I Left BYU-Ido Unmarried and My Life Is NOT Over

Hello world! I'm back after a long break! I was just reading over some of my past blog posts and I don't think it's cool to laugh at your own jokes, but I am hysterical. Anywho, so I've been thinking about doing this blog post for a while and finally got around to doing it because of some life events that have happened recently.

And for all you die-hard Liz fans, still not married, but we're getting there. Okay not really, but hey, I'm still open so boys come at me. But what really happened is I finished up my time at BYU-Idaho. Okay so I still technically have one semester left because I need to do an internship, but my physical time being in Idaho is finished!!!

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO!!!! 

Thank you thank you. Anyway, so I'm done with that place and boy was I ready to ship out of there! I mean, I have to look back and say I'm grateful for the experience and I met so many amazing people that I wouldn't have met otherwise (AKA my best friend Becca and others who know who they are), but Idaho just isn't my jam. I love the east and Virginia will always be home. And there were a lot of people who I assume thought I would get married because 1) we're Mormon 2) it's BYU-Ido, but I have to say I left there without a man and my life is not over. I know right, such a shock. I'll wait for you to regain consciousness...

Okay you good? Sweet. Yes I said it. And don't think I didn't want to get married. Man there were times I felt like the biggest lameo ever for not even having a boyfriend! I mean everyone else around me was getting shackled...uhh I mean hitched and there I am sitting on my bed...watching Netflix with my roommate sitting next to me yelling at her Netflix show (shout out to Dinosaur Head). I mean okay, I suppose it's hard to meet someone while I'm sitting on my bed, but I just felt like I wasn't going to meet THE ONE out there. I just always felt like he wasn't there which is completely okay. Not everyone meets their spouse at school. Some people have to get out into the world which is what I'm doing so I packed up all my stuff and moved back home and I am so happy. And I know marriage is supposed to make people happy and some girls act like it's the be all end all, but I have to say my life isn't over and I think I like it this way.

Again, I'll let you recover. I'm sorry for shocking everyone left and right, but as I've said, you have to be on your toes around me.

My life is anything but over and I'm really recognizing how my plan was okay, but Heavenly Father's plan is better and I'm glad it's better! It's been so much better to do things this way and I can't imagine life my way. In the words of one of my favorite people ever, 

And she is SO right! God's plan is always the best and He knows how to make life so great! It's amazing what happens when you let go, have a little faith, and take the leap! I'm doing this internship for my degree and I'm completing it with a professor at Virginia Tech and I met with her today and let me just say, I am so blessed. This is seriously the best opportunity ever. And it's so great that it came at a time when I was kind of doubting myself and thinking maybe I'd made the wrong decision. NOPE. I met with her and she told me as an undergrad, I'd get to help with research and put my name on a research paper that other people could use in their reference sections. ME, MY NAME WILL BE ON SOMEONE'S REFERENCE LIST AS AN UNDERGRAD!!!!! This is SO huge and I wouldn't have been able to do it without listening to that still small voice and talked to some people who's names will be sung to the heavens forever. Seriousy these people are the bomb. But I am just so grateful for how life is turning out. It just seems like everything is falling into place and just a little while ago, I was feeling like nothing was falling into place. I was sitting there thinking why Lord? Why am I just sitting here with my wheels turning and nothing is happening? I'm starting to see why now. He had to get certain things in place and have certain people be in my life. And I'm so grateful and glad I decided to have patience and stick it out. Some of you might be in a similar situation and be thinking, "Where do I go in my life"? My answer is pray and ask! He wants to help you and is just begging for you to ask. And for those like me who take the leap and then think, "Was this the right way?" YES YES YES YES!!!! Yes you made the right choice and everything will work out, you just need to have some patience and wait for it. And maybe someday I'll be on here writing about how my man showed up in my life at just the right time and I will be so glad it happened that way. 

Anyway, I think that's all for now. I hope you all have faith and perservere! Life is OH SO GOOD! 

