Maybe you have a new job, new city, new school, new goals, new family member, new relationship, or new hardships that will challenge who you are and require you to give more to certain areas than others.  Oftentimes one area of your life can be extremely demanding and you can forget that you need other areas of your life fulfilled in order to find balance.

It’s a good idea to set aside some time to think about the different aspects of your life that are important to you and make sure that they are all getting the time and attention that you need.  Here are some areas of your life to think about:

• Relationships w/ Friends & Family – Think about your friends and family that are near and far.  How much of a part of your life do you want them to be?  Are you being a good mother/daughter/sister/friend?  Are you spending time with people who are important to you?

• Relationships w/ Love Interests – If you are single, are you giving people a chance?  Are you socializing and meeting people?  If you are in a relationship, are you talking and communicating properly?  Are you seeing your relationship similarly?

• Physical – Are you taking care of your body?  Are you exercising and eating foods that make you feel good?  Do you feel comfortable and confident in your skin?

• Mental – Are you learning?  Are you challenging your mind on a daily basis?

• Creative – Have you found a way to express yourself creatively?  Even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist, have you tried new ways to explore your creative side?

• Visual – Are you creating a living environment for yourself that fits your personality and comforts?  Do you see beautiful things around you?  Do you dress yourself in a way that represents your inner self?

• Natural – Are you interacting with natural environments?  Do you want to have a connection with the earth?

• Spiritual – Does religion have a role in your life?  Have you explored different types of spiritual ideas?

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Tips For Maintaining a Balanced Life

In the last year both my brother and sister got married.  Now that they are no longer single it is a rare occasion that my parents and I get to spend time with them without their new spouses.  Although I love my new in-laws and I think it’s fun that our family has grown larger, I do value the rare times when I get to bond with my siblings on their own.

This week I am on a five day trip with just my sister, my mom, and my puppy and it is wonderful!  We hangout all day, laugh, go shopping, get facials, eat ice cream, watch silly tv shows, and just enjoy each other’s company.

Mom, daughter, sister, and girlfriend bonding is so important for balance in your life.  Sometimes you just need to spend some time with the girls to chit chat and laugh and maybe treat yourselves to some shopping and mani/pedis.  You will probably miss your man, but I promise that your friends and family will cherish that one-on-one time that they get to spend with you.

Sometimes when relationships are new and exciting it’s hard to remember to schedule trips or weekends away from each other to just spend time with the girls.  But make it a priority!  Don’t just do it to be a good friend/sister/daughter, but do it to be good to yourself too.  It’s important to find that balance in your relationship where you can be happy when you are together, but also happy and comfortable when you are apart.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Spend Some Time With The Girls

If you are in a trusting relationship, then there is no need for excessive use of the phone to keep in contact.  Unanswered phonecalls and delayed responses to text messages can cause unnecessary stress, doubt, and worry.  It’s possible that your significant other actually loves talking to you and hearing from you, but has a life outside of being attached to the phone. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself about your relationship involving your significant other and the phone to find out if you need to re-address the amount of time that you spend communicating (or miscommunicating) by phone:

• Do you call when you have nothing to say?
• Do you argue more over the phone than in person?
• Do you feel anxious if he doesn’t answer the phone?
• If he doesn’t answer, do you call again right away?
• Do you go over the monthly limit of minutes or texts on your cell phone bill regularly?
• Do you feel angry or sad if he misses a call from you?
• Do you try to keep him on the phone even when he says he is busy?

I have to admit that in past relationships I have been guilty of all of these problems, and now I am also able to recognize how often they occur in other couples.  Don’t feel terribly if you answered “yes” to a lot of the above questions…it’s really quite common!

Take time to talk to your significant other in person about the situations that have come up the questions listed above and express how you have been feeling.  It will help enormously to let him know how his actions make you feel, but also help you to realize that you need to adjust issues of frequency and expectations surrounding phone communications.  A simple solution might be to just call and text each other less!

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Do We Talk Too Much On The Phone?

• Gaining Approval – You obviously want the guy friends to like you.  You know their opinion matters, so you want it to be a positive one.  But the stress that comes with that usually makes it really difficult to act yourself around them.  Focus on being relaxed and don’t go overboard with trying to impress them.  A small impression is better than a bad one, so don’t work too hard at getting them to like you…you will end up not acting like yourself.  If you are loving and good to your boyfriend, then their approval is irrelevant.

