea based off of body language (me over analyzing the situation, maybe I was misreading and it was all in my head. AH I'm doing it again!!)

and so I asked some people what I should do and I got answers ranging from message him on Facebook to just talk to him. (Side note: we have never spoken in person so I thought the random message on Facebook would be a little weird, some of my guy friends agreed.) I feel like the best course of action would be to talk to him, but this is hard for me because I just don't walk up and make idle conversation with random people. So I was planning on doing this this week, so I gathered up my courage, did the whole "I'm going to put my things back in my backpack EXTRA slowly so we can walk out together", and we ended up walking out at the same time, but then our teacher ended up leaving too and they got to talking about something important and ended up leaving me in the dust. I ended up going home and calling my best friend, lamenting that it was never going to work out and this was a sign. Oh the drama. But I ended up going visiting teaching yesterday and I actually was helped by my teachee (shout out to Mckenzie, you're awesome). Anyway, she basically gave me a pep talk about meeting her fiance in one of her classes and I should keep at it. She basically just said we need to become friends and maybe this means I need to put forth effort to talk to him because maybe he's just as petrified as I am. I don't know, what do y'all think? Guys especially, do you have any tips for me?

So you might be wondering, what does this have to do with this class? Well, this week we talked about coping and how trials can be opportunities. Basically, we started off the week with Brother Williams asking why bad things happen to good people. Well, I believe this is because if only good things happened to us, we would get prideful so we get knocked down a few pegs because we need to know what the bad feels like in order to appreciate the good. We could look at trials as opportunities to strengthen relationships, become greater, and become more humble or teachable. I feel like for the most part I have been very blessed and have a good life, but it just seems like things never get any easier. I mean, I have to say after I have overcome something and something new starts, I look back and think "I can't believe I was such a wimp. That was so easy compared to this." But that's just the nature of life, constantly learning and growing. So now we know that trials CAN be looked at as something good, but we still have to go through them. This does not make them any easier to overcome. What we learned about coping is it isn't just simply getting by, it's a reaction, so we can either choose to be happy or irritated during the trial. We compared coping during trials to that of the coping of a pool. The coping of a pool is the ledge and we talked about how it needs to be smooth, strong, and keeps things where they belong.

It needs to be smooth because we don't want to hurt ourselves getting out of the pool, it needs to hold our weight because we wouldn't want to be crumbling into the pool, and it needs to be higher so it can keep the water in. I thought this was interesting because when we are coping in relationships, we need to make sure we aren't damaging ourselves and the relationships we have with people, we need to keep them strong so they can't be knocked down, and we need to keep things from getting in the middle. I don't think in my situation I need to necessarily worry about relationships with others, I need to make sure my relationship with myself is strong so I don't get knocked down during my trials. This might sound a little narcissistic (forgive me if it does), but I think before I even get into a relationship with someone else, I need to have myself figured out and be able to get through my own trials so when I do get into a relationship, I can use my skills to help us. And I'm not going to sit here and say it'll be easy because it won't. This life is meant to be difficult to help us grow.

Life is going to be challenging, but I think it'll all be worth it in the end. And who knows, maybe I need this guy in my life to teach me how to talk to people. Or maybe something could grow from this. I don't have all the answers, but I can at least try and not give up before anything has even begun.

Well, I hope you all have a SUPERB weekend and take some time to relax. I'm going to because I'm getting out of here for the weekend!!! I know, FINALLY!! A wonderful, saintly lady from my old home ward has invited me to stay with her for the weekend and I'm taking this opportunity to decompress. And hopefully next week I'll have some more stories to share with you, especially about what happens with said guy!

Love,

Liz

P.S. Images and gifs are from Google.

VICTORY SCREECH!!!

Hello again. May I just say that my day has just been made by the TA of my class. Like seriously. I don't know how many of my classmates actually read my blog, but I'm totally posting this anyway. :o)

Do you see this people? OH YES. OOHHHH YESSSS. I'm glad that people actually find my banter to be amusing.

So to celebrate, enjoy this gif:

#crushedit

And don't worry, I'll still be posting my mandatory post tomorrow, it's just so fun to post random stuff on this blog! :D

Love,

Liz

WE LOVE YOU NOGGY!!!!!

PEOPLE!!! YOU WILL NEVER GUESS SO I'M JUST GOING TO TELL YOU!!! :D

IT'S NOG TIME! OH SWEET NOG YOU ARE THE LIBATION THAT MAKES MY LIFE COMPLETE!!! AND YES THIS REQUIRES ALL CAPS BECAUSE NOG IS MY LIFE...no literally, my mom says I was gestated on egg nog because that's one of the few things she could keep down. So therefore, I love nog.

Here's me enjoying my spoils:

As you can see I'm quite excited!

