In praise of the institution of marriage

I think of our wedding guests as godparents to our marriage — people we can lean on if we need support in our commitment to one another.

Lately I feel almost as old fashioned as if I were getting out of a horse-drawn carriage in a giant bustled dress.

I’m a fan of marriage.

Mind you, I’m a fan of marriage to the right person — which is a big caveat — but still, I feel out of step with much of our generation and definitely of those younger.

We know numerous people who got pregnant either before getting married or without getting married, moved in together without any plans to get married or as a trial run to marriage, and who generally regard marriage as unnecessary paperwork. They’re happy, so who needs the government’s documentation of their relationship?

John and I both lived with previous partners, so we have first-hand experience in how that’s different from getting hitched.

For me, marriage is more than a piece of paper in a couple of important ways:

• It’s powerful to stand up in front of family and friends and declare in no uncertain terms that this is forever. Sure, we all know divorce exists, but plenty of people have also seen businesses fail and they still optimistically hang out their “grand opening” banner when they chase their own dreams. That moment of formalizing our commitment felt like both a promise to each other and enlisting our guests in the accountability of making it last. I think of our wedding guests as godparents to our relationship. Part of our wedding ceremony explicitly asked them to declare that they would support our commitment, just as we said “I do” to one another.
• When I lived with my ex-fiance, on some level I was always aware there was an escape clause. Yes, it would take finding another apartment and packing my stuff, but that’s not much different from moving to a new town for a job. By contrast, I feel the permanence of marriage. Again, I know divorce exists. My parents divorced when I was young, several of our friends are divorced. But it feels bigger to contemplate filing for divorce, disentangling not just belongings but bank accounts, life insurance and all the rest. We’re more integrated on so many levels, including how we live now and how we plan for the future, and that affects how I think about conflict in our relationship. It feels like a bump in the road, not a reason to exit the highway.

This isn’t to say I disapprove of friends who make different choices, whether that’s not getting married or ending a marriage. If you’re happy and it works for you, that’s what matters.

But I’m grateful we got married 13 years ago, and I feel our marriage is getting better as the years go by. Even if that makes me old fashioned.

More posts about marriage:

• 10 marriage lessons learned in 10 years of marriage
• Marriage tips from 10 years of marriage, part II
• What makes a marriage meaningful?
• Apparently I was learning marriage concepts in business school?
• Lucy and Ricky beds might help your marriage

Related articles

• A 10-year contract will save marriage (wealthysinglemommy.com)
• Laura Doyle: The Relationship Advice That Wrecked My Marriage (huffingtonpost.com)
• Weddings Vs. Marriages (blogher.com)

Making sense of the untimely death of our neighbor, Martha Atwater

This photo of Martha Atwater with a big smile is in the window of the Brooklyn Heights shop near where she died. She looks like someone I would have really liked.

A few weeks ago, a woman was killed in front of our Brooklyn apartment building.

She walked out of the bagel shop directly below our apartment and an out-of-control driver careened up onto the sidewalk, crushing her.

We’d walked past that spot not long before she died – we walk past it many times on an average a day – and when we came home, there were small signs of the tragedy, including a smashed planter in front of the bagel shop. No skid marks, though. It didn’t look like the driver tried to brake.

The next morning, the reminders of Martha Atwater’s untimely death grew, as people left cut flowers and potted plants in front of a little coffee, tea and spice shop we frequent.

Martha was just 48 and apparently both successful and beloved. The Brooklyn Eagle wrote:

Ms. Atwater, who produced such familiar children’s television shows as “Clifford The Big Red Dog,” and “Goosebumps” was married to Tom Wallack and had two young daughters. She had just bought cookies for the family at the café.

Her death is a “tremendous loss for Brooklyn,” said fellow Brooklyn mom Karen Auster.

“Martha was an integral part of the sisterhood of mothers in Downtown Brooklyn. The entire neighborhood has been affected, it’s a nightmare realized — she went to pick up cookies for her kids and she never returned.

