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Back in the day I subscribed to the now-defunct design magazine, Domino. I religiously tore out inspirational pages and glued them into scrapbooks or slid them into clear plastic binder sleeves; I never saved the entire issue. Then I got lazy. I stopped cataloging my favorites and just started stacking past issues on my bookshelves. In retrospect, I’m glad I decided to keep a year’s worth of Domino. It’s fun to flip through them to see what strikes my fancy now.

It’s not practical, however, to keep every single magazine I’ve received, and I receive quite a few of them: Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Glamour, Lucky and Body + Soul. I also buy several on occasion, including Women’s Health and Psychology Today. When an article piques my interest, I end up setting aside the magazine to return to at a later time… which rarely happens. I’m wondering if I should start saving specific articles again, and, if so, how. I could paste them inside a notebook, file them in folders, store them in binders or scan them into the computer, as this post from Unclutterer recommends.

Do you save magazine articles for future reference? If so, what strategies do you employ to keep everything neat and organized?

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This year my husband and I will not be exchanging Valentine’s Day gifts. The decision was mostly his. He doesn’t believe in the Hallmark holiday and would prefer to save our joint income than spend it on jewelry for me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me or that he is particularly frugal. We show our affection for one another daily, and when we go shopping together, he hardly ever denies me the things that I “need.” I think it’s the idea that a token gift on a particular day of the year is supposed to mean something more than it would on any other day.

Although I understand the reason behind his decision, I can’t help but feel disappointed. I would be happy with a simple bouquet of flowers, or even a card, but sadly I don’t I’m going to receive either. Me, the lover of paper, who already has several cards picked out for him! Yes, I do tell him everyday that I love him, but I enjoy having the opportunity to really let my thoughts loose on paper. My husband has stood by me during a number of challenges this past year, and I want to thoroughly thank him for his patience and his love. It may not be reciprocated, but I’m still going to give him a card (or three!).

I suppose I should feel a bit relieved that we aren’t exchanging gifts for Valentine’s Day because surprising your significant other with a present is difficult when you are married to somebody who checks the credit card statements nearly every day. When I know I want to buy my husband a gift, I need to be sneaky. Sometimes I’ll plan ahead and take a little bit of extra cash out of the ATM for a couple of weeks before I actually need it. If I want to buy him a gift online, I’ve been forced to ask my parents if I can use their credit card and pay them back after the gift has been given. When it comes to gift giving, having a separate credit card or separate bank accounts would be ideal.

I know I covered a bunch of topics in the post, but I’m very curious to hear from you. Will you be exchanging Valentine’s Day presents with your hubby? How do you go about buying gifts without him finding out? Do you have a separate credit card for that purpose?

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Yesterday at the hair salon, I was talking to my stylist about the woes of being a responsible adult. She recently was invited to a friend’s 40th birthday party in Las Vegas but couldn’t attend because she’s saving her money to buy new curtains for her new house. Getting window coverings is certainly not as glamorous or fun as a romp in Sin City but she made the decision that it was more important. That’s a very adult choice, don’t you think?

Sometimes being a responsible adult is not a choice. Case in point: This morning my husband called me in a panic on his way to work. He hit a patch of black ice and slid off the road in our hand-me-down 2003 sedan that does not have anti-lock brakes or 4-wheel drive. I had to drive out to him in our SUV with a shovel to help dig him out of a snow bank. This is the second time this Winter that he’s been in an accident in the sedan. Two years ago during a snowfall I was rear-ended while driving the sedan and now refuse to drive it at all during the Winter. In fact, that’s why we bought our SUV. Now it looks like we might need to invest in another Winter-friendly car.

Unfortunately, the sedan belongs to my sister, so if we want to get something new, we’ll have to give it back to her… no trading it in. We’ll need to pony up a lot of cash if we want to upgrade. But from where will the money come? Well, it will come from being responsible and curtailing our spending on non-essentials. It won’t be fun, but we don’t really have a choice!

When did you have to make the decision to become responsible when you would have rather been carefree?

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We’re almost half-way into January already. Wow! How many of you are keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions? I set a couple of goals when the calendar changed, but my husband and I are continuing to brainstorm ways to better ourselves and our relationship. That’s why I’m writing this post when normally I’d be sleeping. No, it’s not the middle of the night or the wee hours of the morning. It’s 7:30 am–and that’s early for me!

