Abnormal, Cheap and Extremely Fun WINTER ACTIVITIES!!!

As winter approaches, we all know that secretly, we are dreading those cold dark days where we have to stay inside all the time and always be cold and watch TV and become pale boring creatures who pretend they never get sick of hot chocolate, watching snow fall, and chick flicks. That might be a dismal way to look at things, but come on, it's true (at least for me cause I live for the summer).

So if you are in my boat, and you live somewhere like, say . . . Colorado? And you don't ski much and you are a broke college student and you want to have fun with your boyfriend(s) and girlfriend(s) and normal friend(s), I got your back!! I have compiled a list of 22 fun things to do on those cold dreary days! Yeah, some of them might be what you did when you were 12 and that might be "below you" now or something. Just consider that maybe it'd be a good idea to stop worrying so much about being an adult cause it's over rated anyways. So without further ado....
Here is the Best Winter Activity List Ever!!!

1. One word: Forts. Yup. Just do it! Get a bunch of blankets and couch cushions and teddy bears and chairs and figure it out! Make it a competition if you please, who can make the best fort?! Then shoot paper airplanes at each other! Or create army's and throw soft things at each other to destroy the others fort! Or just cuddle.
2. Left Hand Art! Draw/paint pictures with only your left hand (or right if you left handed (if your an ambidextrous do it with your feet or something)) Just have fun making the worst art ever! It will really help you appreciate children's art.
3. Cheesy Poem Day! Whether you do it for an hour or the whole day, only communicate in poems! It's fun and funny! So have fun with it! Unless you want to be all romantic with it, you can do that too.
4. Video Game Day! Play allll those old video games from when you were a kid! Don't worry about winning, but still be competitive! And I guarantee this will be awesome
5. Write A Song Together! Even if you aren't musically gifted, just do it! Or find someone who is who can help you out. It's just a lot of fun to write some silly songs or super deep ones expressing your most inner feelings.
6. Bored (oops!) Board Games! So fun. Once I played a barney matching game and candy land for over an hour, and it was so fun! Never underestimate board games! Especially if you get real competitive with the ones that require very little to no skill! 
7. Nerf Fight! Or fake gun fight that doesn't shoot anything. No one wins but the more you get into it the more fun it is! (This is a great one to play with young kids).
8. Christmas Lights Gazing! We can't all afford zoo lights (maybe, maybe I'll go this year!) but at the expense of fuel money, just drive around a very affluent neighborhood and enjoy their hard work!
9. Snow Forts! Tunnels, hills, caves and walls! If it snows a lot, use it!!! Also snow ball fight, snow men and snow angels! And snow sculptures for the artistic types. And snow paint.
10. JUMPSTREET!!! Or your non-colorado equivalent. Its not very cheap, but its always fun!
11. Be A Kid At The Mall! Go down to a mall, see santa, write santa a letter, go to the disney store and color, play on the play-places, play with legos, build a bear at build a bear, try all the perfume, try on a wedding dress you don't intend to buy, play tag, the possibilities are endless.
12. IKEA.
13. SpongeBob Marathon! Then quote it for the next five weeks.
14. Play With Barbies! Just like the old days. Get out all your houses and clothes and just do it! This is especially an opportune time if your going to visit the parents where all your childhood toys are. If you lack creativity, get going by imitating celebrities with your barbies! And how you imagine they would interact with each other (e,g; Miley Cyrus, T-Swift, and J-Law! All trying to date Harry Styles!)
15. Bake Cookies! Then give them to people! Or eat them all.. Either works.
16. Conduct A Psychological Study! Create and write a hypothesis, then people watch and take notes! Evaluate your information and make a quick write up about it! Marvel at your results and think of reasons to explain why people behave this way (Note: this may not be for everyone, some people really like psychology okay?)
17. Work On Your Body . . . Then Show It Off! Go to the gym! Then have a pageant/fashion show/go to the indoor pool. Because honestly, what's the point of working out if no ones going to see it? And we gotta have motivation to stay healthy in the winter somehow.
18. Learn To Dance! Umm . . . youtube! Learn the thriller, or the wobble, or the duggie, or country line/swing, or a Britney Spears dance!
19. Pull Pranks! Early April Fools, no one will see it coming! Put laxatives in cookies! Ask for a drive in order to be "dine in"! Hide behind toilet paper section at the store and jump out, ask the nearest person what year it is, then say the time machine worked! Look on pinterest for more ideas.
20. Make Your Own Commercials! You can really have fun with this. Grab a camera and some random products (shampoo is a fun one) and go for it!
21. ScrapBook! Cause when else are you gonna do it? Might as well be in the winter.
22. Don't Forget Real Parties! With all the fun you'll be having, it might be easy for christmas and new years parties to slip by, so try your best to remember them! Enter them on your phone and write them in red on your calender!