People left cut flowers and potted plants in the spot where Martha Atwater was killed by an out of control driver.

Seeing the impromptu memorial gave me chills every time. It was a tangible reminder that a life can end at any moment.

Martha wasn’t doing something risky. She didn’t dart out into a busy street. She died doing something pretty mundane, picking up cookies then walking down a sidewalk in an affluent neighborhood.

There’s a cliché that we should live each day as if it’s our last. Those flowers reminded me it really might be.

Shortly thereafter, I followed a link a friend posted on Facebook for perhaps the best obituary I’ve ever read. Harry Stamps sounds like he lived each day to the fullest.

This is the example I aspire to follow as I ponder our mortality:

Harry Weathersby Stamps

December 19, 1932 — March 9, 2013

Long Beach

Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.

Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer’s black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee’s Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription. As a point of pride, he purported to remember every meal he had eaten in his 80 years of life.

The women in his life were numerous. He particularly fancied smart women. He loved his mom Wilma Hartzog (deceased), who with the help of her sisters and cousins in New Hebron reared Harry after his father Walter’s death when Harry was 12. He worshipped his older sister Lynn Stamps Garner (deceased), a character in her own right, and her daughter Lynda Lightsey of Hattiesburg. He married his main squeeze Ann Moore, a home economics teacher, almost 50 years ago, with whom they had two girls Amanda Lewis of Dallas, and Alison of Starkville. He taught them to fish, to select a quality hammer, to love nature, and to just be thankful. He took great pride in stocking their tool boxes. One of his regrets was not seeing his girl, Hillary Clinton, elected President.

He had a life-long love affair with deviled eggs, Lane cakes, boiled peanuts, Vienna [Vi-e-na] sausages on saltines, his homemade canned fig preserves, pork chops, turnip greens, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread.

Finally, the family asks that in honor of Harry that you write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord’s Time.

This is an abridged version. Read the whole version, which is just as fantastic, here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sunherald/obituary.aspx?n=harry-stamps&pid=163538353#storylink=cpy

Related blog posts:

• If someone you love died today, would you have regrets?
• Frank Sinatra reminds us to live until we die
• Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture
• “One Month to Live” encourages readers to face mortality and live life to the fullest

Slow down, you move too fast

I walk past Rolling Orange bike shop on many of my grocery shopping ventures, and I love the sentiment in their window.

This weekend, in preparation for hosting friends for dinner, I visited five different stores, spending the better chunk of Saturday afternoon strolling from shop to shop in the rain.

Fresh Direct trucks are ubiquitous in our Brooklyn neighborhood, so it would be easy to avoid running these errands.

But for me, the most efficient choice isn’t the best choice.

I enjoy chatting with the crew at our nearby wine shop, people watching as I wait my turn to buy bulk olives and dried fruit at our Middle Eastern grocery store, checking out what’s happening in the neighborhood on the longish walk to the Italian deli.

When we lived in Michigan, grocery shopping was mostly a grudge activity. If that were still the case, I might jump at the chance to order food online and have it delivered, cutting out the slog down immense aisles and the tedious wait at the cash register.

But now that we buy most of our food from small, independent shops and farm vendors, shopping is part of what makes me feel connected to our neighborhood.  It’s not a task to be eliminated, but something I enjoy.

I suppose that’s like friends of ours who enjoy making homemade pasta — these days it’s easy to buy good pasta at a reasonable price, but they aren’t looking for the fastest way to get pasta, they’re enjoying both the process and the outcome.

What do you do that’s the intentionally inefficient choice?

Learning how to show your love instead of just saying I love you

Do you remember that exhilarating feeling the first time someone you adored said those magic words, “I love you?”

And do you remember the gut-wrenching feeling the first time you realized that someone who’d been throwing around the L word didn’t really love you? At least, not in the way you needed?

How you demonstrate your love matters.