• Possessiveness – A lot of times you will feel like you want your boyfriend all to yourself.  Why does he need time with his friends without you?  Can’t you all hangout together?  It is a healthy part of a relationship to develop some independence.  There are things that he enjoys with the guys that you probably don’t enjoy in the same way, so give him space.  You will want some times with your girlfriends without him around as well!

• Detective Work – Be careful not to use your boyfriend’s friends as a way to find out about his exes and his past.  If he hasn’t shared something with you, then it’s not a good idea to try to find out from his friends…it will just create a completely messy situation for everyone involved.  Their loyalty is to him not you, so everyone will be confused and angry and suspicious.  Yes, they have probably known him for a long time and know lots of tidbits about him that you will never know, but leave the past in the past.

The relationship you have with your boyfriend’s guy friends is important to maintain in a healthy and balanced way.  Most importantly just love your boyfriend for being a good friend to his friends by respecting his time alone with them.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Dealing With Your Boyfriend’s Guy Friends

The article mentions athletic draftees being spied on by potential teams and players forced to leave groups that are deemed controversial. A couple of months ago, I wrote about my new and my ex-boyfriend.  An old friend of both of them took offense with my post. He found it to be “inappropriate” for me to write about them. I told him that writing about relationships was part of my job and the relationship that I was most likely to write about was my own. I was as friendly and respectful as possible – I wanted to be “breezy” about it. 

He de-friended me.  I was not sorry to see him go, as I had talked myself into being open-minded about this guy after something that happened when we were teenagers anyway. I’m of the opinion that he is an ass, but my boyfriend has been friends with him for many, many years, so I know that I’ll have to spend time with him at some point in the future.  I don’t want my boyfriend to be affected by our silliness.

Would this be considered a Facebook Flap, as well?

Post from: Blisstree

Facebook Flap

Here are the things I learned about us this week:

*The first night is tricky, but every night thereafter, I sleep better beside someone that I love. Plus, I feel that I can safely sleep with the window open a little.

*I enjoy cooking for someone who is used to heating things up when he’s on his own. I know it’s old-fashioned, but I enjoy feeding my man, taking care of him.

*I’m not very good recognizing sarcasm. Mark says I’m like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

*My boyfriend is “calm,” “kind,” “gentle,” “golden,” and a “gentleman,” according to friends and family. I am in complete agreement.

*We were right about our connection all along.

Meeting someone this way, talking to an old friend online, on the phone, for a period of time, it truly can work out. You take the time to get to know each other – the ideas, the goals, the heart of a person – when you have to focus on their voice, their words. One of my closest friends, she met her husband as a pen pal first. She said that they hadn’t met in person, hadn’t talked on the phone, and still she felt that she missed him desperately. They’ve been married almost 20 years.

I know that first impressions and attraction are important, but I wonder how many wonderful chances at happiness we might miss out on because we are too hung up on the chemistry?

 I knew my boyfriend when we were kids and I thought he was sweet and funny, but for some reason I didn’t see him as a boyfriend.

I look at him now and I see my beautiful boyfriend. He’s my sexy-gentleman. There’s all kinds of chemistry.

Image credit: Mark

Post from: Blisstree

Chemistry Schemistry

This morning, he sent me a good morning text, as he does every morning. (He’s very attentive that way).

Being that it’s a work morning and he is in a different time zone, it woke me up. I don’t mind, I love any and all contact with him, but the message mentioned, “only 2 more days,” and I was so excited.  I could not go back to sleep.

Instead, I opened the window so that Kitty could sit on the ledge and look out, then I grabbed my book, The Development, by John Barth, and tried to settle in to wait for the 6:50 am alarm.

As much as I am enjoying the book – a series of 9 short stories about mature-age couples – I could not concentrate. Instead I was working on mental to-do lists and day-dreaming about what it will be like to wake up next to my guy.

Honestly, that is what I am most looking forward to – having him close without having the phone in my hand, hearing him breathe when he is asleep, his sleepy-gruff-voiced “good morning,” not in text form.

Oh, yay. I’m a bit on the giddy side.

I wish you a wonderful day. I hope you find a bit of giddy for yourself.

Seaweed image credit: Michelle Smith

Book cover credit: Barnes and Noble.com

Post from: Blisstree

It’s Almost Here…

I told T that I have a new boyfriend. She wanted to know about him and where things were going – serious? casual? I wasn’t going to marry him, was I??

She has always been that way about marriage. I know a few married ladies who are like that. Safely within the arms of matrimony it’s easy to say, “Oh, I’d never do that again.”

How do they know and how do they have any clue what it’s like to carry the load of single motherhood for the past 17 years? They don’t.

