A famous psychological study developed 36 questions to fast-track intimacy and connection. Ha! That’s easy. A glass of cheap merlot and low lighting can do that for most people. But lasting love? Well, that requires a whole different set of questions.
And to help with that, from the vantage point of a middle-aged many-years married, I’ve prepared a list of nine queries young lovers should consider before saying their “I do’s.” Read more
Some couples grow bored with each other, retreating to separate corners of the house, separate activities, and silent, resentful boredom. Not Handsome Hubby and I. We’re finding joy in a new, intense mid-life marital thrill. It involves strange new pleasures – Read more
Happy Fourth of July!
Today is a special day for our nation.
And today is a special day for my family because 87 years ago my parents met … on a blind date … on Coney Island.
My father was supposed to go out with my mother’s best friend, but … Read more
Remember when the kids were little and you had family game night? Well, my live-at-home 26-year-old and I still play games together. More specifically, we play one game each week. More specific still, we play the same “talkin’ trash” game every Monday night. We play “Will he or won’t he … take out the trash?”
It’s a fun game. You may even play it at your house. There are set rules to it. It’s predictable – except for the outcome which makes my hair and blood-pressure rise. Read more
Sure, he thought it was fun for a while. Sure, he liked being called Handsome Hubby in my Muddling through Middle Age blog. In fact, he liked it so much he even started signing emails to me “HH.” But now the fun has ended and Website Wedded Woes have begun!
HH has taken umbrage at my blogging about him and our marriage. Read more
Last week was Handsome Hubby’s birthday. What do you give a man of modest needs and wants who has everything but the time to enjoy what he’s got? A delicious home-cooked dinner with a cake made from scratch, thought I, a cooking klutz.
The truth is I’m actually a pretty decent cook, but I am sadly severely baking-challenged. So, I spent much time searching for a dessert recipe that was delicious, but also doable.
After much debate, I picked a recipe for a Mocha Chocolate Chip Cake with Mocha Chocolate Chip Icing. Death by chocolate chip! What a sweet way to go!
But then, barely-able-to-bake me made a mistake. Instead of using my tried and true 8-inch cake pans, I decided to Read more
Several months back, I vowed to follow a strict diet. I wasn’t cutting carbs or calories, but celebrities. More specifically, I vowed to stop my late-night consumption of empty sugary fluff and stuff articles about celebs. Then, amid all the unrelenting and divisive bad news, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got engaged. I broke my celebrity diet and happily devoured stories about the happy couple.
But when the non-stop deluge of coverage continued unabated, I got bored. I tried to regain literary control. Admittedly it was near impossible to do amid the 24/7 onslaught of photos, fashion tips, gossip, and wedding planning updates. Still, I tried to focus on the important news of the day. And to some degree, I was successful. I know this, because just last week, Read more
If you want job security in today’s increasingly automated world, be a mom. A machine may assemble a car and one day drive it safely, but no machine will ever replace a mom’s main task – providing the “emotional labor” that runs a happy home.
“What is emotional labor?” you ask. Read more
In physics, the Latin term horror vacui, nature abhors a vacuum, comes to us from Aristotle, and no, it does not refer to a fear of vacuums or cleaning!
In people-speak, the term means there are no naturally-occurring empty spaces because denser surrounding material immediately fills the void.
I’m no scientist. So, who am I to argue with Aristotle? I would, however, add an important corollary; Women also abhor vacuums.
Whenever there’s a “vacuum” of information, a woman’s mind, much like a washing machine, starts spinning and quickly reaches the agitation cycle, coming up with all sorts of negative, awful conclusions to fill the worrisome info-void. Read more
“More Americans 18-to-34 Now Live with Parents Than with Spouse.”
That’s the terrifying finding from a recent U.S. Census Bureau study. And for all you aspiring empty nesters, the bad news continues: Read more