Being self-employed, my schedule is flexible, and I normally don’t have anywhere to be before noon. When I do have to get out of the house, I typically roll out of bed around 9am. By that time my husband has been at work for at least an hour. Although we go to bed at the same time, my hubby has to wake up at 6:45am. It was his “great” idea that I get out of bed when he gets out of the shower so that we can enjoy a cup of coffee together and talk about what’s on our agenda for the day (Although I mostly think he wanted me up earlier because he was annoyed that I got to continue snoring as he walked out of the house!).

So here I am, drinking my coffee and being productive. I’ve already fed the dog and let him out (normally he’d still be sleeping, too) and checked my friends’ updates on Facebook and Twitter. I actually put a pen to paper and wrote a To Do list for today. Thank goodness I have a couple more hours today to tackle it–it’s a bit long.

My question for you is this: What time do you wake up? What does your morning schedule look like? As I know, it’s way too easy to be lazy when you are self-employed. I’d love to hear if you struggle with the same issues.

When my husband and I moved to Omaha and began making friends outside of the Air Force community, it just so happened that everyone we met had a house and a dog. At the time, we had neither and were jealous of doggie playdates they used to have with each other. As soon as we moved into our house we mace a bee-line for the Nebraska Humane Society to find our very own fur-baby. We adopted a 4-month-old Maltese-Poodle mix and named him Briscoe, after Jerry Orbach’s character, Detective Lenny Briscoe, on the original “Law & Order.”

It took a couple of weeks, but once Briscoe was potty-trained and understood a few basic commands, it was time to introduce him to our friends’ dogs. We couldn’t wait to see the dogs romp and play together. Upon meeting his friends Lola and Plato, he went wild. It was like he’d never seen another dog! You could actually tell that he was smiling. And because of all the excitement, he would have accidents in the homes of my friends.

At first they chalked it up to Briscoe just being a puppy. He didn’t know better. But now, a year later, he’s still peeing and pooping in other people’s houses. He knows better than to do that sort of thing in our house, but, sadly, he has made a name for himself as a VBD–a very bad dog. A couple of months ago I actually caught him lifting his leg and marking my friend’s new living room chair. And last month, when the same friends watched him for one night, he peed twice–once on their carpet and once on the bottom of their curtains. I was mortified and, of course, volunteered to pay to have them cleaned.

In two weeks I’m heading up to Chicago for the Renegade Holiday Craft Fair, and I think I’m going to have to board him at an overnight doggie daycare center. I wish I could leave him with friends instead of shelling out the cash, but I don’t want to burden them with the responsibility of watching Briscoe 24-7 to make sure he doesn’t mark his territory indoors. I hate to think that they don’t like Briscoe as much as they like other dogs, but I’m afraid that’s the case. It breaks my heart because I love my dog terribly–even when he is being a VBD. I can’t help but take it personally!

Do you have a well-behaved pooch or a VBD? How do you handle it when your friends don’t like your pet… or am I the only one?!

(author’s own photos)

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My husband and I have been living in our house for just over 365 days. Last year, when we moved in, our 1/2 acre of property was already covered in warm-hued leaves; the trees were bare. Because we didn’t have a rake — or very much time — we hired a lawn care company to do a Fall clean-up. They mowed and raked and tidied up our property in just a couple of hours.

This year, I watched in dread as the leaves began falling off the trees. J and I decided that we would play the roles of responsible homeowners and not spend the extra money for somebody else to do our dirty work. When there was an adequate amount of leaves blanketing the lawn, we woke up early on a Sunday and began tackling the front yard. We got a quarter of the way through before we had to abandon our project for other plans. A couple of days later we did another quarter of the front yard. It took a little over an hour, but when we were finished, half of our front lawn was clean.

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Forty-eight hours later, you couldn’t even tell where we had raked. More leaves had abandoned their branches.

Like most couples, I imagine, my husband and I really only spend quality time together in the evenings and on the weekends. Occasionally I have to work on Sundays, so we don’t always have full weekends together. If we were to rake and clean our entire property, it would take one whole exhausting day, maybe two. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I can’t help but wonder: Is it worth it to spend the rare time we have together sweating it out in the yard? Or would our time be better spent if we shelled out the cash for somebody else to rake?

We aren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. We try to live comfortably within our means. It is extravagant to hire a lawn care service to tend to our yard? Or is it a good use of our time and money? What do you think?

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If you’ve been wondering where I’ve disappeared to this past month, here’s the answer: I’ve been dealing with a pretty serious issue, one that’s left me basically incapacitated. No, I’m not talking about swine flu. I’m talking about the dreaded Writer’s Block.