Remember the most important item to have during all these activities is to have a fun person with you. Whether it's your boyfriend, girlfriend, normal friend or family member, chances are you'll have a ton of fun. You can make anything fun when you're with a fun person =)

I wish you the best this winter! Don't freeze, don't stress out, and just have fun with what you've got!

Elysia =)

Running Towards Freedom

The best feeling is realizing it's not my responsibility to make other people happy. I'm not bound to anyone, anyplace, or anything. So . . . it's time to be happy again!

Lately, I haven't been very happy! Shockingly. I am almost always happy! So what's going on? Well, I realized something that I've known for a while, but have not yet faced. Last week I noticed myself trying to find a way to escape. Completely run away. From my family (although I very much love them!), my romantic relationship (although I very much love that too!), my school (which I'm enjoying!), and even the state of Colorado (which, wow! I also love that!). Then the question forms . . . why? Why do I want to escape from things I love?

The answer is: YES. (haha)

Yes I love it all, but when I dig deeper I realize that there are things connected with all of the above that are making me unhappy. And more importantly, these things are out of my control. Sure I can change my attitude and learn my way around it, and I've been trying to! But once I think about changing/leaving one thing, I realize I cant because it's connected to another thing, like chains. And it has become too much! I find myself becoming someone I don't want to be. My solution is to let all of it go. Not just change my location, I want to change everything! I want to start over from scratch! Because I've never started from scratch, and something novel seems much better than beating at the same old problems everyday, like rugs! After a while you might as well just get a new rug! You can beat the crap out of a super old one, that dust is not coming out.

So I'm switching schools! Switching states! I'm cutting loose! I'm chasing my dreams! This is the first time ever that I will be starting completely over, and man it's exciting! Making the choice (finally) has already made me feel so free! A weight has been lifted and I am certain this needed to happen.

If you're dealing with poisonous people and/or situations that are out of your control and it's dimming your little ray of sunshine and you just don't feel good, I encourage you to be brave and make a change. A complete change. Don't imprison yourself with negativity. Just let it go! Start over. Choose who you want to be, then go be it!

It's not really running away, it's running towards freedom. It's a new start, not dragging around a sack of regrets, in fact it's the exact opposite.

Yours truly,
Elysia =)

Gossip: Haters Gonna Hate

My subject today will by no means be very different from what I have written about before. Maybe because this is something I'm slammed with constantly in this world where we inadvertently hate ourselves. I wish we didn't. I'm truly trying to learn to love myself and I've done a pretty good job and I'm happier. Because I have been able to make this huge change in my happiness, I know others can as well and I want them to more than anything. It's what I'm basing my education around, it's what I hope my career allows me to help people do, it's why I'm writing this. The world would be a better place if we all loved ourselves a little more.

This subject was triggered by this picture.

This is not okay. This meme acts like it's okay. Too many people think this whether they say it or not. This comes back around to my favorite psychological principle: projection! A term used to explain that we project  traits we dislike about ourselves onto other people. This is the main reason we do not like other people and it stems from not liking ourselves. Often times we don't realize we share the trait we are hating in someone else, in fact we sit there fuming and thinking "I would never do that!" when in fact we would and we do, and that is precisely why you hate it. If we don't recognize that, we wont change ourselves for the better, we'll just hate other people. Reflect on the people you know: maybe someone you know hates gossip more than anyone else you know. Do they gossip too? Maybe someone you know hates people who show off, do they show off too? You can tell a lot about a person by what bothers them, rubs them the wrong way, or what they hate. Because that is a reflection of who they are. This applies to everyone.

