As we all know, moms come in all shapes and sizes, from those expecting their first baby to those who are the matriarchs of large, extended families. And as varied as their statuses and ages, so too goes their unique tastes and styles. With all that to consider, it's no wonder why gift shopping for Mother's Day can be so difficult! Sure, IOU's or coupons for taking on chores or home made cards consisting of macaroni and tissue paper are fine for small children to concoct, but us adults need to step it up a notch!
Now that the weather is in a much more cooperative mood but still off season, many of us are really itching to get out of the house and just do something, anything, to just shake the chill off! But, that nasty little aspect of Life always seems to get involved: you know the one - the one that mandates we show up for work on time, worry about feeding the kids and tending to the spring landscaping. Well, the way I see it, we are supposed to be working to live, and not the other way around, and a couple evenings away from home is not going to hurt anything. And if your better half is the one who usually handles all of the planning, even little things like calling in the pizza order, then there is no better way to reward yourself and your Event Coordinator than to drop what you're doing and, as my dad liked to put it, "go blow the stink off ya!"
When your special someone gets really sick, whether it's the flu or a trip to the hospital, it's important to provide a little more attention to your partner, even if you have a million things to do, or if the ailment in question honestly gives you the heebie geebies.
Since Earth Day has really gained in popularity within the last decade, to where people even mark their calendars for it, it's no surprise couples are now starting to plan a date around the most greenest of festivities. If you really want to go all out and leave a neutral carbon footprint for a single day, you might want to take in some of these suggestions!
So you slaved all day to surprise your guy with a fabulous meal. You made his absolute favorite food, and you even remembered to compliment it with a nice wine. But when he sat down to eat, he didn’t even seem to notice and just shoveled it in. Or perhaps you fought with every ticket broker in town to get the most primo seats for the concert of the year, and all she did was bitch about being ten minutes late for the opening act and about the escapades of that floozy in the row behind you two. And of course, there is always the classic of the forgotten anniversary or birthday – wow, that never seems to go out of style! In all of these situations, the one who went out of the way to do something nice for the other half has been left with feeling rather stung, and rightly so. But at the same time, you know he or she honestly didn’t mean anything by it, so you let it slide, hoping the next time you do something nice, and the extra effort will get noticed.
Since the 50s, Americans have grown accustomed to moving away from home once they finished school and found a decent job, usually before they hit their 21st birthdays. However, I’ve been noticing a trend over the last few years that more and more people are opting to hang out with mom and dad longer and longer for a myriad of reasons - be it the astronomical student loan repayments, car loans, the lack of those aforementioned decent jobs or simply to save up for a down payment on a house. In fact, it isn’t all that rare anymore to hear about people who are still living at their childhood home into their late 20s and even 30s, and with what happened with the housing market, many people are finding themselves having to move back into their childhood bedrooms just to keep from being homeless. With all this in mind, should the rest of us who have moved onward and upward and have kept our heads above water look down upon the folks who haven’t?
One of the things I have always found silly is how women still feel as though they are expected to be passive when it comes to meeting men. This is the 21st century after all, so why is it that modern women are still allowing themselves to sit idly by, hoping the guys come to them? Let’s go over some of these fears and get over them!
So you and your partner have been dating for a fair amount of time, to where you're nearly joined at the hip. Many nights become sleep overs, the plants at your place are getting watered less and less, the milk is always going south in the fridge, and you are starting to receive phone calls at the other's home. You might even have a dresser drawer reserved for your belongings, just because it's easier to keep your stuff separate. At this point, it seems almost silly to have two separate apartments, when you two could be pooling your resources together and helping each other out with the chores. But are you really ready to move in together?
So your date says she's a vegetarian, and you're a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Just hearing that term has all these images of boring iceberg lettuce salads and weird chunks of tofu swimming through your head, like some kind of bad 50's horror movie. To make matters worse, you have already reserved at booth at the fanciest steak house in town! Oh no! What now? So, feeling rather sullen, you breathe a heavy sigh, and you blurt out the most obvious question that comes to mind:
"So what can you eat?"
As I finish touching up my makeup before hitting a night on the town, it occurred to me that the classic combo of eating then being entertained has never gone out of style. The standard date consisting of going out dinner, then following it up with a movie afterwards is always a safe bet, but sometimes, you just need to breathe new life into that old standby. (And speaking for myself, it's one of the things that PlanJam helps me out on quite a bit!)