Anyway, this isn't a regular post, that'll be on Thursday probably, but I just had to share this exciting moment with you!

Love,

Liz

Watch Out for Garth Flint

Hello all! I'm sure all of you are wondering what my Halloween costume looked like so I'm going to show you! (Or maybe I just liked my costume way too much not to share it with the world, whatever the case, y'all are gonna get some pictures).

First of all, teaser picture! This is the one I Instagrammed first, by the way, follow me @liztrom. Shameless promos, yeah!

A very dramatic side view of my costume. 

And last, but not least, there's little ol' me. 

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked, but I just love getting into my costumes. And now we get to look forward to Thanksgiving AND Christmas!! AND EGG NOG!! Yay egg nog!!

Literally me like every year.

Ugh, I keep doing it, okay Liz, stay focused! No more gushing about upcoming holidays, that will come later...in other posts... :3

So, some of you may have clicked on this post thinking, "Who in the world is Garth Flint?" Truthfully, I don't really know either, my teacher told us a story in class about a guy with this name and I was thinking, "Oh that would make such a cool title!" (Sorry Brother Williams, I listen to your discussions I SWEAR! I just like making my blog cool...). So nonetheless, watch out for Garth Flint, I mean even if that's his real name. You never know, I could have totally butchered the name because I wasn't paying close enough attention. I wouldn't put it past myself...but from what I vaguely remember, I think it did have to do with our discussion about infidelity today. Which reminds me, so this week we discussed all things regarding physical intimacy and infidelity. I'm not gonna lie, it was a very interesting discussion because a lot of Mormon people just don't talk about that subject very much which I think is very sad because Mormon children grow up thinking sex is bad and it sends the wrong message. What usually happens is we are taught all our lives that we shouldn't have sex with anyone but our spouse and so the message is no, no, no, no, NO! and then we get married and all of a sudden it's yes? WHAT. I mean I'm not married yet and so I haven't been through this, but I imagine that when the time comes, it'll be a little weird to think I can basically share this experience with my spouse whenever. I mean, I think I have a somewhat basic knowledge about the whole ordeal because my parents have shared things with me when I've had questions and obviously I've learned things from all the Einsteins at school, plus time in human development classes, so I think I won't be TOO freaked out on my wedding night. 

But seriously, why are parents so afraid of teaching their children about sex? I mean we all grow up and develop those feelings for other people and most of us end up having sex so what's the problem? Sure it might be awkward to have "the talk", but would you rather them get good information from you or the kids at school? Personally I'd rather my children learn about it from me because I'll be able to give them information according to their age and they won't have to hear about all the sick nasty stuff a lot of people do in the world. I've been reading the book Between Husband and Wife: Gospel Perspectives on Marital Intimacy for another class and yes, I know I'm not married yet, but I would have to say this is an excellent book with great information. If anyone has questions about this topic, I would highly recommend checking it out. Also, if you're at the stage when you're thinking about having the sex talk with your children, I'd look into A Parent's Guide on LDS.org because it's a great resource for how and when to tell children about sex because you can actually start at a young age by explaining how their bodies work. And even though these are written by Mormon people, we're all still humans and I think this would be great information for everyone! 

And speaking of sex, infidelity is something that really isn't good for a marriage. And you may be thinking infidelity can only be physical stuff, you'd be wrong. You can be unfaithful to your spouse just by thinking about someone else! There are a few stages of infidelity that we learned about and the first is fantasies or thoughts. These can be dangerous because a murderer wouldn't just go out and kill someone first right? They'd think about it or get angry, and then do it. Everything we do begins with our thoughts. This can even be stuff like having a favorite actor and going back to pictures of them and fantasizing with this person. That really isn't fair to your spouse because you might start to build unrealistic expectations in your head that your spouse can't live up to, like porn. THAT IS NOT REAL LIFE PEOPLE. Some other forms of infidelity are visual such as literature, music, etc. and having romantic affairs or emotional connections with people. I think these can actually be more harmful than just having sex with someone because sure, you've developed that physical bond with them, but in an emotional relationship, you're sharing deep feelings with another person that allows them to get closer to you. This can be really dangerous with social media because people start to reconnect with old flames and get lost in the old days. I know sometimes it doesn't seem like you're trying to be unfaithful to your spouse, but if you're thinking about other people besides them, you are I'm sorry to say. 

So basically, be faithful to your spouse. You know, most people who have fidelity problems in their marriages actually end up staying together and they find their marriage is stronger because they've been able to work through something difficult together. I hope none of you ever have to go through this, but don't put yourself into positions where it could be a temptation. It's really not worth it. 

I hope you all have a good weekend and I just want to take this time to thank everyone who's read my blog and written comments. It really helps to know people actually read what I have to say! 

Love,

Liz