Keep in the Sunlight

"Do not anticipate trouble,

or worry about what may not happen.

Keep in the sunlight."

Benjamin Franklin

Water Wings

Make Love Last

I was reading the July issue of Glamour magazine last night, and I stumbled across one of the best articles I've read in awhile. It gave hints for how to make love last, and as much as I enjoy a good girly magazine, I don't usually take their advice all that seriously. However, this article was spot on, so I decided to share a few of my favorite hints!

What you should do together...

Once a week:

Fight (a little). Getting your grrs out keeps small annoyances from snowballing. Britain's longest-married couple proves it: together 81 years, Frank and Anita Milford say their secret is "a little argument every day."

Compliment each other . This one's a daily to-do, if you can. There's no nice thing that's too small to mention his excellent taste in music, the way he opens the door for you - it's all worth a verbal love tap. And he will swoon.

Let something go. Argue over the stuff that matters, but once a week let him (and yourself) off the hook for things that don't: yes, he chews his popcorn loud. No, it won't kill you.

Laugh so hard. Laughter is a relationships krazy glue: it bonds you. uninspired? Fast foward to the chest-waxing scene in The 40-year-old Virgin or send him something snortworthy from funnyordie.com.

Once a month:

Be do-gooders. Volunteering together (even just helping a friend move) bonds you because you're ID-ing "common values," says Elizabeth Lombardo, a psychologist in Wexford, Pennsylvania.

Do something scary. Been together awhile? A pounding heart mimics the rush of brand new love, says Patti Wood, an expert on nonverbal communication in Atlanta. Fly in a Balloon or order the sweet-breads for two!

Brag publicly about him: his fearless pursuit of the mouse in your kitchen, the armful of hydrangeas he surprised you with, the raise he landed even in this economy. Surely once a month you can think of something that'll make him blush in front of your friends . He'll probably get you back too .

Declare something "this stays in vegas." A silly nickname, or a crazy mishap. Share something intimate, then pull the couple bubble around you tightly .

Disappear together . Hike somewhere AT&T can't find you (and thus your mother, your boss and his needy friend Bob can't find you either). No woods ? Any time spent totally alone together - a long drive, even - will do the trick .

Disappear alone. We're not advocating game-playing exactly. But in this world of 24/7 availability, it can be good for your relationship to each have some solo time. Afterward, you'll feel recharged, like the free-spirited single girl he fell for once upon a time.

Go to a party! And mingle seperately. It screams confidence and makes the after-party rehash even sweeter.

Once a year:

Get a dog. Or at least a plant. Anything that'll grow with your love.

Say the tough thing. The dark family secret. The crazy career dream. If you can't confess to your significant other, then who? (Hey, you think Barack never said to Michelle way back when, "This may sound nuts, but I think I want to be president someday?"

Cancel valentines day and invent your own lovey-dovey holiday. Lobsterfest 2009 anyone ?

Fall apart. You can't schedule this. But it's important that you each know, via experience, that you can completely, utterly lose your grip - weep over a bad haircut, threaten to leave your job after a nutso day, have a wrenching fight with your mom - and not lose each other .

Don't. Get. Up. At least once a year, break open some bubbly, disable the Wi-Fi and don't get out of bed for the weekend.

Write each other. New Orleans newly wed Rebecca, 32 was inspired by her husbands uncle who writes his wife every Christmas. "One letter maynot seem like much, but after 30 years it's a wonderful record of their lives."

Think back on all the reasons you fell for him. whether you've dated for a year or a decade. Some will be big (his extra-dry sense of humor); some will be small (his love of argyle). Make sure you tell him, and remind yourself. Hello, butterflies! There you are again.

And once a lifetime.

Get lost together in a foreign country.

Damn the cost and go do the dream.

Come back from the bring of a breakup even stronger.

Together, convince a skeptic pall to believe in love.

Have a poor phase. Maybe a rich phase too.

Count the stars. Know your love is one in a billion.

Florida Love

The first three posts of this new blog ended up being somewhat more pensive and ponderous then I originally intended. While yes, I would like this blog to document what it feels like to be a twentysomething, I would like to do that by just writing about my life.

Last weekend, Todd finally got to visit my parents' house in Malabar and get the grand tour of Melbourne. My parents are moving soon, so it was important to me that he see where I spent my high school years. We had a little less than 24 hours there, but we fit alot in! We looked for manatees in Turkey Creek, but alas, they stayed hidden. We enjoyed sweating in the hot Florida sun though!

Then we headed to Bizarro's on the beach for some delicious pizza with my parents. Todd and my parents get along SO well, so it was so much fun to just relax and chat. The best part of lunch was when my dad and I started talking about punctuation. That's right, put two English majors at one table and you get a thrilling conversation about whether or not a comma should be used before the "and" in a series. For example: We looked for manatees, ate pizza, and walked on the beach.