Have you ever felt like you’ve lost your creative mojo? It’s like I’ve run out of steam. For a while I was maintaining three blogs. Besides writing for EAD Living, I had my personal blog and my business blog. I thought I could keep my life separated into neat, little compartments, but that’s turned out to be pretty hard to do. And coming up with topics to discuss on a daily basis for three outlets has suddenly become very overwhelming. Despite living an active life, I find myself blanking out on what to write about when staring at the computer screen. Even writing this post has been challenging!

So I ask you, fellow EAD Living bloggers and readers, how do you unlock your creativity? For those of you who write for several outlets, how do you come up with a multitude of ideas every day?

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A few weeks ago, my husband went on a business trip for a couple of days. I was dreading sleeping alone again; J hasn’t been deployed in quite a while and I’ve gotten used to spooning before we drift off to dream world.  To my surprise, the first night he was gone, I had the best sleep that I can remember having in a long time. It was one of those sleeps where you wake up in the same position in which you fell asleep. I didn’t toss or turn or wake up in the middle of the night. I experienced a blissfully deep slumber. Was it because I was alone in the bed?

According to a recent study by Dr. Neil Stanley at Surrey University, sleeping in a separate bed from your partner can be beneficial to your relationship and to your health, as sharing a bed can lead to harmful sleep disturbances. “Poor sleep is linked to depression, heart disease, strokes, lung disorders and accidents,” says Dr. Stanley. Plus, if you’re tired, you’re more miserable, he explains, and that can lead to divorce. Divorce caused by sharing a bed?!

Unlike this writer’s husband, J has never unintentionally punched me in the face in the middle of the night. However, he does sleep smack in the middle of the bed, leaving me with less than half of the mattress’s surface area to claim as my own space. He radiates heat in the summer and steals the blanket in the winter. But he’s the best at cuddling before we fall asleep and the first person I want to see when I open my eyes in the morning.  So what if every night I don’t experience the best sleep of my life? I think I’d be more miserable if we slept in separate bedrooms — or worse, in separate twin or double beds in the same room. So near yet so far! Although there is something to be said for having a room of one’s own…

How does sleep affect your marriage?

The perfect Saturday morning in Omaha includes a visit to one of two popular Farmer’s Markets. This past weekend my parents came to visit, and I made sure to carve out time for us to check out the local produce and meat at the market in the Village Pointe parking lot. Granted, it’s not as extensive as, say, the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco, but it’s a great way to support local farmers and spend some time outside when the weather is cooperating. I think my parents were impressed by the friendliness of the farmers selling their good and at the sheer variety of vegetables. We filled an Envirosax with ingredients for homemade salsa, eggplant parmesean and assorted grilled vegetables–plus a beautiful zinnia for a mini vase that sits on my living room table.

Are you lucky enough to have a Farmer’s Market in your town?

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We’ve been living in our house for 9 months, but we’ve only really gotten to know our neighbors in the last 8 weeks. Perhaps because we moved in at the cusp of winter, when people spend more time indoors than socializing outside. So how did we finally learn who lives near us?

At the beginning of the summer, we received a note in our mailbox from the eldest son of our across the street neighbors. He wrote that he would be trying out for the high school football team in August and offered to mow our lawn for free as a way for him to get in shape. Now, we live on nearly 1/2 acre of property and were previously paying a lawn service to do the job. How could we say no to free?! Plus, this gave us the opportunity to talk to him weekly and learn about his two younger siblings and his parents. It also gave us an excuse to talk to his family when we saw them outside; we wanted to tell them what a good job he was doing mowing our lawn.

As a thank you for his hard work, we bought him a gift certificate to a local sporting goods store and took him on a field trip to the Air Force Base where my husband works, as he mentioned an interest in planes. The day of the excursion, his father and brother stopped by with handfuls of tomatoes and cucumbers from their garden. In return for their generosity, the next day we brought over a container of homemade salsa made with the tomatoes. And that is how that relationship began!

We met our next door neighbors because we were planning to build a fence to contain our small Maltipoo in the backyard and wanted to know if they were interested in splitting the cost with us for the fence that would divide our two properties. When we knocked on the door, they invited us inside and we had a lovely conversation not only about fences, but about what each of us did for a living and about their children. Turns out they were more than happy to contribute to the fence fund, and are now planning to use the same company to fence in the rest of their yard at a later date.

Perhaps we would have met the neighbors sooner if we had children the same age as theirs, but because we are a bit younger than both, we had to look harder to find things in common.

Do you have relationships with your neighbors? If so, how did they develop?

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