Being independent, in charge of my own destiny, it’s been good, but sometimes, many times really, I’ve wished for another brain to help me make the tough decisions. I’ve wished for someone to sleep next to and share my life with. I’ve wished for a partner to hang out with on the couch. I want the normal stuff, the boring stuff.

Right now it’s all new and exciting and I love that part, the beginning where you tell all your stories and your head is full of thoughts of Boy, but I’m not afraid of that dimming a bit.

I’m ready, if this is The One, bring on the mundane, the day-to-day humdrum. I welcome it with open arms – I’m ready and willing.

Maybe it’s one of those grass is greener things?

Post from: Blisstree

Bring On the Boredom Baby

Okay, I picked Libra this week, because my boyfriend is a Libra and I am just goofy enough to be as interested in  his horoscope as I am in my own.

Okay, here goes………

Cracked.com ran an article on “5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won’t).” Here’s a hint about what those things are: fame, wealth, beauty, genius, and power. You might want to go and read the essay at tinyurl.com/d974te. Even if you don’t entirely agree with its points, it should inspire you to get more realistic about what specifically does increase your levels of well-being. It happens to be an excellent phase of your astrological cycle to home in on the surprising and idiosyncratic truths about what helps you feel like you belong here on this planet.

Here’s my interpretation, in relation to my guy - he values connection. He wants friends and love. He might think about the other things, I’m sure that he enjoys feeling success and I know he loves his iPhone, so money does cross his mind, but what really gives him a happy is the connection he shares with the people in his life. I believe that he knows this about himself already. He’s willing to make some huge changes in his life to bring about that happiness. That part of him, that value that he attaches to his relationships, that’s the base that I build all my feelings for him on. It makes him 10 feet tall in my eyes.

I was involved with a man who did not put that first, I can remember when he talked about moving an additional 3 hours away from his children and from me  (putting him about 9 hours away from me) for a job. Great. More money. Enjoy that all by yourself, if that’s what you want, fine, but I’m looking for something more.

I’m like the boyfriend that I have now. Having a happy family, good friends, that is what I believe a successful life requires.

 There are some things you can compromise on in a relationship and it’s up to the individual couple to decide what those things are. What matters to you?  What makes you happy?  Ask yourself these questions. Dig deep. When that initial attraction cools a bit, that’s when the importance of shared values and goals really matters.

How about you Libras out there?  Do you see yourself in this horoscope?  What do you value and do you feel confident about the life you are making on this planet?

Image credit: All Posters.com

Post from: Blisstree

What Matters To You?

Greg lives with us, because his mother packed him up and turned him out about 3 months ago. He is a great kid, although I’m pretty sure that since he’s only been here a few months, we are still getting the very best of him. Bailey and Greg have progressed from dating teenagers to a sort of hybrid committed relationship, but it’s also almost brother and sister relationship. For example, Greg sometimes tattles on Bay. This drives her crazy.

Last night, we were sitting around the living room and all of my kids were working on homework. I was telling Bay about something that she did when she was younger and she started to cry. I was horrified, because I expected her to laugh. Greg leaned forward and starting talking to her very softly. He got up and left the room. When he came back, he had a tissue in his hand. He sat next to her, leaned forward and gently wiped under her eyes. She smiled at him, laid her palm along his cheek, and kissed him. I’m pretty sure that my mouth dropped open in shock and awe.

It was like something out of a romantic movie. I felt both thrilled and embarrassed to witness it. Thrilled because I love the kids and I want them to feel cherished. Embarrassed because it was such an intimate moment – like they were the only two people in the room, in the universe.

Both of these kids have had their share of heartache, most of it at the hands of two really crappy dads, but it hasn’t scarred them to the point where they are afraid to allow themselves to be vulnerable.

When it comes to love, sometimes you’ve got to put yourself out there, take a chance and put the rules to the side. It reminded me of something that happened between my last boyfriend and I. Bailey did this spot-on imitation of my sister, Robin. It was so like Robin, that I started to cry because I missed her (yeah, we sometimes have the tears around here). My boyfriend was horrified and although he didn’t wipe my tears, he did scoop me up with a sweet, “Oh, baby, it’s okay…” that I still remember.

I’ve got to be open to letting something like that in my life again. If those two kids can do it, if they can be that brave and that open with each other, then I need to allow it to happen for me, too. It will be hard, but I have to believe that it’s do-able. And dear friend, whom I’m 99% sure is reading this – it will happen for you, as well.

Image credit: Bailey Smith

Post from: Blisstree

Before the Kiss