A Lesson in Neediness

I spent most of my weekend remodeling and redecorating but avoided bringing the heaviest package in from my car. A nice gentleman at Target loaded this package for me as it weighed more than I thought I could carry.

I gazed at the package in my backseat when I arrived home tonight and thought I can do this. One time, two times, three times without any luck. If only a strong man, significant other or even my dad were here, the package would be sitting on my living room floor waiting to be assembled.

As I took a deep breathe, the words popped out of my mouth...I need a man.

I felt a sense of disappointment for even thinking that let alone saying it out loud. After all, I am an independent woman, hear me roar.

Women everywhere are preaching independence. And as a 28 year old single, I have been preaching that too. But the heavy lifting got me thinking maybe it is okay to need a man or any relationship for that matter.

I recently heard a quote that says "A real relationship is when your desire for each other outweighs your need for each other." So it is with all our relationships. We will face tough times where we "need" our friends, family, or significant other. And to reach out to them is not a sign of weakness.

The lesson is not to lose yourself to the relationship. Not to depend solely on the other person to get you through those times of "need."

So I took that lesson and headed back to the car.I got that package in my living room. And when this nice young gentleman asked if he could help I batted my eyes and said, "Why yes will you please hold the door."


3 Things You Shouldn't Do If He's Cheating On You

This article will keep you from making a mistake that could sabotage the course of action you eventually decide to take. Regardless of whether you decide to leave your husband or stay with him and try to work things out, doing the wrong thing at the outset can complicate matters and make a bad situation worse. Let's look at 5 key things you SHOULDN'T do and examine the reasons why.

1. Don't put him out or leave him - yet.

Instead of your first move, putting your husband out or leaving him should be your last resort. You may eventually decide to do this, but for now, it's the worst thing you can do. Right now you need to keep a close eye on what's going on. It'll be easier to do that if the two of you are still living under the same roof. If you put him out or leave, you'll be hard-pressed to know what he's doing, short of hiring an investigator. As long as you're still together, you can keep your finger on the pulse of his affair and gather some much-needed facts. There's a lot you need to know about the situation before you can make an intelligent decision about whether to go or to stay - and on what terms. Continue monitoring your husband's activities, his attitude, the frequency of his contact with his lover and any other details concerning his affair. Write everything down in a journal for future use. Also bear in mind that as long as he's still there, you have a chance to work things out.

2. Don't tell the whole world about his infidelity.

It's natural to want to confide in somebody about your husband's affair, or rally friends and family to your side. But be very cautious about who you tell. The female friend you confide in could turn out to be the "other woman." Make sure you're confiding in someone you know you can trust. Confiding in a male friend about your husband's affair could complicate the situation. There are men out there who take advantage of women when they're in a vulnerable state. Telling your husband's friends or family may not produce the results you want. They might not take you seriously. Or they may lie, make excuses for him, take his side, or warn him to cover his tracks. Confiding in your own family and friends can eventually come back to haunt you. Elephants aren't the only ones who never forget. Some people have a tendency to remember unpleasant events long after they've been resolved. If you and your husband decide to reconcile, they could make things difficult by harboring anger and hostility toward him for what he did to you. Or they may show resentment toward you for taking him back. Exercise caution in who you tell about your husband's affair.

3. Don't ignore his affair or pretend it's not happening.

Going into denial will only make matters worse. As traumatic as it is to find out that your husband has been cheating, you need to face the reality of the situation. Ignoring his infidelity gives him the go-ahead to continue his affair. Pretending it's not happening will make him think he's getting away with his cheating, or give him the impression that he has your silent approval. At some point you should inform your husband that you know about his affair and make it clear that you want it to stop. The sooner you confront him about his cheating, the better. The longer you wait to bring it up and express your disapproval, the more attached he will become to the other woman. And the harder it will be to get your marriage back on track. Remember too, that affairs thrive in secrecy. Sometimes, just telling your husband you know about it, will be enough to put a stop to his affair.


How To Care For Your Floral Arrangements

The more you can learn about fresh cut flowers and their special care, the healthier your arrangements will be.

Lets start with vases & containers. Most people will grab a vase out of the cupboard and fill it with water and place the flowers in it. I would like to suggest that you rinse it first with hot water and get any dust out of it. Then put a few drops (and I do mean only drops) of bleach. This will keep out and kill any bacteria and it will not harm the flowers. When you buy flowers, most places will supply a packet of flower food. If you have no flower food, not to worry, you can always put a teaspoon of sugar in the water.

