5 Fast Fixes for a Stronger Relationship

I was reading this article on how to have a stronger relationship, and I thought I would share them, they seem easy enough, and I think they will work, or at least my naive mind believes they will. I figured I would jot them down somewhere that I could access at all times. My blog! So here are some lessons from the article.

IF YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS…. Hit pause. This will come in handy the next time he’s really bugging you. Say, when he’s dawdling, making you late again to visit your mother. Before one righteous word flies out of your mouth, FREEZE. Just watch him for 10 seconds. Visualize yourself in his shoes. Visualize him as he looked the first time you fell for him. Pause the action. (In email terms, it’s a kind of a Save As Draft so you don’t actually send the inflammatory message). Ten seconds gives you time to flash on, “Oh, he’s very uncomfortable with my family,” or “Hmmm, he’s been whipped at work and needs to be in control of something (pathetic as his choice may be.)” It might occur to you that “a few minutes late” isn’t worth a fight. Then again, you might conclude that, yes, he is a total jerk. At least you tried.

IF YOU HAVE A MINUTE… This is from a great article in the current Scientific American Mind by Robert Epstein (do it with your guy): Embrace each other gently and gradually synchronize your breathing with his. Just stand there inhaling and exhaling together, as if you were one being. A minute or two of this, apparently, lowers your inhibitions—and that can help people bond.

IF YOU HAVE 2 MINUTES… Jot down three things he’s done lately that you appreciate (OK, one?). Send the list as a note to him in an email at work. Or slip it under his coffee mug in the morning. Or just casually mention, “You know, I dug the way you handled that surly waiter the other day.” Yeah, it’s a tad corny, but experts say it really works. Certainly, if there’s one thing the research on happy long-term couples shows, it’s that they figure out how to accentuate the positive. “When you say or list what you appreciate in him, it brings those things more to the forefront of the mind,” says Gail Saltz, MD, Today Show commentator and author ofThe Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Can Lead to a Better Life. “It also prompts him to say what he really appreciates about you.”

IF YOU HAVE 3 MINUTES… Here’s another good one from Epstein: Standing or sitting fairly close to your partner, start moving your hands, arms, and legs any way you like—but in a fashion that perfectly mimics his. “This is fun but also challenging,” Epstein writes. “You will both feel as if you are moving voluntarily, but your actions are also linked to those of your partner.” See if this doesn’t activate your empathy circuits.

IF YOU’VE GOT 5 MINUTES… Try a daily forgiveness ritual, suggests Sharon Salzberg, a revered spiritual teacher and cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. It's like a little shot of immunity to prevent you from fighting. Find a quiet spot to sit, and let these phrases go through your mind: If I have hurt or harmed you, knowing or unknowingly, I ask your forgiveness. If you have hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you. “You’re not saying, ‘It's all right that you did that,’" Salzberg explains. You’re just opening up your mind to ideas like, "I let go of seeing you solely as the perpetrator; I understand the conditions that led to that action,” and, “I am not identifying myself only as the person who was hurt; I’m bigger than that.” You may even realize, “I have to let go of unrelieved anger to have any space for love to grow.” See if 5 minutes a day doesn’t warm up the love dynamic. For a real intimacy boost? Get him to do it too.

Sand Castle Mania

Stanford and Berkeley came together this past weekend to have one majorley cool activity. That would be, Sand Castle building. As young adults, I think many of us were in for the competition, but being YSA, I think we all forgot about the competition and were just in it for the glory. So we built, nothing was judged and some very cool sand castles came about it. We had a professional sand castle builder come and teach us how to build sand castles. It was amazing, the things you learn from a guy like this is amazing. Also, we experienced some major attention from the public as we were learning the lesson and as we were building. Everyone asked what it was all about, and many people just walked around taking pictures of our master pieces. And when I saw masterpiece, I really mean masterpiece. These are the sand castles that vacation photos are made of.

This is where we started, with buckets full of water and sand, and this was the beginning process, watch it grow!

This was Turner's bridge, of course he would make some over the top bridge that looked like a highway ramp from dubai.

This is the castle that the instructor made in a 15 minute lesson on how to build sand castles, what technique to use and what tools make great castles.

Every corner of our castle has a different theme, probably because it was different people building it. The castle was like Hearst Mansion, different houses for different views. This was my attempt at an arch through the entire "building".

Leave it to Naug, our own personal artist/sculptor, who missed the entire lesson and whipped out some amazing paving skills, he would probably make a great brick layer one day, or cementer (if thats a job). He smoothed that sand out and made steps that rivaled the great pyramids and Myan temples.

And oh yeah, he made this Eiffel tower looking thing, apparently its something out of Epcot. Not sure how that reference correlates.

This thing is finished, scary huh? Those dirt mounds became this. What 4 hours, a handful or artists, engineers, and computer geeks can do with sand.

After finishing the castle, it turns out our geeky boys decided to dig. A moat. Yep, thats right, I said it, the three amigos here spent a good 30 minutes digging a 3 foot deep trench that hit actual water. Water was actually filling this trench from the ground below because they had gone so deep, and this was the goal. Let Boys, be Boys.

Here are some other castle building projects, this would be the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. I was starting to notice there were a lack of actual castles.

This castle was built by a bunch of kids and like 2 adults. Pretty amazing!

I think this was supposed to be gotham city? Not sure, it was apparently the first castle to have all its builders quit to do something else.

And last but not least, my favorite. This was an homage to Berkeley. Its San Francisco with the Bay Bridge connecting to Berkeley. Apparently Berkeley didn't get built because the Campanile (big UCB clock tower) kept collapsing, but thats a building that people recognize as apart of the city of Berkeley, so it works out perfectly.

Lucky Me!

Sooo, Turner walked into the institute about 10 minutes ago and said, "Hey, I have something for you". Me, being very drained from an early morning and lots of rain, became very giddy at the thought of something just for me! So I bounced around the couches like a 5 year old and asked what it could be! Low and behold, its cake! Not any cake, but gluten free cake! A 4 layer, chocolate cake with chocolate ganache in the middle and strawberries! Apparently, Turner has a father and sister who has celiacs and was kind enough to bring a quarter of the cake with him back to school to share with me! Because he said its easy for everyone to get cake, but not so easy for me! How sweet is that! Kes said that Turner is a booger, but I think he is awesome! Well, usually he is a booger, but today, he is awesome!

Hot Dogs

So for linger longer yesterday, we enjoyed a fabulous goodbye school year meal among the ward, and it was picnic like. Considering it is May, and the end of the school year and technically supposed to be sunny and shiny (which is a haha in Berkeley). So everyone apparently was supposed to eat 2+ hot dogs. And so there were many left over. So Connie gets up on the mic and tried to promo hot dog eating:

"Everyone, we have lots of hot dogs, please feel free to eat more, we the linger longer committee highly support seconds."

Pix responds with, "But your doctor does not".

Keith wittingly responds with: "The bishop brick is nor supportive nor unsupportive of your decision to consume mass quantities of processed meat". (He will make an amazing lawyer one day!)

Mormon Helping Hands Day

So across the state of California, Mormons had a huge a project called, Helping Hands. It's pretty well known across mormon circles. It's all about helping out in your communities. This is probably why mormons are known for their philanthropy and service. This past month alone we have participated in weekly service projects to better the city of Berkeley. So for the May 8th extravaganza, we cleaned the shoreline of the Berkeley marina/ dumping ground. The story behind this shoreline is that it used to be an industrial dumping ground. After the big SF earthquake, many folks refused to live in homes built of bricks and so they tore down the homes and dumped all the bricks at the shoreline. You can also find pipeline and many other industrial dumping here. It's become kind of a warzone, none people friendly place. However, the worst part of the shoreline is that there is plastic everywhere. This is a dumping ground in all sense, and so all the plastic trash that will never biodegrade ends up here where the animals end up eating it and being poisoned and die. So our job was the find all the plastic floating around the shore or mixed in with the seaweed and get it out so that the animals we all love, don't end up ingesting it. So for a good 4 hours, the stake cleaned the beaches for Helping Hands day. It was fun in all aspect, especially when the Bishop makes it seem like we won a prize every time we dug around and found more trash.

"Ohh, Golly, look at that!"

"Good Job KC, thats a fabulous amount of plastic you got there".

"SJ, over there look! A straw!"

"See that boulder? It was once over here, now its over there, and the Nips bag is now properly disposed of".

Along with coming out for a good cause, KC our coordinator for the ward, motivated all of us to show up by putting a little competition together. Elders Quorum versus Relief Society, whoever has the most people show up will receive a bunch of home baked goods. The sign up list originally consisted of an even amount (give or take) of Elders and Sister, but on Saturday morning at 9am when we all rolled in, KC said we no longer needed to sign in to prove which group had the most people, it was bluntly obvious, with 3 girls and 18 guys, the Elders had won. Relief society apparently is either a group of girls who have commitment issues, or ones who didn't want to wake up before the crack of dawn.

It was also a freezing cold day, we had wind chill of freezing degrees on top of it and most of us (myself) were dressed for a spring-like day.

Boys... they moved rocks and boulders in an attempt to pick up one small chip bag and a straw. We have to give them credit for working though, and showing up.

SJ found a little figurine, she wanted to keep him, but we decided that "one man's trash, another woman's treasure" did not apply during helping hands.

Gar found a happy tooth amongst the trash. She also found a series of bouncy balls that all ended up in KC's pockets by the end of the day, apparently those could not be trashed.

Not sure if bird will ever consume something this big, but it might break down and then many birds will consume it!

What the Future Looks Like...

This is what B will look like when she is working hard for a big company.

This is what Pez will look like in her spacious office with a window.
And I think this is one of my favs, what the future holds for always busy, get going Elyse who works too hard and is always hard working. She will be the best office worker you have ever met.

It's scary how quickly our lives change, and how quickly the little kids we once were become the working professionals that live off coffee (or cocoa), and get into the office at 8, leave at 5 and then join the massive amount of single people who eat over the sink by themselves. I thrive on the social life that is around me, and I thrive on the penances I make at my job. But it hits me, I am still not living that 8-5 life yet, and I am not eating over the sink alone in my business suit. I still have a couple years, and a view like this, really makes a girl think that she should enjoy her last couple of younger years.

Rocking...

I am sitting criss cross in bed, with both elbows on my knees and my hands tucked under my chin while I catch up on blog reading, and as I am sitting here reading, it dawns on me, I am rocking. Just back and forth. How odd is that? When you sit in a ball like form, do you rock? Or am I having a miniature spams?