Love,

Liz

Goodbye May Seem Forever

I really can't believe the semester is over! It seems like it just barely begun and now we're beginning to wrap up and move on. Well, I just want to take the time to thank everyone who has made comments and even taken the time to read my blog! It's nice to know that it's actually getting out and making a difference! I have really enjoyed doing this over the course of this semester and while at the beginning I was grumbling quite a bit, I have actually learned so much about the family just by spewing out my thoughts and what I've been learning. I think the main take away from this is family life is going to be tough! I think even now I have this ideal picture of what it's going to be like to be married and have kids, but that is not reality! It's going to be HARD WORK to be a wife and mother because relationships aren't something that can just be all hunky dory all the time and fix themselves overnight. They take a lot of time and we need to make sure we are doing 100% to make it work. Obviously as you guys know I'm not married and so I get a lot of what marriage will be like based off of idealistic couples on the Internet, movies, people I know, but what I have to realize is I'm only seeing the parts they want to show people. Everyone has their disagreements and nobody is going to be runway worthy all the time. I think if I go into my future marriage with a positive, but realistic attitude, it will definitely be in my best interest and it will be happier. Today I heard a quote that went something like this: "expectations lead to frustrations". Don't know who that's by, but I agree with it! If we have all these false ideas in our heads, they're only going to make us compare our spouses to false ideals that they will NEVER be able to live up to in this life and we'll just get let down by ourselves. I think families are so worth the effort and I love mine and can't wait to find a man and get started on my own, but it will be hard.

Anyway, thanks again for reading and will I keep up with this blog? I don't know! Honestly it has been so much fun to just rant about things that are happening in life or talk about what goes on in more detail so I think you'll be hearing from me in the future, maybe when I have something interesting to say (like future men).

I love all of you and I'll talk to you soon!

Love,

Liz

For Better or For Worse?

Hello all you lovely people! Uh it seems like the semester is just wrapping up so quickly and in some ways I wish it would slow down, but I'm just so excited to get back to Virginia to be with my family this year for Christmas. Last year I ended up staying out in Idaho to be a bridesmaid for a friend and I had to miss Christmas so I think this year I'm just so much more grateful for the opportunity to get to be with them because it's hard to be away during the holidays. And even though I'm excited for Christmas, I haven't actually done very many Christmasy things. I mean I have baked tons of cookies, put up a little Grinch dude in my room, watched "White Christmas", and listened to a bunch of Christmas albums already, but I feel like I never properly so I need to get on that! Though I will be purchasing some nog tonight so that's exciting.

So I just realized I haven't updated you on the guy situation. So it turns out it wasn't going to work out which honestly, is alright by me. I mean, in some ways it would have been nice to have gone on some dates, but it just wasn't going to pan out. I actually ended up Googling "how to become a nun" the other day while I was watching The Sound of Music because I just was so sick of boys. Don't worry, I'm not actually depressed about it, I just think it's funny to talk about it like it's the end of the world. But some other exciting news is I'm going to get endowed when I get home which will be so cool because I'm going to go through with my brother and some people have asked me why I'm doing it when I'm not going on a mission or getting married and the simple way to answer that question is: I just feel like this is something I need to do at this point in my life and I shouldn't hold back just because I'm not getting married. I feel like I keep putting things off because I'm expecting to be married by this time, but I've been learning that my time table hasn't been working and I really just need to follow the Lord's plan for me because He ultimately knows when things like marriage need to happen so I should just focus on getting my own life going and then I think it'll just happen. Or so I've heard, people tell me it usually happens when they're not expecting it.

