Update on the Myspace Revolution

As I had previously suspected, none of the new friendships I formed developed very far. I casually speak to one or two people that I met through myspace and we rarely see eachother or go out. I think I will stick to using myspace as a place to reconnect with old friends from High School (of which I have found quite a few people that I was happy to get reaquainted with).

I did start a page on cafemom.com and found that me and the other moms on that site do have quite a bit more in common than my myspace friends. I wonder if it's because we all have children in common. Again though, it seems that most of the moms on the site have busy lives (like myself). So it's hard to get together. Once in a while, I will find the time to get around to seeing a friend from there though and it's nice to get out with someone who understands.

The myspace revolution

I think this myspace.com thing has gotten a little out of hand. Honestly, it is really crazy how so many people can sit around doing just yapping with people all day. myspace has revolutionized this by basically making people create their own website and letting other people search it. Now don't get me wrong, I have a myspace account. I love the fact that I can meet new people in my area and do it sitting comfortably in my home. I am afraid that this "revolution" is going to start causing people to become socially awkward. What is going to happen when you don't ever have to meet anyone in person? How are you going to develop skills that allow you to advance yourself. In this cyber-controlled world, myspace is just another way to distance people from actually developing meaningful relationships in person.

Recently, I began looking for people to make friends with in my area. Instead of going to a bar, meeting at church, or looking up people from high school, I signed onto myspace and searched for people that had similar interests as me and my fiance. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm saying that I'm not putting any effort into making these friends. How strong can a friendship become when there is no effort put in either way? I guess only time will tell.

The proper care and feeding of your man

My fiancé told me to write this blog, so here it goes. I don't claim to be a relationship expert nor do I believe that I am the almighty queen of having great relationships. I've had plenty of bad ones. To properly care and feed your man it is necessary to have a man that is compatible with you, loving, and faithful. I've done all of the things below and the relationship still didn't work out because we weren't compatible (and he was a cheater). My fiancé and I are highly compatible (we met on eharmony and, people, that site works, trust me, I know). He's faithful and loving. Anyway, enough about the wonderful man I am marrying. We're going to go over quite a few things in this blog.

1. Food - It's really important to a man trust me
2. Alone time - you both need it
3. Together time - yes, you need that too
4. Attention & Love – you aren’t the only one who wants it
5. Less nagging – oh, how they hate it
6. Sleep & relaxation - yeah, they need it too
7. Sex - VERY VERY IMPORTANT

Ok, those are the things that are of interest to a man in a relationship. I'm going to go over how to pull it off even if you work a full time job and have a baby. Yes, I do both.

1. Food
Food is necessary for a man to be happy. He's got to have plenty to eat, and they appreciate if it tastes good. I try to cook a meal from scratch about 2-3 times a week including weekends. I do 1 or 2 during the week and once on the weekends. Box meals (hamburger helper, homestyle bakes, mac and cheese with hot dogs) work great for in between, and if you've got a helpful man he can actually make some of those if he has the drive. Plus at least one or two nights out to eat. I like to go to Chili's, Johnny Carino's, and Tortuga's. Those are my 3 favorites. This gives you (or him if he likes to cook) a break from the kitchen and allows you some time to relax and have a nice dinner. When it comes to making meals from scratch, www.bettycrocker.com is the best website to check out. They have a ton of recipes. I love their beef stroganoff. It's delicious and it's one of my fiancé’s favorites too. Another great place to look for recipes is search engines. Go and type in Lasagna recipe or something and see how many pop up. It's great. Don’t be afraid to try new things. If it doesn’t turn out good… eh, no biggie. Throw the recipe away. Alter the recipe to your taste. Too many mushrooms? Take some out. Not enough garlic? Add a little. Tweak the recipe over several tries at making it and it will eventually become a family favorite. Give your kids something to do during cooking time. I have my 18 month old daughter and 27 month old future stepdaughter play with my fiancé or play together while I cook. It keeps them out of my way and keeps everyone occupied until dinner is ready.

