We made it to Wednesday!

And oh, what a week it’s been on the Love & Sex beat!

Pucker Up! Readers Share Their First Kiss Stories: My first kiss involved the romantic stench of garbage while my Project Marriage partner, Tina’s involved excessive saliva. From the awesome (nosebleed) to the awful (chewing tobacco), we’ve got it all!

Out of the Mouths of Babes: Hilarious Kid Quotes on Love and Marriage: “Don’t forget your wife’s name. That will mess up the love.” via Erin, age 8 <—- And that’s just the beginning!

Really Now: Psychologist Says Make-Up Nookie is Like Cocaine Addiction: Next time you’re in a fight over whose turn it is to take out the garbage, don’t settle the score between the sheets (insert eye roll).

One-Third of Single Moms Would Let Their Kid Play Matchmaker: Highlights from Match.com’s Single in America survey. Among loads of interesting findings, 42.4% of single moms would consider giving marriage another chance only if their children had developed a positive relationship with their partner. Smart ladies!

Happy reading and be sure to check back next week for more love and sex – yeah, Baby!

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This week’s challenge:

Hate playing video games, but your main squeeze does?  Despise shopping, but your partner can’t get enough? Suck it up and do it! It will mean the world to them.

If you are engaged or married and need an opportunity to recharge and reconnect with your partner, consider a weekend retreat. Short getaways allow you and your fiancé or spouse to take a break from daily life in order to prioritize your relationship.

Weekend retreats are a time when you can create new memories and enjoy new experiences together while strengthening your commitment. To make the most of your getaway, choose activities and destinations that allow time for reflection and encourage bonding and mutual growth.

If you are searching for a retreat experience that focuses on reflection, consider spending a weekend meditating or practicing yoga. Dedicating a few days to mindfulness will give you and your partner the rare opportunity to engage in sustained thought and reflection and build upon your self-awareness.

Attentiveness is essential to any relationship, especially when you are stressed with planning a wedding or managing a marriage and forget to spend time in reflection. A contemplative retreat will help you and your partner remember your long-term goals and to recommit to actively pursuing your shared future.

For many couples, traveling is revitalizing and liberating. If this statement describes you and your partner, you may choose to retreat to a city with a wide range of amenities like Chicago.

An ideal destination for your weekend getaway, the Windy City is known for its jaw-dropping museums, including the Museum of Science and Industry. Its exhibits include a Whispering Gallery and a tour of a replica coal mine, both of which encourage participation. If your tastes run more toward the outdoors, attend a Cubs game at historic Wrigley Field.

Cheer on the team, absorb the park’s history, wander around the stadium and enjoy the view of the city. You might also choose a contemplative activity like visiting Millennium Park, which features modern sculpture, grassy spaces, and fountains.

The park can be busy at peak times, but an early morning visit should give you and your fiancé or spouse the opportunity to reflect and to discuss your relationship. When you are considering what to do in Chicago, remember to focus on interactive activities in order to truly connect with your fiancé or spouse.

Connecting with your partner on a spiritual level builds a firm foundation for a healthy marriage. Many churches host weekend retreats, which are often targeted toward couples. When selecting a retreat, find one with a novel topic that will allow you and your fiancé or spouse to explore new ground.

In order to create meaningful dialogue and new experiences, you and your partner need to confront challenges and address them as a team. Religious retreats offer a structured, low-stress and faith-based setting for these types of productive discussions.

Every couple, from the newly engaged to the happily married, needs time to reconnect. Retreats offer you and your partner the chance to bond through shared experience.

Whether you choose to connect spiritually, meditate together or travel to a novel destination like Chicago, you’ll both enjoy a refreshing and revitalizing weekend and will return to your daily lives with a stronger bond and a deeper understanding of one another.

Photo by: Fred Hsu (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caneel_Bay_Honeymoon_Beach_2.jpg)

Happy Wednesday, dear friends!

As usual, it’s been an exciting week of love, romance, and…bad tattoos? Well, yes!

I now present your Wednesday Love & Sex Roundup:

20 Songs for an Infinitely Sexy Playlist: I scoured the internets to find you the top 20 songs in which to do it. No lie. Might I just say, this soundtrack for love is H-O-T!

