Marriage Tips from ye old advice dispenser.

Hello cats and dogs, it's been a while again. Since our latest move our lives have been infused with more social activity than ever, which is a good thing, trust that. Now, on the aftermath of my 10 year wedding anniversary, I am offering you a few tips to keep that love alive in your own life. Because, as the oldest child in my family, I know everything and have experienced everything, so feel morally obligated to give you my best advice on my whole 38 years of life experience, especially on my super perfect past love lives and the one I hold dear now.

Here goes:

1. Change the tune - literally, change the radio station in your loved one's vehicles. My husband and I often trade vehicles, depending on what we need it for like shopping, salvaging, beaching, hunting whales, bringing home Milton Florida wildebeasts to graze in our backyard. I like to stir the pot in a relationship, I hear it's good for couples. So, when I "borrow" my husband's usual ride, I like to change his programmed radio stations from rock to NPR, and leave it fully blasted. This makes for a fun moment in love when he gets up at 6 a.m. for work, gets in his vehicle and gets to hear the soothing, nasal, whiny, enduring voices of the NPR morning staff, gently delivering the hard news with a Midwestern twang and subtle left tilt (ever so slight). I find this to be a great way to keep the love alive, and to remind my husband that indeed, love is blind to everything, even our personal music choices.

2. Text with sass - I find texting to be dull, i don't do it often, sometimes during football games or holiday mass text messages (Hey, happy holidays! talk to you next year!). I like the tangible big feel of our home p.c. and keyboard and find texting about as appealing as shaving my toenails. However, sometimes in this modern world of love, texting your sig other can broaden your romantic horizons. For example, when my man sends something like "You are adored, you are a wonderful mother, and I love you", I like to respond via text with something like this - "Whatever,  hooker!".   This warms the cockles of my man's heart for sure and let's him know I have always got his back.

3. Watch violent tv shows together nightly - we have found in our ten years experience that shows like Law and Order (the new ones not the old ones with Lenny that I LOVE), CSI,  Cold Case, and the like...make us feel all warm and cozy when we feel lost in our relationship. So putting on about 4 hours of any of these shows in a row at night, reminds us how lucky we are, not being raped, crimed against (yes that a phrase),  sitting in a jail cell, or being a bad person in general. It's true, these shows further strengthen the bonds that tie us together, enforcing our beliefs that somewhere in a bright neon jungle of strippers, jetskis, aqua water, and lab coats, Horatio from CSI is going to peer at us from our t.v. screen, and say "I think they're going to make it."

4. - don't listen to anyone else's advice folks. Ta ta for now and hold onto your spouse for dear life. It's tough out there.