When I was sixteen, I was the girl who really hated gossip. I thought it was the most unfair thing, that people would say what they want without you there to defend yourself. I thought all the people who talked about me negatively when I wasn't around were the cruelest cowards. While all of this may have been true, I seemed to hate gossip more than most of my peers. I was also a gigantic gossiper. I seemed to do nothing else but criticize other people and I never confronted anyone. A year later when I was seventeen, the concept of projection was introduced to me. I challenged myself to stop being a hypocrite and to stop gossiping, no matter how much they gossiped about me. It took practice. A heaping butt load of practice! There were times when I caught myself in the act and I was able to abruptly stop. I realized soon that a part of not talking badly about other people meant I had to control my thoughts in addition to resisting the gossip itself. A year later I found myself defending everybody who was ever talked about badly around me, even if I agreed with what was being said. If I ever do say something mean, you can count on me to say it directly to your face.

The results were incredible. People trusted me. People believed I was good. People loved me. If I absolutely needed to get something off my chest, which I sometimes do, I would vent to my brother who was usually an out-group participant. The best part was I didn't hate everyone anymore. If they chose to say bad things about me, I didn't care. I knew the truth and that was all I needed. People rarely said bad things about me anyways because I gave them no reason to. I'm proud of myself for this change I made. Of course I'm not perfect and I still need to work on similar things now.

The point of sharing this story is to let you know you can do it too! If there is something you really don't like in other people, look at yourself and make an honest effort to not do that thing.

We live in a world where we feel like we have to act better than everyone else so we can be protected. If we act superior everyone will know we are better, right? No. This produces absolutely no good for you or anyone else. We shouldn't feel like we suck and everyone is better than us either. Rather we should realize that despite our differences, people are very similar. A few examples:

• We all have insecurities, even if some of us act like we don't (note: cockiness is a dead giveaway that someone is trying to cover a major insecurity). 
• We all have tough situations to deal with in life. Throughout everyone's lifetime we will all have roughly the same amount of hardships. A common misconception is assuming happy people don't have difficult things happen to them. This is simply not true, it is only their attitudes about their problems that make the difference, happy people learn from their hardships. 
• We all have something we can add to this world. We are not the same, we have unique talents and traits that allow us, at an individual level, to do things that no one else on this world can do.

I implore you to make a change today. If not for the sake of the world, do it for yourself. Pick whatever has been bothering you most about other people and put your best effort forward to never do that thing. I guarantee you will be happier, you will love yourself more, and others will be drawn to you. Don't allow that meme to trick you into thinking it's okay. It might be a true and honest concept, but it is not good. You are more than that, go out and prove it by loving yourself and others.

If you struggle with insecurities about your appearance, I wrote a post on that last July titled "What Is Beauty Anyway" if you would like to read that =) You can find it to your right at the top.

Marriage

Oh my! It's the "M" word! Let me just clear something up real fast: I am a 19 year old girl with an entire life ahead of me, I am not planning on getting married soon. But as a 19 year old, I have some older friends and marriage is this huge thing that is always surrounding me. People my age are going off and getting married. My older brothers and sisters talk about marriage (Getting married, engaged, divorced, etc.). I will admit, I'm already planning my FUTURE (did you catch the future part?) wedding. Among my mormon friends they are already stressing, in their mid twenties may I add, about getting to old to get married. And then there's always the weird stuff, like guys telling me why they would be good dads. I can't help it, when a guy is telling me why he'd be a good dad, it translates in my mind as "I want to have babies with you". Sorry, can't help it! Whether that's their intention or not.

 (On an unrelated note: I wonder how many lives in Africa were affected to make that monstrous thing?)

So yeah, marriage is this HUGE thing! And I have a couple of thoughts I'd like the share on the subject . . .

