I found this cool post about the health benefits of some everyday foods. It’s a really interesting read.
Archive for April, 2007
Tips To Save Your Marriage
My marriage to Luke hasn’t started yet, and we’re definitely NOT in trouble, but due to my love for self improvement and all that jazz, I like to be prepared. It’s like they always says, prevention is better then cure.
So when the Preps were sorting through some magazines to find things starting with Golden Girl (G), I found these tips:
3 Marriage Must-Dos
1. Give yourself the power to have an impact on what happens in your relationship.
2. Recognise that your partner won’t agree with you all the time. Keep the conversation going until you see the other person’s perspective.
3. Be Respectful. Once you start making it about who’s right and who’s wrong, communication falls apart and people become defensive.
So that’s all good advice. I don’t think I have a big problem with any of those. Perhaps I could work on the last one a bit. The truth of the matter is that I could work on ALL of them more- everyone can, but that’s not going to do me any favours- I’m a big fan of baby steps.
The Main Problems
- Blaming each other, attacking one another, failing each other.
- Being dissatisfied with yourself and blaming your partner for your dissatisfaction.
- Believing that if your partner truly loves you, they should always know what you think and what you want.
- Thinking that sex indicates a couple is right for each other. Sex needs to be part of the relationship, but you can have great sex and an awful marriage, or awful sex and a good partner.
- Taking a partner for granted. There’s a lot of this in marriage. Try to focus on your partner’s good points instead of the negative things. Doing the latter makes people feel they’re in the wrong relationship.
- Expecting perfection. There is no perfection in relationships. What you want to do is make the grass greener where you live.
I know for me there are a couple there that I should work on. I’m going to be very raw with you and tell you truthfully what they are. I have a bit of a problem with number three. I don’t want to be rude, but I think it’s a bit of a girl thing- not that I really have anything to base that claim on. I really do something not say anything and wait for Luke to just… know. It’s silly really, and quite unfair. The other one I do is the second last one. I do sometimes take Luke for granted. He is an amazing man, and sacrifices a lot for me. This week he has only slept at his house one night. Out of 10 days (this Sunday) only one of them would have been at his house. I feel bad, but he knows why it is like that at the moment. Not that I’m making excuses, but that isn’t the norm. A good chunk of his week is spent at my place though, and I do appreciate that.
Short Term Strategies
You can start doing these things straight away…
- Be kind to each other.
- Appreciate your partner’s strengths.
- Put yourself in your partner’s shoes every once in a while.
- Figure out what you want.
- Ask for what you want in a way your partner can hear.
- Develop real intimacy by letting your partner into your private world.
- Don’t be so fast to blame- being right is less important than learning how to come to an agreement.
- Perhaps most important of all- know that we have the power to move our relationship into a better place.
One of the most meaningful for me was the last point there. I love where Luke and I are at at the moment, but it’s great to know that we can be at a BETTER place as well. It is really exciting and lets me know that there is a long road, a long future ahead of us. I am enjoying this ride of my life a lot.
Long Term Strategies
Things to begin working towards together…
- Explore your expectations as individuals, and as a couple. Figure out what’s important to you both.
- Help each other be who you want to be.
- Understand your partner’s background and style.
- Avoid unhealthy or destructive habits before they become a way of life in your relationship.
- Create an atmosphere that allows you both to learn about yourself and each other.
- Plan ways to address and build on your strengths as a couple.
- Plan ways to address and handle your challenge areas.
- Find ways to include sexual intimacy in every stage of your relationship.
I think that all of these are great. The third and second last ones are my favourites. I think that planning how you can build on your STRENGTHS as a couple is important- it’s important to keep positive and realise how good you are together- not just focus on the bad things.
So there you go, there’s a few bits of advice I found in a Woman’s Day. Hope that you enjoyed it and that it will help you in some way!
Getting Over It
This afternoon I was in a bad mood (what’s new…) and I was really quite stressed. Not only was school stressing me out, but I was missing my favourite band perform for free at The Zoo.
I am such a terrible person that I had struggled to tell Luke about them playing, because I knew that he would go see them without me. Telling him though was the nice, loving, RIGHT thing for me to do, and so this morning I told him.
He went with Michael. They met Bernard. They didn’t see the concert.
I was angry when he said that he was going. I cried when he told me what he’d done. I know it was terrible of me, but it was how I felt. I hate that I am sometimes wrong, and today my emotions were wrong.
After going to cell and having coffee with Kirsty, Brad and Ruth, crying a bit about how much prac sucks, and having my mind taken off all that with Guns ‘n’ Roses talk with Brad, and general cell group drama talk with everyone, I felt much better. I felt so much better that when Luke called me and tried to tell me about Bernard again, but then haltered, I insisted that he tell me more. I truely wanted to know, and you know why? Because I changed my attitude. Instead of life sucking and being unfair and the worst and me wanting to put myself in a hole and someone burying me, it was now good.
Sometimes we have to make the choice ourselves to get over the suckiness of life and just decide to be happy. I’ve blogged about this before, I’m pretty sure (if not on this blog, then another), and it is SO true. In my situation I didn’t make the conscious decision, but my way of coping and dealing was to get away and not think about it for two hours or so. It was a great release.
My suggestion is to find your release- will you purposefully change your attitude, take time away from what you’re doing and focus your mind on other things, or something completely different. Comment in with what you do to cope when you’re very stressed, annoyed, tired, angry or disappointed!
Collector
I’m a collector (and a hoarder, and a procrastinator, and lots of ofther ‘or’s’).
My digital camera is stuffed, and so I want to get a new one.
Do I throw out my old one that still takes photos but they’re always really blurry and unrecognisable? No, of course not.
I like to keep things for prosterity’s sake- I think to think that in 20 years time I will have teenagers who will be into some sort of photography and I can show them what I use to use when I was 19. I have my mum’s old SLR, and my SLR as well- so there’s quite a variety. I might even scrounge around and find Dad’s first digital camera- it’s HUGE. I can add it to my collection. 
Planning
Today was my first day back at prac with the kiddies, and I have realised that no matter how prepared and ready I am, the best plans are nothing really compared to knowledge.
Donna (the other students teacher) and I had prepared a ‘Brain Conference’ for our preps, we don’t know that much about the brain- but we researched it, and were ready to present our conference.
Jenny (my supervising teacher) know’s the brain back the front and inside out, and so at times she took over, adding in bits and rattling off information that was second nature to her. It occurred to me that no matter how hard I worked at my brain stuff, until I have been teaching it for years and read book after book and been to seminars and been interested in all that, even my best laid plans are going to look insignificant next to an expert.
The moral of the story? Know what you’re talking about.
Tips in the Kitchen
Here are a few tips for in the kitchen:
- Don’t freeze beer, especially not imported beer. It’s an expensive waste of money.
- If you have left overs in your fridge eat them either the next day, or the day after. Otherwise they’ll be no good. Unless you freeze them.
- If you freeze things, make sure that you put them in an AIR TIGHT container. That means in a container with a lid that fits properly, that doesn’t have cracks and whatever in it.
- Cheeses- any kind, have a limited time of use. It’s not very long, particularly if you’ve already opened it. So either eat them quickly, or buy smaller amounts.
- Fruit is not like other food- just because you leave it in the plastic doesn’t mean that it will keep longer. It’s ideal to eat them within a week of buying them.
- If you open something (like pasta sauce) try to eat that quickly as well. You may need to have two pasta sauce related dishes in a row one night. Maybe spaghetti the first night and just a basic pasta with cheese and sauce the next night. OR a really good tip is to use pasta sauce in mince to make really flavoursome rissoles.
- ANYTHING you open and put in the fridge should be put in an air tight container, not just left in its packaging. Particularly bready things like cake, bread, slice, sponge roll etc. because they will go stale and aren’t nice to eat.
- If you buy something reduced it means that it will expire in the next few days/ one week. If you’ve bought something like this then try to eat it BEFORE the expiry date, and make sure that that one’s kept packaged and wrapped up as well.
- Don’t put things in the freezer unless they’re IN something. I don’t want to see any bacon just sitting there on a plate or whatever.