Puzzle-O-Love Tattoo for the Young, Dumb, and So in Love: Worst couples tattoo by young lovers that I have ever seen. EVER.

15 Sweet Ways to Show Him Love: Jam packed with creative advice on how to show him mad, mad love.

The Average Person has Sex 103 Times Per Year, and Other Surprising Sex Stats: 84% of women have sex with their spouses to get them to help out more around the house? Really? Just wow.

Happy reading and keep the love flowing!

The three words that strike fear into the very core of anyone, were told to me on November 21st 2005, just 3 1/2 months after the birth of our baby.

You have cancer.

I was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, the cancer caused by asbestos exposure. This was not something either of us had any experience in dealing with. Both our families were healthy, we had never really experienced anyone with cancer, and now here I was, in the fight for my life.

My best option for survival, was an extremely risky operation, which consisted of the removal of my left lung, all the surrounding tissue, the diaphragm, and lining of my heart, both of which were replaced with gore tex.

The only doctor that could do this surgery really well, was in Boston MA, 1900 miles away from home. 1900 miles away from our new baby, 1900 miles away from our family and our support system.

Without missing a breath, my husband said, “Get us to Boston.” He knew it was our best hope for survival. Our best chance of me actually getting to raise our daughter, and him not being a single widower dad.

This is not what we signed up for when we ran off to Las Vegas 7 years previously and eloped. We wanted the fun marriage, the carefree happy one, where bad things don’t happen.

But that is not reality.  Reality is that illness strikes at the worst times, that your very foundation will be shaken and all you thought you knew would be gone in an instant.

This was our life now, a cancer patient for a wife, and he, the caregiver. I had always been the one to assume that role, and now, the tables were turned.  He had all the responsibility, not only for himself, but for me and Lily now.

I had one goal and that was to live.

That year, we had many ups and downs. Being thrust into a caregiver position is hard, and he was angry.

He was angry that I was sick, angry at the tumor, and cancer, not me.  He was angry that friends we met, died from the disease, he was angry that this happened in what was to be one of the best times of our life.

I just wanted to make it through a day without throwing up.  That year of surgery, chemo and radiation was tough, not only on us, but we had a little baby.

We did everything we could to make it a non-issue for her.  When he turned 1, we had a lot to celebrate. It was like a birthday for all of us, we knew we would make it through.

At the beginning of our cancer journey, he looked at me and said, “This will either make us, or break us” and I am happy to say 6 1/2 years later it did not break us.

We vowed to make it through, and not give up, mostly on each other. Here we are, after 13 years of being married, stronger, happier, and more in love than ever.

About the Author:

Heather Von St James is a mesothelioma survivor and a guest blogger for the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. Her story is one of hope and inspiration and she hopes to spread her message to anyone who may be going through similar situations to her own.

Check out Heather’s story on the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog.

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This weeks’ challenge:

Stuff a love note in your spouse’s wallet, handbag or tuck it under a windshield wiper.

Friends, I have exciting news!

I’ll be covering the love and sex beat at Babble’s Strollerderby! To celebrate, I’m kicking off a Wednesday weekly roundup of my very best posts on (you guessed it), love and sex.

This week I present you with a mixed bag of secrecy and scandal:

25 Things Women Will Never Understand About Men - I could have gone for a cool 100, but I stuck with the top 25.

20 Secrets All Women Keep - I did it. I spilled the beans.

The 10 Worst Parenting Jabs Moms Say to Dads - Guilty as charged on all 10 counts.

Thank you for your continued support and as always, be sure to let me know what you want to read about in the love and sex department!

Dad watches TV in the living room. Mom reads on the patio. Junior plays video games in his bedroom. Scattered throughout the house, your family misses valuable time together while you have a room ready and waiting to draw everyone together. It’s time to reclaim your family room! With a few key changes, turn a formal, drab or uninteresting room into a completely different and comfortable space where your family wants to hang out together.