First of all! Pinterest. It's a wonderful place. I love it. However, the wedding section drives me insane. Partly because some of those "original" wedding ideas are no longer original if they are crawling all over the internet; everyone is going to have the same wedding with a few variations. But also because in the same wedding section, there are so many quotes and lists of what your man needs to be and what he needs to do before you marry him (i.e; hire a secret camera man to photograph your engagement, ask your dad and mom for your hand, be your best friend, etc.). Some of it is good advice, some of it is silly and not important and very unnecessary. My question is: where is all the stuff telling you who you need to be and what you need to do before you go off and get hitched? Where's that list? Cause I haven't found it. (I'm assuming the person reading this is a girl . . . bad assumption?)

I'm not at all saying we shouldn't keep our standards high for the men we marry, I simply want to know what the ladies are doing to deserve these great guys they are expecting. What are they doing?! We get what we are. You need to be amazing before you get something amazing.

I've come up with two main reasons I believe marriages fail.

In Psychology there is something called projection (look it up!). It is when we don't like something about ourselves, mostly subconsciously, but we see it in someone else. We project our flaws onto other people and it bothers us immensely (I've written about it on this blog under 'why hate taylor swift?'). This disliking of another person stems from not liking yourself; if you liked that part of yourself it wouldn't bother you coming from another person. People who don't like other people don't like them because they don't like themselves. This is the main reason relationships fail. It's the reason marriages fail. We blame others and tell them they need to change, when truthfully, we need to change just as much, if not more, than they do.

The second reason marriages fail is jealousy. Jealousy also stems from an insecurity within yourself. Either you aren't satisfied with who you are or what you have and you get jealous. Or you are not sure that you are worth not cheating on, which also leads to jealousy. Jealousy is the fear that someone else has something you feel you should have but don't.

My point is, relationships fail because of the individual. To be blunt, it is your fault. Yeah, the person you were with might be screwed up, but so are you. We get what we are. If you need to, disconnect from yourself for a moment and think about other people you know, your friends or your family, and their relationships and ask yourself if you believe this applies to them.If it applies to them, it applies to you too. It's a law of nature, what goes around comes around. We end up with people who are similar to us.

Now this is my philosophy: I'd like to share a dream of mine. I want to finish up college, have spectacular grades and a psych degree. I want to get a nice job, move into an apartment by myself, have a beautiful dog, and I want to be comfortably poor. I want to be alone. I will see people at work and have friends on the weekends. But ultimately I want to be completely alone. Just me and the dog. I want to go on walks alone. I want to eat alone. I want to read alone. I want to cry because I am alone. Because at the end of the day, you're alone anyways. And you always will be.

I've been called a cynic. But really, recognizing this makes you a much happier person! I want to be alone so I can learn to truly and completely love myself for exactly who I am. I want to be alone and be happy to be alone. I want this so bad that it makes if difficult for me to comprehend why anyone would want to get married before they are twenty five. If you'll recall my two reasons for failing relationships: projection and jealousy. With that logic it proves that it is simply impossible  to love anyone fully until you love yourself fully.

Divorce rate is up. We know this. And you can argue that it just went up because divorce became more acceptable and whatever, that's not the point. The point is marriage is failing. And it's failing because people are rushing into it. We are so afraid to be alone. But why? I'd rather be alone for a few years and love myself, then  find another person who truly loves himself, so we can love ourselves and each other together. Doesn't that just sound so much better than getting married and being with two people you don't really know or love (you and your spouse) then maybe even realize you'd rather be alone anyways (aka divorce)?

We expect certain things to happen in our lives. It might be the media or some innate human aspect that makes us want someone to come and love us completely, then through their love we can learn to love ourselves. This is not a reality. Because someone who would be able to love you completely would have to love themselves completely first, and in that case they would find someone similar to them, not some insecure whiner who feeds off of other people's opinions. Learn to love yourself. Be alone. Learn to love being alone. Don't settle.

I'm a nineteen year old sophomore in college with a lot of ideas and opinions. I am aware that I have very little credibility. But I have seen and experienced the world. I'm an observer. I wouldn't be spending my Saturday afternoon writing this down if I didn't believe it. 41% of marriages ended in divorce last year in the US. That's only first marriages, it's not even considering all the other years or all the people who stay together for the kids. If I were to leave you with a bit of advice it would be to not get married unless you can look at yourself and say with 100% confidence that you love yourself for who you are. You love yourself with all of your imperfections that you are working on and you are ready to love another person in the same way. Exactly the way they are. If you're already married then do this!