Do you put the comma in after pizza or leave it out? My dad and I voted to put it in, but I see sentences published all the time without the comma. Are you laughing at me yet? My mom and Todd were cracking up throughout the convo, but later Todd said that was his favorite part of the meal for two reasons--one because that's the first casual convo about punctuation he's ever been a part of, and two because I was so enthusiastic about the subject. Later that night he got a chance to chat with my aunt about art things, like wood burning kilns and such, and I had no idea what he was talking about, but I enjoyed watching him talk about something he is passionate about too.


To wrap up our day tour of Melbourne, we walked around downtown Melbourne for awhile, rummaging through thrift stores, exploring my favorite used book store, and buying Todd some sandals. Being a midwesterner, he apparently has had no need for sandals until now. Being a Florida girl through and through, I can't imagine not wearing sandals daily. Todd only brought these shoes down with him:



Cute, but no good for a beach town. So, he found the perfect compromise, an invention I will call the Shoedal. Sandal on the bottom, shoe on the top. I suppose it's a good compromise, and he's in love with them, so what can I say. My midwestern boy just isn't a sandal guy.


All in all, a great trip back home and some fun memories. Here are a couple more fun pics from the weekend...

Our goats! Splish Splash, Bobbie, and Rosie...and I think Raisin the sheep made it into the background too.

Todd and I in my backyard in Malabar.

Lexie loves Todd, and she decided that she needed to

literally take a nap on his head. What cuties!

Bug Shoot

Turkey Creek

Beach Bum

Shoes. Not Sandals.

And the rocket's red glare...

Booby-Traps and Tear-Soaked Nights

I want to write a book. Now, I've never really been all that great at creative writing, but I would consider myself pretty capable of communicating something that I didn't have to make up by myself. In the case of this particular book on my mind, it would be drawn from personal and vicarious experience, and the content would be real, raw, and relevant.

I want to write a book about what to expect when you graduate college. You might be thinking, there are tons of books out there about that! Books that pretend to have all the answers about job hunting. Books that give options for delaying the real world. Books that encourage twentysomething girls to seek God first, then a husband, then babies (Have a career? What's that?), and twentysomething boys to marry a girl who wants nothing more in life than to submit to her husband and bear him children.

I read all these books, cover to cover. And yet here I am, just a year out of college, treading water and grasping for a hand to pull my exhausted body through the current that is trying its hardest to drown me. Those books did nothing for me, but why?

Probably because they weren't based on reality. They weren't based on what actually happened to a twentysomething and how they survived it. Those books are idealistic, and preach nice thoughts, but when reality crashes over you and your only means of survival are some unrealistic manuals for life written by someone trying to make a buck at your expense...well, drowning seems inevitable.

However, we have parents. We have friends in their 30s. We know people who survived being a twentysomething, and more likely than not, they barely kept their head above water for most of that time. But they survived.

I really wish I had someone tell me how to survive being a twentysomething when it doesn't involve being married before I graduate college, having mommy and daddy hand me job or a house, or staying in school for 10 years to become a doctor. How does the average person do it? How does the normal, middle-class twentysomething transition from the padded walls of the college to the booby-trap laden "real world" rushing at them?

Well, I don't have any answers, yet. But I do know how it feels, some things to watch out for, and how many tear-soaked nights it will take. And other people, who did it differently than me, will have insights I never had the priviledge of learning.

So this is my thought: These books we are encouraged to read don't have all the answers...but neither do I. But while I can't give solid answers (that's what those other books tried to do, and failed), I can leave behind the reassurance to other twentysomethings that someone else knows how it feels. It's going to hurt. You will cry...probably alot. You will deperately miss the friends that college easily handed to you and then just as easily ripped out from under you. It's going to feel like you are drowning, and it's going to feel like the struggling to get by will never end. And despite all of the hard stuff, some amazing things are going to happen in the midst of it, shaping who you end up being when you finally collapse on the shore, wiping the cruel water off your face.

I want to collect stories from twentysomethings. I want to hear how the people who got jobs handed them right out of college did it. Was it the luck of the draw, or did they do something brilliant to set themselves up for that? And either way, how did it feel to be a twentysomething and on your own? I want to hear how people who had a harder time figuring themselves out and finding a job than I did managed to keep their head above water and come out on the other side alive. I want to hear about those people who did manage to avoid the real world and go on an adventure. Did they love it, or was it hard as hell?

Maybe if I had read that book, one with a foundation in realism rather than idealism, maybe then I would have felt less alone in this whole process. Maybe if someone had told me that there isn't one way to be a twentysomething, I would have panicked less.

Maybe I will collect twentysomething stories someday, but first I need stop breathing in water and keep swimming toward the shore, however far away it may be.

Currently listening to: "Boston" by Augustana (Check out Imeem player at the bottom of the page)