John and I have been talking a lot lately about “Five Love Languages,” by Gary Chapman. A friend of John’s read it and shared this simple but important take away: we all have different ways we feel love most strongly, and that might not be the same way our mate is inclined to demonstrate love.

Click here to learn more about Gary Chapman’s five love languages

For example, maybe a husband buys his wife beautiful gifts and assumes she’ll know from those presents how much he loves her. But she thinks he’s just trying to buy her, because what she wants most is a day of his undivided attention or more hugs.

So love follows the platinum rule. If the golden rule is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the platinum rule says you should do unto others as they want you to do unto them. Or maybe the double platinum rule: try to give your loved one what he or she wants, even if you have to help figure that out because he or she doesn’t even know yet. Just because you think gifts are great, don’t assume your loved one cares about gifts, for example.

I appreciate all five love languages, but over the years I’ve come to prioritize acts of service and quality time most highly. That’s in part because I’ve dated a few guys who were great with telling me verbally and in writing how much they loved me, but over time I realized their actions didn’t square with their words. So I appreciate John’s romantic words because they’re in the context of other things he does to show his love.

I think that means that for me, the best love language is one that blends all five love languages.  What about you?

Related posts about marriage:

• 10 marriage lessons learned in 10 years of marriage
• Marriage tips from 10 years of marriage, part II
• Apparently I was learning marriage concepts in business school?
• What makes a marriage meaningful?

Recapping posts you might’ve missed about living life intentionally

Maybe you have this holiday week off, or maybe you’re just enjoying a little come down after a jam-packed month of parties, shopping, pageants or religious observances.

I love the holidays — taking down the Christmas tree is one of my least favorite days of the year — but feels like many of us have let out a small sigh of relief that the busy, indulgent weeks are coming to a close.

In case you’re enjoying your first chance to do some reading in a while, here’s a sampler platter of some Newvine Growing posts you might have missed.

People and profiles

• Ari Weinzweig, lapsed anarchist, shares the business philosophies of food mecca Zingerman’s
• Edible magazines grew from desire for more from life (a profile of founder Tracey Ryder)
• Brook Eddy’s trip to India leads to journey as entrepreneur
• Larry Kirshbaum on the transition from publishing bigwig to literary entrepreneur
• Lou Rosenfeld on redefining his career and emulating Bob Dylan
• H.T. Riekels the alcoholic is dead

New Year’s resolutions  and life goals

• Decide what you want and declare it in no uncertain terms
• My vision board as a painting by my artist husband, John Tebeau
• Giving yourself permission to be a beginner
• Chris Brogan’s story of a builder and a shaky foundation
• The myth of discipline — a repost from Zen Habits
• What makes resolutions achievable?

Happiness

• Silencing your inner critic
• How should we gauge happiness?
• The relationship between work, home and happiness
• Martin Seligman, author of “Authentic Happiness,” now wants us to flourish
• Reblog from David Chaitt: Don’t compare yourself to others

Relationships and marriage

• Lucy and Ricky beds might help your marriage
• 10 marriage lessons learned in 10 years of marriage
• Marriage tips from 10 years of marriage, part II
• Apparently I was learning marriage concepts in business school?
• Cooking dinner for someone is a great way to deepen your relationship

Music

• Woody Allen on the merits of practicing and New Orleans jazz
• Babies know it feels good to dance. Why do grown ups forget?
• 5 life lessons learned from beginner piano lessons
• Musical role models in strong, soulful ladies
• Katrina spurred me to visit – and fall in love with – New Orleans

Business and the economy

• Guest post by Christine Kane: Does Your Business Squeeze the Joy Out of Your Passion?
• Vote with your wallet and help your fave businesses through the recession
• Is the sagging economy leading people to entrepreneurship?
• Let’s take control of email by taking a breath before hitting “send”
• Retirement might not make you stress free

Blogversation 2012: Wrapping up a year of online conversation

Throughout this year, several bloggers have engaged in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding.  It’s been an honor to share Newvine Growing with these smart, thoughtful, articulate, committed women:

• Mary Jean Babic
• Kay Hoffman Goluska
• Lauren McCabe
• Maria Stuart
• Amy Throndsen
• Eleanor Traubman
• Lesley Ware
• Jennifer Worick

Every week, one of the Blogversationists has shared a question and the rest of us chimed in with responses. Below is a purposely random sample of questions from the year, mixed up to show the range from serious to silly, political to practical.