This is my dream. This is what I know is right for me. You might be an exception; you might already love yourself and not need time alone. But chances are, and statistics back me up, you are not the exception. I know that I'm not an exception. I depend on people a lot to feel good about myself. But I don't want that. So I'm changing it. My plan is to be able to love myself in the most complete way possible and to always continue working on being a better version of myself.  I am not expecting perfection. I know I have flaws and I know the person I marry will have flaws. That's alright. I'm not saying we need to silently submit to our flaws. The point of life is to become better. The person I marry will help me do that because they will love me.

I look forward to my marriage. I know it will be awesome. Because I will know I'm awesome, and he will know he's awesome, and together we will be as awesome as they come.

What Is Beauty Anyway?

Something has been on my mind lately. And it is something I truly struggle with. Not because I think I'm lacking in this area, but because I hate to see others feel as if they aren't worth much over such a ridiculous concept. What is beauty anyway? And does the way we look actually matter?

 Yesterday I went to a renaissance festival with the boy I’m dating. I wore a belly shirt and short shorts and . . . well, I got hit on a lot. By other guys. My boy was good about it; he laughed and made jokes which I really appreciated! Because it bothers me when people get super jealous. We had a bunch of fun together, but as we were walking out he said a little mournfully “My girlfriend’s hotter than me”. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t until that moment I realized dating me might have a toll on his confidence. People have told me before that I am too pretty for him, some people have even told me I shouldn’t be with him for that very reason. But I disagree. I think he is really cute. I always have; from day one. I don’t think he’s by any means ugly. And I certainly don’t think I’m that much prettier than him. But most of all, I just do not understand why it matters. Why does anyone care?

I remember a time in my life when I wasn’t sure if I was pretty. High school. I questioned myself. Boys did not like me, except an occasional geeky boy (nothing wrong with geeks!) that would confess and ya know, creepily stare at me and kinda freak me out. Anyway, it wasn’t enough to feed my dwindling teenage confidence. I would look in the mirror and pick my face apart until I found explanations for why boys might not like me. A frequent target was my nose. It was too wide in my opinion. One day in front of my bathroom mirror I stood there hating my nose. I took my forefinger and thumb and squished my nose in so it would look thinner, to see what I would look like if my nose wasn’t so wide. I didn’t look like myself. And I didn’t like it. I’ve done similar things with my cheeks, lips, and eyes; shaping them to what the world says looks good, and preferring the way I am over the world. Whenever I don’t feel pretty (it hardly happens anymore) I squish my nose to remind myself that I like the way I look and as long as I like it I don’t need to rely on the world to like it too. The funny thing is, after I stopped worrying if I was pretty enough, other people started to think I was really hot!

So what is beauty? Beauty is a mass of opinions. And because of conformity and a pinch of evolutionary instinct, as a society we have formed an idea of what is beautiful and what is not. But does this actually define beauty? Nope. You define beauty. In your own way. Everyone does. Some people think blue eyes are beautiful, others may not. Some people like big butts. Some people like small tits. We all have preferences. We all have opinions. Choose to love the things about yourself that you cannot change. Redefine beauty. Form your own opinions rather than go along with what others say. And for heaven’s sake, recognize that what is most beautiful is not something you can see with your eyes.

 I’m going to have an honest moment. Sometimes it bothers me that my boyfriend isn’t on the same level as me on the world’s beauty scale. It does. Because I’m human and I care what other people think. I don’t want anyone to think I’m dating him because he’s got money or I have no self esteem, neither of which are true. Lately I’ve been good at not caring about what their judgments might be. However, at times it is difficult. I'm working on it. I want people to understand what I see. I want people to see his little smile in the corners of his mouth. I want people to admire his sharp curve of his eyebrow bones. I want people to look at a face and find what is beautiful rather than what is not.