Anyway, this week we talked about divorce and remarriage which I think it a sad topic because families being broken up just seems like a sad situation. I am so lucky that I got to grow up in a home where my parents stayed together so I can't say I really know what it's like to go through a divorce, but I'm sure it's tough. We've been learning that a lot more people seem to be getting divorced now and because of the no-fault divorce thing, people can basically just end their marriage because they feel like it. A lot of people end up getting back into some type of romantic relationship because everyone wants love in their life, which means blended families. I don't know what it's like to be part of a blended family, but I would assume that it would take some adjusting. A lot of times people have a hard time with it because they don't want this new person to take the place of their own parent and they just have a lot of mixed feelings towards this relationship. I feel like some people have a lot of success with this because they have a system worked out and they blend well, while others just don't get a long and the new couple's relationship can start to crumble because they are more concerned about how well their kids are getting a long together.

I don't have much advice about what to do in a situation like this, but I would advise that if people are wanting to get a divorce, they should really consider if it's worth it because a lot of times they can cause a lot more damage and it can take time to heal. I think a lot of people forget the commitment they made and when times get tough, they just want the easy way out of the relationship, but divorce is never the easy way. If you're struggling with this, go back over your vows and really evaluate if you could do more to help the relationship because most divorces happen because of selfishness. Try to mend it before you end it.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Liz

Gimme Gimme Gimme I Need I Need I Need

Hello all my lovely viewers! Boy, let me be the first one to toss the harpoon and say this week has been EXHAUSTING! I mean not to be all whiny, but I was not exactly thrilled about coming back to school from Thanksgiving break and I could have used a few more days. But I guess it won't do any good to complain about it so I guess I'll just use this time to gush about my break! So to start, I went down to Utah and stayed with my paternal grandparents and we wasted no time getting out of Rexburg. They actually joked and said, "We were sure you'd be sitting on the ledge outside your apartment just waiting for us" which is partly true except I wasn't outside because baby, it's cold outside! OHHHHHH YES it feels so good to get to quote cheesy lyrics from Christmas music! I think I actually started listening to it on November 30th because I just couldn't wait anymore. Some of my favorite artists have been Michael Buble, Bing Crosby, MoTab (obvi, I mean I AM LDS...), the Piano Guys, and please don't shoot me down for this but...Justin Bieber. Yes I said it and I'm not going to repeat myself so I'll just move on with my story. So when we got to Utah my grandparents decided to go computer shopping FINALLY because theirs was SO old and with the tech wizard around who provided free set up, why the heck not right? So we got this really sleek desktop from HP (fav brand) and that thing is nice. So we brought it home and I set it up and then I spent all night fiddling with it and may have discovered I have workaholic tendencies because I actually forgot to eat for a while...part of all the staying up was because my grandparents want to get more into genealogy and I was trying to set up their LDS.org accounts, but for some reason my Gramps' membership number wouldn't work so I just had to call it a night.

So the next day was Thanksgiving and we had my uncle's family over since my grandparents only have my dad and my uncle so we are pretty small in numbers on that side of the family. Let me just say I think I'm the one who ate the most of everything (especially pie) so boys if you want to take me to a restaurant I promise I will eat all my food and I'll eat it really fast and then stare at you because I'm done eating which really means sharing is caring... ;)

So then on Friday my grandparents finally had me sit down with them so I could show them how to use their new computer and let me just say this was one of those times when you wanted to have a pillow handy to scream into. I swear the simplest things like just clicking on an icon, my grandma would be like "but I just don't see how you got to that" *head desk over and over* I love my grandparents, but they just aren't brave when it comes to technology. They kept saying I could do it because I'm smart and am young and I was like no, young people don't know what we're doing either, we're just willing to sit down and take risks by figuring the thing out. I happened to be on my grandparents' computer again and I was able to figure out my Gramps' LDS account finally! I went on there and said I forgot my username and it said it had already been registered under "1stMcTavish" and so I just switched it to my Gramps' new info and then walked out and was like "Well I figured out your LDS account. Apparently some idiot tried to register it and it was under this 1stMcTavish username". My Gramps then said "Oh that must have been me because I had to use it for a church calling at one point and I must have forgotten". I left the room and my grandma was like "Ha so you're the idiot". Needless to say she got a kick out of that. *face palm Liz* I also got to go see Mockingjay part 2 that night with my mom's side of the family and it was FREAKING INTENSE!! Like my aunt and I were on the edges of our seats with our coats up because it was like I CAN'T WATCH BUT I CAN'T TAKE MY EYES AWAY!!!!!! So then I came back to Idaho and that was the end of my weekend. All in all, a great break and I wish I could go back, but this just means we are closer to Christmas and I can listen to all the Christmas music I want AND I CAN DRINK ALL THE NOG I WANT AND I CAN BREAK OUT MY GRINCH SWEATER!!!!!!! OH YESSSSS!!!!! Sorry for so many stressed phrases, but this time of year is just my favorite!!

Anyway, I feel like I should probably get to the main point of my post and not bore you to death with my stories. So this week we've been talking about parenting, especially needs. Basically the main point was a lot of times, parents focus too much on the behaviors of their children and they try to correct these when they should be trying to find out the needs of the child because they could be acting out because they are in need. So now I'm going to throw in a scene from What About Bob because a) it's a great film and b) it's freaking awesome and c) I think it really applies.

This part just gets me every time! Bob is acting exactly like a needy child because he's really annoying so he's trying to get attention from Dr. Marvin because he's in really bad shape. :) We discussed how children have 5 basic needs: contact, power, protection, withdrawal, and challenge. So 1. children need to have contact from their parents or better yet, have a sense of belonging. This could mean anything, but mostly when I think of this I think of physically being there for your child. As parents we also should never hold it from them as punishment and we should give them opportunities to contribute so they feel like they are a valuable part of the family. 2) Children need to have some sense of power in their lives. They need to be able to make choices and experiment. But along with this, the parent also needs to teach them about choices having consequences and let their children be a part of deciding what their consequence should be. For the most part, parents should let their children make their own choices, but there are 3 instances where this is totally inappropriate: exceptions are too dangerous meaning the child could get hurt, it has gone too far, and others are going to be affected. Other than that, ease off the throttle and if your daughter wants to wear orange with purple, let her make that choice. 

3) Children need to have protection and this means they need to learn to be assertive. Sometimes they'll have to stand up for themselves and they need to know how to confront people in a nice way about problems. 4) Withdrawal is key because they need alone time. I know my I crave my alone time because it is the best way for me to recharge my batteries after a long day. Kids need to learn when they should take healthy breaks and then be ready to jump back into work. And 5) challenge. Kids need to take on new things because it makes them feel good when they've done something they never thought would be possible! Don't you remember a time when you just felt like doing your happy dance because you did it?! (Mine usually goes like this...) 

I know, classy right?

But in all seriousness, doing hard things build skills and makes them feel good about themselves! And we all want happy kids right? So now that we know all this, now what?

Well going back to choices, sometimes as the parent it's hard to deal with the behaviors of our children and sometimes they make bad choices in the heat of the moment. What's a parent to do if their child has a problem? Well first the parent should give them a polite request to let them know they need to knock it off, then they should use "I" statements to let their child know how it makes them feel, then they should use a firmer statement, and if all else fails, logical consequences. Logical consequences should be:

• planned in advance
• involve the child
• give if/then, when/then choices
• logically connected to natural consequence
• give choice once, then act
• be firm and friendly
• choices you can live with
• let child try again

So we're not trying to tear our child down, we're trying to help them. And it doesn't help if you ask what their consequence should be and they say something like "burn my bike in front of me" if they leave it out repeatedly.

And while this does look appealing at times...

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!! That's not nice and I REALLY don't think you could live with yourself if you burned your child's bike.

So lesson to be learned here: kids have needs and they need to be met. Bottom line. 

Anywho, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and I'll see you next week!

Love,

Liz

P.S. Gifs from Google and videos from YouTube.

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.