You can read the whole year’s worth of questions, and share your thoughts, by clicking here. Or you can just pop around below and see what gets you thinking.

I’m wrapping up my fourth year with Newvine Growing. If you’ve ever stumbled onto a blog that hasn’t been updated in months, or if you have one yourself, you might know that keeping up with writing regularly can be a challenge — I don’t get paid to blog, I don’t have a boss monitoring my output, so it’s all about self motivation. Having these ladies generously share their thoughts renewed my enthusiasm for blogging. I wanted to give their excellent contributions a worthy home.

Thanks to all the bloggers for making 2012 my best year ever for traffic and content. I’m grateful for all you’ve done, a sliver of which is shown below:

Blogversation 2012: How and why did you become a blogger?
Blogversation 2012: What are you passionate about even though you’re not good at it?
Blogversation 2012: How do you use social media to uplift your life?
Blogversation 2012: When did life hand you something terrible that turned out to be great?
Blogversation 2012: What is the one thing in life that you still most want to do?
Blogversation 2012: What would make the world better for women?
Blogversation 2012: Do you feel there’s a political “war on women” being waged?
Blogversation 2012: Who or what inspires you?
Blogversation 2012: How do you define community and how do you nurture it?
Blogversation 2012: How do you set up your workspace?
Blogversation 2012: How do you cope?
Blogversation 2012: How do you deal with haters?
Blogversation 2012: What do you do to take care of your health?
Blogversation 2012: What would your perfect holiday season look like?
Blogversation 2012: How will you support your local businesses during the holidays? Blogversation 2012: How do you prefer to communicate? Blogversation 2012: What’s your experience with ending friendships? Blogversation 2012: What routines or rituals do you engage in at the start and/or end of the day?
Blogversation 2012: Who’s your professional female role model?
Blogversation 2012: What’s your feel-better food?
Blogversation 2012: How do you make decisions without emotions clouding your judgment? Blogversation 2012: How important are organized politics in your life? Are you politically active? Blogversation 2012: What have you done when some life-altering event has happened to you? Blogversation 2012: Do you have a “go-to” movie? Blogversation 2012: What is your worst personal trait and how do you deal with it? Blogversation 2012: What would you change about your home to make it your dream home? Blogversation 2012: Do you have a favorite season and what makes it special? Blogversation 2012: What are the keys to successful collaboration? Blogversation 2012: When have you had an a-ha moment about your life? Blogversation 2012: What practical tips can you pass along? Blogversation 2012: What’s your relationship with stuff? Blogversation 2012: What’s your best relationship advice?

Blogversation 2012: What do you want from your hometown?
Blogversation 2012: What role does laughter, fun and humor play in your life?

Once the time for shopping has passed, it’s time to be thankful

How graciously do you receive the gifts you are given?
This photo by Scott Miller reused under Creative Commons license.

All over America, kids are playing with new toys and piles of wrapping paper are stuffed into trash bags.

Perhaps you’re breathing a sigh of relief that the trips to crowded stores are over, along with the damage to your credit card.

But what if someone bought you a gift and you didn’t get her anything? Or what if someone gave you something much nicer than you gave her?

Will you go online tonight to hurriedly order something?  Or stew in your discomfort and embarrassment?

What if you gave someone a present significantly better than what you got in return? Are you keeping score?

Whatever the inequity, it might be a good place to practice receiving graciously.