2. Alone time
Doing things separately is important to keep a man happy and a relationship healthy. You can’t be together all the time and separate interests are great because it gives you something to talk about when you are together. I know girls, it’s hard to let a man go and have fun without you. It’s important for them to have “guy time” though. They need a couple of days a month to go out and hang out with their buddies (you know “the guys”). Hopefully, you have enough trust in your relationship that you don’t call him 5 bazillion times when he is out. It doesn’t give him the time he needs away if you do that. So ladies, let them go out to Hooters once in a while with their friends… at least he’s coming home to you (and maybe he’ll be in a great mood and give you something you want too *wink*).

3. Together time
Separate interests are good and needed, but you do need to have some common interests for things to do together. Whether it be watching the football game on Sunday, going to a museum, or playing a video game together. Together time keeps him interested and realizing what a great woman you are. My fiancé and I love to play video games, go to museums and go out to eat (we both love food so I count this as together time). It’s great to have together things that you can reminisce about in the future. If you’re running a tight schedule, you need to schedule together time at least once a week. Pick a day that works for both of you and make sure that you have together time every week on that day.

4. Attention and Love
Men are big babies. They will never admit it and they never want you to know. They want to be told they look handsome. They want you to notice the little things they do. They want you to cuddle with them and watch a movie. They want to feel like the man and fix something every once in a while. That is how they feel loved. Ladies, instead of fixing the sink yourself, go to your man and ask him to help you fix it. It makes him feel needed and loved. When he gets a haircut, say something nice about it. Let him pick out a movie for your together night and cuddle with him on the couch. These are little things that make him feel that you care and you are giving him the kind of attention he wants.

5. Less nagging
Men HATE nagging. Asking him to help you fix the sink is one thing. If he says in a minute, give him a day (unless it’s urgent then give him an hour and do it yourself). It’s useless to nag at a man because they automatically tune you out after he realizes you are nagging. Ask him nicely. If he does it in the time frame he says, give him tons of praise. Tell him how much you appreciate his help and how much it helped you that he did it. The less you nag and the more you praise, the more he will do all on his own without you asking.

6. Sleep & relaxation
Men need time to sleep. I find that men actually like to have a nap during the day on the weekends. Not all men need this but, hey, if yours does, let him have it. If your man wants an hour or two on Saturday to nap, don’t plan anything for a couple of hours that day. Let him take some time to relax and wind down. They have rough weeks too and they want to take a little time to do nothing once in a while. Relaxing is important for both of you to do. If you don’t relax once in a while, you will start to nag and be stressed (see above, they hate that). If you are stressed, they are stressed and it starts a vicious cycle. So, Ladies, chill with him. Take a breather, and don’t stress the little things.

7. Sex
Men LOVE sex. That’s not really a secret to any of the women out there. Don’t lie, you know it. So here’s my advice. Learn a couple of new tricks once in a while, find out what he likes (ask him during sex), and then try it on him (you might like it too). Trust me, he won’t complain. I learned almost everything I’m talented at from reading romance novels. Yes, cheesy, but they have some really great ideas in there. I practiced on my man and hey I’ve gotten really good at it. I’m not one to brag, but, hey, I know where my talents are. My fiancé tells me all the time. Take it slow, don’t bring out too many new things at once, but get good at the stuff he likes. I won’t go into graphic detail on anything because this isn’t an article about sex. Just practice and for goodness sake, as long as you are physically able, give it to him more than once a week. Yes, I have a daughter and a future stepdaughter. We find time. It’s there. Trust me.


So there it is ladies, the way to make a man happy and keep him that way. I hope that you all found something good in this and will attempt to integrate some, if not all, of it into your lives and your relationships. I hope you enjoyed this insight into the proper care and feeding of your man. Just so all of you know. I’m not a pushover. My fiancé does just as much for me as I do for him. The reason he does is because I take care of him the way he needs to be taken care of. Kind of like a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Good luck!

Creatures of Habit

It occurred to me today that I am a creature of habit. I do the exact same thing every day. I wake up at the exact same time. I go to get breakfast at the exact same deli every morning. I do the same thing every day at work. I go home and do the same thing on each respective day of the week. I go home and cook dinner and then do my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday stuff... Maybe it's time to break out of my daily routine.

Every day I go home and do the same thing first. I cook dinner the second I get in the door. After dinner is cooked, I watch Wheel of Fortune. It's a great show and keeps me thinking. I've watched it almost everyday for the last 2 years or so. Then after that it varies depending on the day. Monday is "The Bachelor" night. I play with my daughter and watch "The Bachelor." Jas goes to bed at 9 and after that I pick up all of the mess she made and then stay up flipping through channels and doing nothing. Tuesday is my cleaning and errands night. After dinner and "Wheel," I do laundry, go grocery shopping, and pretty much do whatever house cleaning I can. Wednesday is "Lost" night and "South Park" night. It's also when "Project Runway" is on. Which I record while I'm watching "South Park." Thursday, I just cook and clean and play with Jas. If I want to get out without her, Thursday would be the night because my father can watch her. Friday is a little bit more free. I don't always watch "Wheel" on Friday and I'll oftentimes go out with my Fiance, my daughter, and sometimes his daughter unless his ex has her that weekend. My weekends are centered around my daughter.

Now I told you all of that in the hope that I get some kind of insight from my few readers on what to do other than my normal routine. I find that after a month or so of the same thing I just get tired and it starts to wear on me. Unfortunately, I don't know what else to do with myself. When my ex takes Jas for his time each month, I am even more lost.

There are times when I sit in my car outside of my apartment and just try to get some time to breathe and relax. Then I go inside and start my same routine. I hope that others will relate to this and understand. It wears on me and I need a break but I'm at a loss of what to do. I think that any unhappiness I have in my life can be thwarted with breaking out of the routine once in a while and just having fun. Yes, there is some unhappiness at times. I'm generally a positive person and am happy most of the time. It's just the rebel in me that needs a break from the mommy routine once in a while.

I hope that everyone reading this understands and maybe this has helped you to break away from your daily routine.

Why can't we all just get along?

I've had this thought for a while now and I figure I should put it somewhere. Why do people who break up in a relationship hate eachother? Honestly, you've realized you don't get along, get over it, act like adults and treat each other like separate individuals. My parents have been divorced for 20 years and they refuse to be in the same room together. Now they were only married for 10 years. Let's do the math... what could someone do in 10 years (and probably not the whole 10 years) that would make you hate them for twice as long as you were married? I don't know and I don't want to ask my parents.

Now I have been in bad relationships. My last relationship left me with a 1 year old daughter and a cheating ex-fiance. I've forgiven him because I realize that I am in a better place now that he and I are apart. Forget the fact that he cheated on me to get me to this point, I'm at this point because he cheated on me. Yay for me! I've met a wonderful man on Eharmony.com. (I'll write about how eharmony and my now fiance are wonderful in another blog). I would never have been able to do that if I was stuck in a dead end relationship with a loser. So it all turned out good. My mother is now married (it took her a couple of tries) to a wonderful man that she loves. She just can't see how the bad relationship she had with my father helped her to grow. Maybe if people look at the good effects of things instead of just what originally happened then things would be more tolerant and friendly in the world.

It seems like people dwell on the bad so much that the good gets lost in translation. It's just like the news. I don't know about you but I hate watching the news. It's depressing and constantly focuses on the negative. That's why I watch the Daily Show. It gets the major world news stories to me but keeps me laughing. It helps me realize that, yeah, "shit happens." It's ok to laugh about it though.

I think I've made my point for the night. I hope this makes some people think about some of the good that's happened because of the bad. Next one I will try to make less serious... maybe I'll write about "The Flavor of Love." It's a great show if you haven't watched it. It shows all the emotional extremes that people can go through in one hour. Kind of like "The Bachelor" on crack... or cocaine... Whitney says "Crack is Wack."