When I say this, I say it with complete sincerity: Everyone is beautiful. This might be cliché and cheesy but it’s true. There is not a single person on this earth who doesn’t have something about them that makes them beautiful. Whether it is their eyes, their teeth, their belly button, their laugh, their imagination, their movements, their presence, or even the lessons they teach you. Beauty is naturally found everywhere in this world. You can still agree with some of society’s opinions for beauty, of course. Just don’t allow it to destroy you.

Two more thoughts. First: the more you love yourself, the more you will love this world and your life. The more you love, the more you will be loved. Second: This is something I didn’t understand in high school and it drove me nuts! Boyfriends do not give girls confidence. But girls with confidence do get the best boyfriends.

Thanks for reading! I hope I successfully made you think about things, accept yourself, and get that warm fuzzy feeling. 

Hug

The difference is astonishing. The gesture is exactly the same. A hug.

Last night the hug was from a boy I think I know well but don’t. I felt his arms around me, tightly holding me, but I could feel that he did not want me there. In fact, the purpose of the hug was to make me leave. I clung to him as if my life depended on it. My hand slowly slipped away from my wrist, which was the hold that locked us together. Silently I begged him to want me there. It didn’t work and eventually I gave up trying to receive what was not being given.

I sullenly drove home. I remembered a very different hug from my brother.

It was after a high school 5k cross country race. I was 16 and emotionally unstable. Add endorphins and fatigue and you’ve got chaos. I crossed the finish line and started to cry. I’m not sure why. I said I felt guilty for beating two team mates when I didn’t deserve it, except I did because I ran faster. I was truly making a fool of myself. But my brother hugged me. I cried into his shirt and he held me together. In that hug he let me know everything was alright. I knew that I was wanted in those arms. I knew that no matter what; no matter how annoying, stupid, or silly I was, I would always be welcome in those arms. I would always be loved. I was safe.

A hug. The gesture is exactly the same. The difference is astonishing.

I miss my brothers.

Why Hate Taylor Swift?

I recently made a facebook post expressing my love for Taylor Swift as a musical artist and I was surprised at the response I got. People commented that they thought her music is nothing more than a whinny annoying girl who has way too many boyfriends, complaining about her life. And I really don’t get it. Why do so many people hate Taylor Swift?

I mean sure, she does not know how to dress herself in a logical or attractive way. She is NOT country anymore; she can’t even pretend to be country anymore! And she’s dated every mop-headed creep in Hollywood . . . and it seems like they were the ones who broke up with her. Weird. But, hey, she’s a child star who hasn’t completely lost it. She’s not on hard drugs or anything, no major alcohol problems and no major sluttiness. So what’s the big deal? Why hate Taylor and her very honest music lyrics?

In psychology there’s something called projection. It’s when an individual “projects” traits about themselves onto other people. This is why we don’t like other people. If we see a trait we don’t like about ourselves in someone else, we get super annoyed by that person. For example, Sally really hates her laugh, it’s loud and annoying. On the train one day Sally sat next to someone who was laughing loudly and it really bothered Sally more than anyone else on the train because she saw something she disliked about herself in someone else. Likewise, all the people who complain about Taylor Swift complaining in all of her music are the kinds of people who complain constantly.

Those who say “ALL” of Taylor Swift’s music is complaining obviously have never listened to anything by Taylor except the songs from the radio. I don’t mean to sound like a hipster, but they need to come out of the mainstream before they make their judgments. My personal favorites by Taylor don’t have a single hint of complaining (Enchanted, State of Grace, Treacherous, Jump and Fall) so maybe others should actually listen to her album before they play critic.

And, let’s be real. She writes her own music. That’s awesome. Very few musical artists do that. And she writes about what’s important to her and what she’s going through. Let her complain, it’s her therapy. If she can make a ton of money off of it, snaps to her! What she does is rare; there is only one Taylor Swift.

So really, Taylor has done nothing wrong. Anyone who hates her has chosen to hate her, for the sole purpose to hate someone. Before you decide to hate her, take a look at yourself and figure out what you can do to be a better person instead of rant about how obnoxious Taylor is.