Tag: guidelines

Your marriage is sacred. It's something you will spend the rest of your lives working on to ensure that it is strong, healthy, and lasts the rest of your life. So why not start protecting it now by setting healthy boundaries to help strengthen your marriage?

When you think of the word "boundaries" you may feel like you are putting restrictions on you and your spouse, but there is nothing negative about setting some guidelines for your relationship if their goal is to make your marriage stronger. These are five healthy boundaries to provide the framework for a healthy marriage.

You need a reliable babysitter for date night. Should be easy peasy, right? The truth is that this relationship is a two-way street and sometimes parents, unknowingly, can make the job harder or less satisfying than it needs to be. We reached out to our babysitter network to find out what they love (and loathe) about minding our kids.

Be Ready

You made reservations and even put mascara on, but your date night checklist is not done. First, tell the kids how you expect them to behave for the sitter. When she arrives, act excited to set the tone.

Every year you can count on countless little angels and funny little cowboys ringing your doorbell on the eve of October 31st. There are certain courtesies that should be observed and are certainly worth a friendly reminder.

Trick or Treat Tips for Parents

Think twice before carting around a "party wagon" filled with liquor for your trick or treat travels. The emphasis should be on the kids when it's dark and your children are dressed up and running from house to house. Parents are often distracted by the red wagon filled with chilled margaritas and often let their children get too far ahead of them while they are socializing and pouring their next drink.

With the year 2008 now a fading memory, it’s time we reflect on the lessons taught and how they may guide us in 2009. There’s no denying, for many American families, that last year qualified as "interesting," keeping with an ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. Record numbers of investment disasters, bank failures, home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies cannot soon be forgotten. These must, however, reflect more than simply a bad aftertaste. Better they provide guidelines to insure we not make the same mistakes a second time. There are three important lessons to be etched into our consciousness.

1. Everything is subject to change. Several years ago, as the nation’s stock of homes increased in value monthly, who among us predicted housing prices would be setting new lows?

Chances are the T-shirt and shorts your wife wears to bed are comfy, but certainly not sexy. A friend of mine once told me that his now ex-wife used to sleep in turtlenecks. Okay, I think we all agree that’s not sexy lingerie. A girlfriend of mine bought a chopper bra to wear on her husband’s birthday. The next day she squealed with delight as she recounted his reaction. Clearly, that was sexy lingerie for him. Her husband, in kind, surprised her by wearing a thong for her on her birthday. She did not find it sexy at all! The first lesson in lingerie is that what's sexy is in the eye of the beholder.