I recently read a blog post headlined, “Do You Graciously Receive?,” that included this anecdote:

… Kate commented that someone had a sharp response to her wanting to buy their coffee being next in line at a coffee shop.  This might be a classic example of what you wouldn’t normally expect someone to respond like to an act of kindness but it seems that in reality, things are much more difficult to graciously receive than one might think.

Many times I think that serving others is actually easier than receiving from others.  Perhaps you’ve heard about someone getting mad over paying for their coffee and think you would never do this yourself.  You would likely want to simply thank the person and move on, but I doubt you would find it that easy.

The author discusses how common it is for us to dismiss a compliment or wave off an offer to help, discouraging the other person from kindness and keeping a distance between us. He also notes how fights can break out over who picks up the check when friends dine out together.

We’re programmed to a certain amount of this score keeping. It’s part of the social code of reciprocity — I scratch your back, you scratch mine.

In an NPR story on reciprocation, Robert Cialdini, emeritus psychologist at Arizona State University, explains the social contract that holds a community together:

“We are obligated to give back to others, the form of behavior that they have first given to us,” he says. “Essentially thou shall not take without giving in return.”

And so if someone passes you in the hall and says hello, you feel compelled to return their greeting. When you don’t, you notice it, it makes you uncomfortable, out of balance. That’s the rule of reciprocation.

“There’s not a single human culture that fails to train its members in this rule,” Cialdini says.

This is probably because there are some obvious benefits to the rule of reciprocation; it’s one of those rules that likely made it easier for us to survive as a species.

But there are so many ways to reciprocate that aren’t about objective bookkeeping.

When we went to Burning Man this year, an art event in the Nevada desert that operates on a gift economy, I was struck by participants’ comfort with both giving and receiving. People gave freely, without strings, so recipients were freed up to enjoy the gift without expectations — and an appreciative thank you seemed a lovely way to reciprocate.

I don’t think anyone likes to feel taken advantage of. It doesn’t feel good to give a gift that’s not acknowledged or appreciated, which is part of what reciprocity does. It shows us the other person saw value in what we gave.

So maybe saying a real thank you is the foundation of graciously receiving?

And if you can’t afford a gift that costs as much as the one you received from a friend or family member, maybe the dollar figure matters less than giving a present that shows genuine thoughtfulness?

If your gift giving is done for the holiday season, then how about spending the next few days reflecting on all those who’ve shown you generosity and letting them know how much you appreciate it?

I have pointers on thank you notes, if you’d like a little help getting started …

Happy holidays!

 

Please, don’t cop out and buy a gift card, unless you put some thought in first

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums shared this photo of a Christmas window at the Woods store in South Shields in 1962 on Flickr under Creative Commons.

Since the world didn’t end Dec. 21, that leaves a lot of us finishing up last-minute Christmas shopping.

(The Saturday before Christmas is actually busier than Black Friday, often mistakenly called the biggest shopping day of the year.)

Maybe you’re worn out from too many holiday parties or panicking because you realize how little time is left before you leave to visit your family, so you’re tempted to just buy a few gift certificates to someplace that sells everything the recipient could want, maybe Target or Macy’s or Amazon.

Before you do, might I implore you to reconsider?

First, think about your experience receiving a gift card. You take it to a store and play your own Price is Right, trying to use the value on the card without going too far over. Chances are you either leave some of the gift giver’s money sitting on the card or you spend some of your own.  Or maybe you never use the card at all.

Research says some $41 billion in gift card value has gone unclaimed since 2005.

Consumer Reports will also launch a holiday shopping hub on www.ConsumerReports.org that will offer tips on how to avoid gift card snags and provides a place for consumers to share their stories about problems with gift cards.

Consumer Reports is also releasing its latest survey, which finds that 27 percent of gift card recipients have not used one or more of these cards, up from 19 percent at the same time last year. And among consumers with unredeemed cards from last season, 51 percent have 2 or more.

Not wanting to waste your money is one good reason to skip gift cards — but that is a side benefit.

I think giving a gift is primarily an opportunity to show love and affection for others. It is not a simple financial transaction like sliding a 20 across the counter at a fast food restaurant.

To me, a gift card says, “I know I’m supposed to give you something, but I can’t be bothered to spend the time or effort to understand what you might like, so here’s some cash so you can do the shopping I didn’t do.”

My husband is an excellent gift giver — because he pays attention to what I like and to what his family and friends like.

One year he gave me a pretty silver ring. I cooed about how much I liked it. Of course, he said, you picked it out. I didn’t remember having admired it in a store window, but he did. He’d gone back and bought it, safe in the knowledge I’d like it because I’d already said so.

My dad takes a more direct route. Every year he asks directly what we’d like for Christmas. John and I confer on something we think Dad might like to get us — electronics and appliances are in his sweet spot — then I relay our request with an explanation of why we want the thing and how we’ll use it. He learns something about what we like, and we think of him every time we use our new TV or stove.

Time is short, so what can you do to buy a last-minute gift that conveys thoughtfulness for the recipient?

Think about what you know about him or her. Can you think of any hobbies or special interests?

Let’s say your brother loves to bike. If you go to your local bike shop and ask for good gift ideas in your price range, they can steer you to something that shows you know biking is an important part of his life.

Baking? Playing music? Fishing? If you’re stumped, spend five minutes looking at Facebook photos and you might find loads of inspiration.

(I will add, I’m a fan of including a gift receipt, because the truth is that getting size, style, brand, etc. right isn’t always easy, and once you’ve made that thoughtful gesture, it doesn’t hurt to let the recipient tweak your choice a bit.)

But, you might rightly protest, Christmas is only a few days away and the time for doing such thoughtful, time-consuming shopping has long since passed.

Here’s my exception to gift card opposition: when it’s done with thought.

For example, when I was working full-time in a Manhattan high rise, John would occasionally mail me Starbucks gift cards. We had a Starbucks in the lobby, and it was his way of encouraging me to get up from my desk to take a coffee break.

One year, my dad asked for the names of some of our favorite restaurants. He went online, looked at their menus, estimated what he thought dinner would cost, then sent us a check with instructions that we were to spend this much at this restaurant, that much at that one. It was like a Dad-funded food scavenger hunt. He knew we love to go out to eat, and made the effort to connect up his cash gift to specific use.

A Psychology Today article headlined, “Can’t Think of a Good Holiday Gift? Give a Bad One,” quotes Steven Gimbel, Ph.D., chair of the department of philosophy at Gettysburg College:

A gift card erases much of what a gift says. It does not affirm our connection. It does not show how much I understand your desires. It is not something to be kept and cherished, something that derives meaning and worth beyond the material value because it was a gift from me.

Of course, this is not always the case.  One of the best gifts my wife and I have ever received was a packet of gift cards from my parents. They were for local restaurants and came with a promise to babysit our very young children. These were not just gift cards, but the possibility for a couple to spend valuable “us time” together, something that my folks knew was scarce in our busy lives.

Similarly, a gift card can be a very thoughtful gift if the hunting for the thing is a part of the joy the person receives. As our son has grown, he has become an avid baseball card collector. A gift card for an online auction site gave him not only the opportunity to acquire a few new cards he would not have had the money to afford, but also gave him hours and hours of fun trying to find bargains and win cards in auctions with nail-biting finishes that rivaled the bottom of the ninth inning in the best games played by the players pictured.

So *if* you’re buying a hardware store gift card because your kids are renovating their house, and you say in the card “Go buy yourself that saw we talked about,” it can be thoughtful — and you don’t have to worry it won’t arrive by Tuesday.

If you’re thinking of buying gift cards, let me point out CardNap, the gift card resale site started by one of our San Francisco roommates, Lachy Groom.

