You are your own shareholders: How quarterly relationship meetings strengthen our marriage
My husband and I recently celebrated three months of marriage. The perfect way for a programmer with a mind for finance and an accountant to augment the occasion was, of course, a quarterly meeting. It may sound crazy, but this is our first step in always making our marriage a priority. Here’s how quarterly meetings foster open and honest communication while strengthening our relationship…
Help! How do we minimize backlash when kicking out a toxic roommate?
I currently live in a house with four roommates and our lease is up at the end of October. Here’s our problem… Everyone wants to stay in the house, but none of us want to stay with our one roommate. The other three of us want to kick her out, but we aren’t sure how to without backlash. What is a good and formal but polite way to tell her she isn’t wanted anymore?
How to use your camera to find a bathroom in a foreign country
When in a country where you can’t speak the language, take pictures of signs for an easy-find reference!
How to deal with a bad landlord that just doesn’t care…
My husband and I really love our three bedroom upper duplex, and we get it for a really great price. The problem is that our landlord, a property management company, could not care less about anything that we contact them about. What are your tips on dealing with landlords that just don’t care?
How we’re renegotiating our marriage with our yearly “relationship summit”
For our anniversary we have our “relationship summit” or our “State Of The Union” address, where we renegotiated our marriage each year. We talk about where we are and what we want and if changes need to be made. But what’s more important is the time when we come to “I want to stay married to you for another year.” Here’s how it works…
Send postcards to yourself: Keep track of your travels with this hack
This is my mom’s fantastic idea for tracking experiences while traveling. How many times have you promised to keep a travel journal only to return home with most of the pages left blank? If you’re like me, that’s happened a few times. On top of that, how do you go about displaying your travel souvenirs when you get home? Developing photos is nice, but are you going to label them to remember everything? My mom’s solution: Postcards to yourself.
Family meetings help my relationship, save me money, and rock my socks
I am a terrible housekeeper. I’m also terrible at saving money. And talking about my feelings. And cooking (because I don’t plan ahead). And making time for my husband. At least, I WAS terrible at all of these things until… family meetings! I found a print-out somewhere in the depths of the internet called “Peek at the Week.” I showed it to my husband and he was mostly indifferent about it until I told him all of my amazing plans.
How to have hard conversations like a pro
As an attorney, a lot of my job is helping people have hard conversations. Over years of facilitating these tough conversations, I’ve come up with some steps that make them more productive and less painful. These aren’t just good for “legal” conversations — they can work for anything from talking about moving cross-country for a job to planning a birthday party!