- LIDS are important. They are invaluable assets in the kitchen. USE THEM.
- When you finish lunch try to dispose of the waste (lunch wrap and scraps) at work or school or Uni or where ever it is that you had lunch. If you can’t because there’s no bin then take them home and put them in your own bin STRAIGHT AWAY. MOLD and other yucky things just love to grow in scraps and you’ll be amazed at how much there is for mold to much on when all you had was a sandwich… Besides, it really, really stinks if you leave the lid on and then try to do it later. The sooner the better with these things.
- If you have a flat mate and you’re not sharing food then for God’s sake keep your food separate. Make sure the rules are clear- I won’t take your food and you don’t take mine. ANYTHING that’s mine you need to ask to eat/use, unless it is already established that certain things will be shared. Things like washing up responsibilities will need to be sorted as well. Better that these things are done before rather then later.
- Spirits left in the bottoms of glasses stain and turn all sugary- it’s hard to get out. Just rinse your glass once you’ve finished and you’ll be right. If you’re that wasted that you can’t even rinse out a glass then shame.
So there’s 13 tips that will hopefully make things easier for you in the kitchen!!!
Breathing Fire
Last night Luke, Amon and I went firetwirling again.
We raised $26.50 this time, which is an improvement from last time. I took out some Kero money and we paid ourselves by sharing a big slurpie. Luke suggested that we put all the money left into my piggy bank and try to raise some more money for Vana- our favourite charity. We want to sponsor a child based on the money we get from fire twirling, how great is that!?
So our fire twirling was a success. It is just so much fun as well, and I felt like I was in better form last night then the night before.
We’ll be at the Loo with a view in Moolooaba (on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland) this Sunday night at about 7ish if you wanted to come down and watch us.
If you’re lucky Luke might even fire breath for you, and I will undoubtedly catch my hair on fire…!
Ca-Ching
My fiancé and littlest, little brother (Amon- though he’s not really little any more…) went off to fire twirl tonight.
Usually we just fire twirl and it’s fun and sometimes people watch, but tonight we were in a really good position and would have had at least 20 people watching us at any one time. It was really cool.
So Amon walked around with a hat a few times to collect some money. People donated $11.80, which was pretty good for an improve thing. We were expecting maybe $5.
So $5 went to me to cover the cost of Kero, and then we bought a big slurpie to share. So we have $3.50 profit, which is pretty good. It’s going to go in my piggy bank to save.
Some kid was asking if we would be back tomorrow night, and Luke said yes, so hopefully we’ll do that. Luke also has some great ideas of have a twirling campaign all down the coastline to raise money for Vana. We’ll talk to Donna and Errol about it, and about setting up a website for Vana. Should be good.
Hit Me With A Samboy Chip
I ’star’ (sort of) in a video on YouTube that’s been getting lots of attention lately. I even found it randomly on this site in french…
Anyway, you can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1gaIDe8_Xg I know that’s an annoying URL, but deal with it, Wodrpress doesn’t like me embedding the video.
So tell me what you think, everyone thinks it’s hilarious, and it is pretty funny. I personal favourite is the AD my brother, Rhys, and I made for a ‘dilly bag’ we made… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrQDFMWEMk
Check it out.
How to Get Through Work
Here’s a little tip for how to get through work. I don’t know if it works with all jobs, but I’m a check out chick, so it works with mine.
Step One:
Write down the time in 15 minute blocks. For example: 1, 1:15, 1:30, 1:45, 2, etc….
Step Two:
Buy some lollies on your tea break. Like Fruit tingles or something- something you can eat one at a time.
Step Three:
Every time you get to one of the markers on your list, cross it off and have a lolly!
Why this works: I found that when I was at work every time I looked at the time I would think about, and work out how long it was till I finished work. This often made me sad and frustrated (for the majority of a shift home time is a few hours away…). I found that if I had something to ‘look forward to’ that was close, the time seemed to go much quicker.
Even though I was looking at the clock more frequently, I wasn’t actually paying much attention to the time, and so it was a constant state of only have to wait like 5 minutes for a reward, and knowing that with every reward home time was getting just that little bit closer!