Now you are ready to prepare your flowers.

Take each stem and remove any leaves that may be below the water line. You do this so you don’t get microbial damage to your flowers. Leave as many leaves as possible above the water line as this is a design element. When you are dealing with roses, most people like to remove the thorns but I recommend that you leave as many thorns on as possible. This is because stripping them off causes wounds to the rose and allows possible microbial invasion causing your roses to die sooner than they need to.

You will want to cut about an inch off the bottom stems. Cut them at an angle with a sharp knife preferably under water. You do this so that the flowers drink water, not air. You can get air pockets in the stem preventing them from drinking which ensures early death.

There are some flowers that require special handling. Such is the case with freesia. This flower does not take well to chlorine so you’ll want to use distilled water. Tulips do better in a vase with a penny on the bottom. The petals stay closed a little longer. Note, tulips can still grow after they have been cut, as much as an inch per day! Hydrangea prefers being in a vase. This is because it needs to be hydrated. If you put them in floral foam, their life span will be much shorter. Note, if your hydrangea shows signs of wilting, you can revive them by turning them upside down in water for about an hour.

Some flowers last longer than others, such as carnations and daisies. They can last as long as 3 weeks. An arrangement with roses and lilies will not last as long, usually 4 to 7 days. Determine what you want the flowers for.


Abuse, Love and The Sanctity of the Soul

"I don't know why I let it go on as long as I did. I guess I just loved him/her."

How many times have we heard this coming from the cracked and bleeding lips (and soul) of a victim of abuse? How many times have we tried to find the words to help them through their grief and anger as they realize that their love was not enough to keep the whole house of cards from coming apart at the seams? One question always comes up, the hardest to answer: "How can I walk away when I love them so much? How can I just abandon them, go back on my vows and my promises?" We talk about loving yourself first and how love isn't supposed to punch and frighten and chill with steely glares and withering silence, but it rarely helps to heal the bitter and self-inflicted wound of perceived betrayal.

However, one aspect of love and spiritual teachings of love often goes unspoken and unheard, the aspect that teaches and compels us to love unconditionally the true divine nature of the other, perhaps more than we loves the present incarnation and weakness of that other, and that instructs us to seek to protect them from harm, loss and diminishment in any way possible. Yet this is an important facet to consider, a part of love and our understanding of love that can help us deal with both our love and our pain, that can enable us both to love our attacker, yet move away from their sphere of influence - without guilt, without remorse and without the desperate feeling that we're betraying our vows to stand by their side for better and worse, in sickness and health.

One of the core tenets of this teaching and understanding of love is that when we harm others, we harm ourselves far more. Violence, anger, spite, malice, denigration, exploitation - all of these blacken and shrivel the soul of the perpetrator in far greater measure than the physical damage done to the victim. In fact, many of the non-violent spiritual sects and religions take that stand precisely because of this, knowing that no matter how right their intent or how good the sought-after outcome, no amount of force or violence is ever safe to impose on others lest we break our own hands on the rod we picked up to strike our brother with. Akido, a variation of the martial arts, takes this to it's logical end by teaching only throws, holds and blocks, offering the student no skills that could be used to injure or attack, but only those needed to ward off attack until the aggressor is worn our or defeated by their own violence. This is one aspect of this approach to love that is rarely understood, yet is of singular importance - that by preventing our attacker from harming us, we are not only preventing harm to our own souls but are indeed safekeeping that of our attacker's as well.

And so we come to the meat of the issue. By allowing someone to abuse us, for whatever reason, we are doing them harm by allowing them to harm themselves through violence to us. Removing ourselves from their influence is not a betrayal, nor is it an abandonment - it is an act of supreme love, the prevention of harm to one that we hold dear to our heart. Just as we would not let a child repeatedly injure itself on a hot stove or a sharp implement, we should not allow our weakness and our silence to continue to present to our abuser the opportunity to do more and more harm to their own soul.

If we love them, we owe it to the true "them," the core spark of divine energy that is the soul, to remove ourselves until they have learned the self-restraint necessary to avoid harming us - and through us, themselves, just as we would protect any other loved one from self-injury and danger. By learning to love another so much that we are willing to walk into loss and loneliness to preserve their soul, we remove ourselves and them from the spiraling cycle of abuse that binds us both to our eventual, and mutual, destruction.