Entertainment

Naturally, a big TV would draw a crowd. But not every family can afford one. Pay more attention to your home theatre design. Do you have enough comfortable seating? There should be plenty of places you’re your family to sprawl out. Add a gaming system with age-appropriate games, and stock entertaining board games to spice up family game night. Give your kids the green light to make your home the hangout zone ad invite friends. They have fun and you earn points for coolness. For a family room take comfort over visual appeal. Make sure that everyone could see the TV or everyone could gather around the board game.

Make it Touchable

Kids and glass don’t get along. Instead of yelling at your kids to take it easy or worrying that something valuable will break, move your breakables to a safer location. There’s nothing like being able to relax in your own home. Give your kids permission to play in the family room, and make it a fun place for everyone.
White Out

The Family Room is not the place for white carpet or upholstery. No one will be able to relax if they worry about spilling juice or tracking dirt onto your white carpet or sofa, and you don’t want the role of room monitor. Some families ban food, drink and dirt from the family room, but you want to live in your space and let people relax. Choose easy to clean hardwood or stain resistant carpet for the floors and leather or water/stain resistant upholstery for the furniture. Scotchgard everything.

Switch it Up

Think form and function when you maximize your family room. Use a versatile coffee table that holds drinks and doubles as a game table. It’d be a shame if you lost valuable family room space to a piano, exercise equipment or some other bulky item that isn’t frequently used. Choose multipurpose items or things like folding car tables and TV trays that can easily be stored away.
Cuddle Up

A barren family room turns everyone away. Create a warm and inviting area with a few thoughtfully placed pillows and throws. Encourage your family to cuddle up with a soft pillow and a good book or to share a warm blanket while watching TV together. Arrange cushiony chairs and ottomans that invite guests to sit down and let loose.

Now that you’ve spruced up your family room you’re ready to gather the gang and hang out. Hopefully having a common area will encouraging relaxation in your family and bring everyone closer together.

We all know the marriage is work. Growing old together means you literally have  to grow with that person.

Project Marriage was developed to help keep your marriage fresh and make you feel inspired to keep that spark alive.

Today, we are kicking off our new segment, “Project Marriage Weekly Challenge”. 

Stop by every Monday to find out the challenge of the week. It’s your mission {if you choose to accept} to complete this task by the following Monday.

The challenges will be fun, simple and ones you can accomplish easily!

We hope you’ll join us as we introduce a weekly marriage challenge designed to put a little oo la la back into your everyday!

Feel free to stop back and leave us a comment telling us you finished the mission. BUT don’t feel pressure. We are simply giving you small challenges to help keep your marriage fun!

This week’s challenge:

Surprise your spouse with their favorite _______.  It could be their favorite wine, food, book, movie, etc.

Don’t you love small surprises? Think about how much it would mean to your other half!

So I’m sitting on the airplane next to a, married just three months newbie, newlywed when the stewardess kneels down next to us, despite the incredible amount of stomach churning turbulence and begins to regale us with her dating woes.

I’ll be honest; I’ve never had a conversation with a stewardess, on a plane, other than to ask for another bag of pretzels (because I inhaled the first teeny, tiny bag I was handed) . But this stewardess was different- than the typical ones I’ve encountered ever so briefly- the kind who flash me a blank vacuous look when I board a plane. This stewardess smiled and told me she liked my naked angel necklace ( yes I own a pornographic looking piece of jewelry) and immediately fell into my favor.

So when she kneeled down next to me and began animatedly chatting us up– having heard that we were both married- I really wanted to help her. I wanted to give her all the answers one desperately needs to hear when deciding whether or not the guy they’re with is indeed “the one.”

Unfortunately  her “one” sounded like a real dick; with a capital D…  she had just moved in with him; he had two kids from two different baby mamas who he never wed.  She said  although he wasn’t ready to get married or have kids  the sex was good and well he was packing…lots of green in his wallet. I asked her if she loved him. She hesitated and said she thought so. And then she asked me that very LOADED question; what I thought was more important- marrying for love or money.

I tried to explain to her that I was the WRONG person to ask about this, you’ll get the gist after reading this but ultimately I said  when everything else falls away if there is no love there is no relationship. The newbie newlywed sitting next to me laughed and said; ” “Marry the first time for love, Marry the second time for money.”

So what do you think– Marry for Love or Money?