Blogversation 2012: Has the Newtown tragedy changed you?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

Today’s question comes from Kay Hoffman Goluska, who blogs at Pen on Pointe.  She’s @PenOnPointe on Twitter.

Kay Hoffman Goluska wants to know how the Newtown shootings affected you

The original topic I had in mind, which I had mulled over in my head for a while seems rather trite in the face of the grief so many are experiencing over the Newtown tragedy.

Sure, life must go on – but I decided it might just be simpler to discuss some real issues that are weighing heavily on our minds right now.  Given the types of discussions I have had with friends recently – ranging from religion, violence in history, gun control, mental health issues and the like – I thought I would propose we have a heart to heart about this.

I know from my own experience that the grief you feel after the death of a loved one is a lingering pain that crops up unexpectedly and seems to drag on endlessly.  I cannot possibly fathom what the people of Newtown are experiencing, and my heart goes out to them.  This is beyond tragic.  It is horrific.  I wish to God it had never happened, but the sad fact it has.  So the question I have for you is:  ”What do we do now?”

When all of this occurred I was in the midst of preparing for our opening night of our dance school’s performance of the Nutcracker.  I didn’t allow the shock of what happened sink in until later, but as I was walking on stage, looking around at all the children involved I was struck by how much I love mankind.  How much I loved these little kids, sometimes hellions, that make up my life.  I turned to see my 4 children lined up in the wings, preparing to dance, act, and perform for a crowd.  It was all I could do to stop myself from running over to hug them, fighting the urge to touch them.  I met the eyes of some of the other adults and I knew they were thinking much the same thing.

What will I do?  I won’t take what is in my life for granted again.  I have even found myself shaking off the impatience I sometimes feel with my children.  I have tried to actually bend down to their level, look them in the eyes, give them my love.  I have taken the time to tell people I appreciate them, or find something complementary about them to discuss.  It has reaffirmed my belief that life is too short to get caught up in the little stuff, but to focus on what matters.  To love and be loved.

Whether you have children or not, it is hard not to be affected by the current events.

Has the Newtown tragedy changed you? What will you do now?

Blogversation 2012: What would you change about your home to make it your dream home?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

Last week, Mary Jean Babic asked about your relationship with stuff, and this week’s question builds on that notion of home really nicely. Today’s question comes from Eleanor Traubman, Creative Times, @creativetimes on Twitter:

What would you change about your home to make it your dream home?

There are a bunch of things I love about the apartment I share with my husband.  It’s small, so it minimizes cleaning time required to maintain it.  The living room/kitchen area has three windows which face into a bunch of backyards. Which means (a) there’s lots of gorgeous sunlight coming in and (b) we enjoy a cheerful view of sky, birds, trees, and neighbors enjoying outdoor space. Also, with the exception of our home office, it’s pretty uncluttered so it’s easier to unwind and gain mental clarity.

I do, however, always have ideas about what would make our home a more fun and inspiring place to live.

People who know me well know that I love the Charlie Brown holiday specials.  One of my favorite scenes in the Charlie Brown Easter DVD is when Woodstock, who is tired of living in a nest, asks Snoopy to build him a regular bird house. After obliging, Snoopy peers into the new house to see how Woodstock has decorated.  Turns out Woodstock has created a full-on 1970s bachelor pad, complete with sunken living room, lounge-y furniture, rich vibrant colors, and huge headphones attached to a speaker system.

This clip is the basis of my dream home! Specifically,  I would love an L-shaped couch for lounging and entertaining.

I would not argue with having some funky pillows and chairs that people could read and recline in and on. A richly colored rug to soften the effects of a wood floor would be peachy.

And, lastly, I’d love some kind of entertainment unit that hid all the exposed wires that come out from our television and DVD players.

So here’s my two-part question: What are some things you love and appreciate about your home exactly the way it is now? If you could add some things to make it your dream home (paint, art, furniture, whatever!) what would those things be? Have fun with this question!