10 Habits of Happy Couples

Found this link.  Copy and pasted this below.  I like this!

What does it take to be happy in a relationship? If you’re working to improve your marriage, here are the 10 habits of happy couples.

1. Go to bed at the same time
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times. They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps. And when their skin touches, it still causes each of them to tingle and — unless one or both are completely exhausted — to feel sexually excited.
2. Cultivate common interests
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own; this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

3. Walk hand-in-hand or side-by-side
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand-in-hand or side-by-side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.
4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.
5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.
6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected). Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the “good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.
7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.
8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.
9. Do a “weather” check during the day
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.
10. Be proud to be seen with your partner
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck. They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.
Happy couples have different habits than unhappy couples. A habit is a discrete behavior that you do automatically and that takes little effort to maintain. It takes 21 days of daily repetition of a new behavior to become a habit. So select one of the behaviors in the list above to do for 21 days and voila, it will become a habit… and make you happier as a couple. And if you fall off the wagon, don’t despair, just apologize to your partner, ask for their forgiveness and recommit yourself to getting back in the habit.
If there was one key to happiness in love and life and possibly even success, it would be to go into each conversation you have with this commandment to yourself front and foremost in your mind, "Just Listen" and be more interested than interesting, more fascinated than fascinating and more adoring than adorable.

When she....

When she walks away from you mad:
Follow her.

When she stares at your mouth:
Kiss her.

When she pushes you or hits you:
Grab her and don’t let go.

When she starts cussing at you:
Kiss her and tell her you love her.

When she's quiet:
Ask her what’s wrong.

When she ignores you:
Give her your attention.

When she pulls away:
Pull her back.

When you see her at her worst:
Tell her she's beautiful.

When you see her start crying:
Just hold her and don’t say a word.

When you see her walking:
Sneak up and hug her waist from behind.

When she's scared:
Protect her.

When she lays her head on your shoulder:
Tilt her head up and kiss her.

When she steals your favorite shirt:
Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night.

When she teases you:
Tease her back and make her laugh.

When she doesn’t answer for a long time:
Reassure her that everything is okay.

When she looks at you with doubt:
Back yourself up.

When she says that she likes you:
She really does more than you could understand.

When she grabs at your hands:
Hold hers and play with her fingers.

When she bumps into you:
Bump into her back and make her laugh.

When she tells you a secret:
Keep it safe and untold.

When she looks at you in your eyes:
Don’t look away until she does.

When she misses you:
She's hurting inside.

When you break her heart:
The pain never really goes away.

When she says its over:
She still wants you to be hers.

When she reposts this bulletin:
She wants you to read it.

~Author Unknown

Don't Hate Yourself in a Bathing Suit - You're Missing Out!

I love the pool in Vegas!  Catch is, I didn't go to the pool until about 2010.  I never felt good in my own skin in a bathing suit to even FATHOM the idea.

I missed out on SO many years and opportunities, WOW!

No, every time I go I make a point to stop by the pool at least for an hour, to check it out it my baby suit (yes, I call it that sometimes).

There are many cool bathing suites that cover up the areas you don't like.  And honestly. NO ONE is looking at you.  They are wondering how they themselves look or are checking out the really hot chicks in skimpy baby suits.

So, GO TO THE POOL!

I read this quote the other day and it so resonated with my "older" self:

"43% of woman have missed out on a trip the beach or pool because they weren't happy with how they looked."

Some recent pics near water and me in a bathing suit. I never would have thought I would do this, but I really was missing out!

Others have written about this too:  Check out this very popular written blog about this topic.

Skylar Diggs Quote - Your Best

WNBA star, Skylar Diggs:

"My Mom always told me "You don't have to be the best, but you do have to be your best.""

Nice advice!

Imperfectly Perfect Quote

Found this anonymous quote in More magazine  and love it:

"When I separate my features, the imperfections of each are all I see.  Taking in the entire self though let the highlights and lowlights become imperfectly perfect."

If I do this right now, I love my whole entire self as is!  I'm not so bad.  :)

Ranjana Khan Quote about Age

"When everything is falling into place, age doesn't matter." 

-Jewelry designer, Ranjana Khan, 58

(how nice that would feel!)

Allison Janey Quote about Age

"I've decided I'm going to start saying I'm older than I am.  When I tell people I'm 65, they'll say "You look AMAZING!"

-Allison Janney, 54

True Love Quote

"Love is when you take away the feelings, the passion, and the romance in the relationship and you find out that you still care for the person."

Makes me cry just thinking about this.  <3 p="">
 

Reading Glasses and Aging

I remember when I was almost 30 years old I went to lunch with my boss.  He had to use reading glasses to read the menu.

He tried at first not to use them but then had to take them out to read.  He made some weird comment like he hated to use them because it indicated that he was getting old (or older).  My response was, "I never thought that before."

Fast forward about 8 years and I'm traveling with a girlfriend who is in her mid 40s and sure enough at dinner she grabs her reading glasses. 

She says to me,  unashamed, "I can't read in the dark light. "

I was like,  uhhhh...what?

I didn't understand. 

As I approached the 40th year of my life, I heard more often I would need reading glasses.

It wasn't until about 43 that I borrowed a friends reading glasses because I could barely read the letters and words in the dark.

I was like, "hey I can see this!"

I immediately bought a pair.

Then found myself needing reading glasses when it was bright, too, not just when the lighting was low.

I bought a bulk pack from Sam`s, and now have a pair downstairs, in my purse, near my bed, in the living room,  in the kitchen, etc.  Now it made sense why my Dad had sooooo many pairs of reading glasses all around the house that I would stumble upon, lol. 

However, I don't feel like it signifies I'm old/older like my boss felt.  I'm just happy I pull it out and can see!

The only thing I noticed is I have to use them more and more.  That part I really don't like.   I fee like my eyes NEED them now instead of just HELPING me see close up.

BTW,  I can see close, but need contacts to see far.  And only need my reading glasses when I have my contacts on.

But I don't feel old.  Plus, I know when the younger peeps see me using them, they won't think anything of it either.  And my older friends can simply relate lol.

Here i am with my newer zebra striped glasses and case: