Friday Feature: Your Place or Mine?

When I stumbled across this article in Quartz a few weeks ago, I had to read the title twice to make sure I'd read it right. "Should You Live With Your Spouse?"

Huh?

As it turns out, this thing that so many of us take for granted might not be a universal choice. Apparently, it's a thing now -- or maybe it has been for a while for those who have the means to maintain separate residences -- for married couples to live apart, yet not classify themselves as separated.

I'm old enough to remember when it was taboo for couples who weren't married to live together. Have we really come full circle, or full...whatever this is?

Not judging. Just confused.

I like my independence and personal space as much as -- perhaps more than -- the next person. I like my stuff the way I like it and, truth be told, I get a little pang of she-shed envy whenever I see Cheryl and her State Farm commercial. But, at the end of the day, I can't imagine saying goodnight to my husband and retiring to separate residences.

To each his (or her) own, I suppose. While this arrangement would certainly minimize squabbles about decorating differences, cover stealing and snoring, it also seems to run counter to nurturing a relationship built on vows like "in sickness and in health, till death do us part."

Then again, on a day like today, where the whole neighborhood is on vacation and the chain saws and mowers are competing with my daughter's music for audio supremacy, perhaps having somewhere else to go might not be such a bad idea.

Friday Feature: Work-Life Balance?

A year or so ago, I did a lunchtime presentation on work-life balance. It was a hot topic, not one of my choosing, but important to those in attendance. Much of my focus ended up being on not aiming for perfection and cutting ourselves some slack — understanding that finding that sweet spot where everything falls into place wasn’t likely to happen daily, but taking time to appreciate it when it did.

At least I hope that’s the message I sent.

Fast forward to last week when I came across this article in Quartz. I came away with the notion that nomenclature itself (work-life balance), it seems, is part of the problem. In a balancing act, we are sometimes perfectly balanced, but often a bit off-kilter, trying to align everything just so — perfectly, if you will.

And that is how life goes. Being off-balance doesn’t make us failed and miserable. It makes us human.

I came away from the article preferring the term “work-life blend,” a descriptor that leaves me feeling less pressured because it’s more reflective of the give and take of daily life. I blend my work and my life every single day and there’s a certain beauty to the blend — a wideness — that makes me feel as though I’m working within a spectrum instead of tottering on the tip of a fulcrum, trying to land on the right side, as opposed to the wrong one.

This simple shift in vocabulary isn’t a magic fix, but it gives me a wider margin of error, one where the margins aren’t error at all — just an extension of what is most important to me that day. It removes the stress inherent in aiming to achieve that perfect spot atop the fulcrum and gives me permission to totter a bit on the seesaw.

Balance vs. blend. Words matter.

Friday Feature: Family Dinners

When I saw the photo at the top of this week's article, it reminded me of summer days when my daughter and I had picnics in the living room and watched a movie over lunch. Often those meals were takeout rather than a normal boring lunch, and she always thought it was fun (and so did I).

Throughout her life, family dinners have been the rule, not the exception. Times varied according to everyone's activities for the day, and, truth be told, sometimes the the table was cluttered with more than just food and dishes. Admittedly, scheduling these dinners got harder as she got older and, now that she is away from home for much of the year, my husband's and my dinners for two sometimes don't make it to the dinner table, where places must be set and the table must be cleared. But when my daughter comes home, she still looks forward to these meals (and so do I) so, whenever possible, we work our dinner plans around varied schedules so we can all eat together.

As an educator, I'm a big proponent of the family dinner, no matter what it looks like. I believe it keeps families connected and I think the fact that my daughter can demonstrate basic table manners and hold an intelligent conversation over a meal (to which electronic devices are not invited) has a lot to do with our informal discussions over dinner, most of which began with one simple question.

"How was your day?"

Bon appétit.

Friday Freebie: Wasting Time

I'm a firm believer in taking down time.

I'm just not so good at actually doing it.

From time to time, I stumble onto an article like this one from Quartz that is so perfect that I have only one thing left to say.

I can identify.

Now to translate that identification into action.

Friday Feature: Why Be Bored?

Pixabay

On a day when the news is anything but boring, it may seem odd for me to be posting about boredom, but, in fact, psychologists recommend a healthy dose of boredom -- at least for kids:

"Your role as a parent is to prepare children to take their place in society. Being an adult means occupying yourself and filling up your leisure time in a way that will make you happy," says Lyn Fry, a child psychologist in London with a focus on education. "If parents spend all their time filling up their child's spare time, then the child's never going to learn to do this for themselves."

Although this is the last thing un-bored parents want to hear, perhaps summer is the time to re-evaluate our own boredom -- or the lack thereof. Personally, I can't remember the last time I was bored, but that's due, in large part, to accomplishing exactly what Fry suggests -- filling up my leisure time in a way that makes me happy.

Does your leisure time make you happy? Do you even have any leisure time? One of the ideas suggested in the Quartz article is sitting down at the start of summer and making a list with your child of all the things they want to do. One summer, when my daughter was small, we created a bingo board for this purpose, filling in squares with camps and day trips and activities. Then, when she got bored, she had a resource to go to. We couldn't always manage an impromptu trip to the beach at 3pm, but that taught the value of planning ahead.

We adults might want to try something similar -- but no fair listing chores and projects. While "paint the kitchen" will certainly alleviate boredom, it belongs on a to-do list, not a summer fun list -- unless you're someone who loves such tasks. In a perfect world, our down-time dovetails with our kids' bored time, enabling us to entertain and enjoy one another.

Until that happens, you're bound to hear "I'm bored" a few (thousand) times. As you send your kids off to play outside, check the list or find a toy that inspires creative play, remind yourself you're building life skills.

Or maybe you should pull out a coloring book and join them.