marriage - The 48 Hour Relationship Retreat

November 3, 2014November 20, 2014

The Life Stages of Pumpkin Carving

Richard called me a “sentimental fool” over the weekend, and I guess I have to own it. My kids are 10 & 13 now, and Halloween came & went this year so quickly I hardly knew what hit me. As I enjoyed the weekend and looked back over the years, this is what came to mind.

Single/Twenties – Your friends invite you to a Fall Fest, and one of the activities is pumpkin carving. You’ve had several beers and now you think it is kitschy. You grab a knife and start cutting.
Outcome: The next morning you look at the pumpkin and don’t quite remember what inspired you to carve your pumpkin this way – it must have been really funny last night when you were drunk carving. You take a picture and post it to instagram so everyone can get a good chuckle.

Married, No Children – You and your sweetie take a day off of work and you go to the local organic farm (hey – you’ve got vacation days to burn, and you’d do anything to avoid all those damned families on a weekend). You leisurely stroll around, sipping lattes, and pick “just the right pumpkins”. You come back home, search the net for about 2 hours to find just the right carving patterns that represent you each individually. You then meticulously carve your pumpkins together while sipping mulled wine.
Outcome: Pumpkin perfection – beautiful pumpkins you are proud to have perched on your porch. You take a picture and put it on your Christmas card.

Married & Baby Makes 3– You are so excited to be a family that you head out to the pumpkin patch to start a family tradition. You are all dressed in the quintessential autumn attire, which is good since you are snapping photos every two feet so you can remember this FOREVER. You pick out 3 pumpkins – one for each of you. You get back home, and the baby is asleep and you should be too.
Outcome: The pumpkins go out front uncarved, but that is ok…there are 2 big pumpkins and 1 small one, and that is just too cute for words. You have a glass of wine to celebrate all the joys of life (sniff, sniff).

Married, Young Kids – Off you go on the annual trip to the pumpkin patch. By the time you get there, child #1 needs to pee (yes, you told him to pee before you left home; no, there is not a bathroom in the middle of the pumpkin field; yes, you are already starting to loose your patience), and child #2 has lost a shoe. This will not stop you! This is a tradition! You WILL get pumpkins. You plaster a smile on your face and tell the kids to find pumpkins. Now begins the longest 30 minutes of your life as your children wander around the patch looking for “the right pumpkin”. Many are picked out, then discarded for being: the wrong color; the wrong size; too big to pick up; doesn’t look like me; it has dirt on it; it isn’t dirty enough; I like the other one better, but I don’t remember where I put it down; this one is the very furthest from the car, and I MUST have it (insert screaming child here). Finally you take the pumpkins to the stand, have them weighed, have a cardiac arrest at how much this precious lifetime memory is going to cost, and you head home. Once you arrive home, the children inform you that you MUST CUT THEM NOW! Under protest your husband begins to carve up the pumpkins – 10 minutes in the kids have lost interest and are now watching Curious George.
Outcome: 2 pumpkins carved by what looks to be Edward Scissor Hands, and 2 pumpkins with scribble on them (the ones you drew on after you downed a bottle of wine to recover from the whole day). You take a picture just to have it, but let’s not post that one anywhere.

Married, Pre-teen Kids – In the 2 days between Fall sports ending and Halloween approaching you are reminded by your youngest that you haven’t carved pumpkins yet. You debate for a moment just scrapping the whole thing, but the look on her face is enough to make you believe you will be sitting at the back of the “Mother of the Year” banquet if you don’t get your shit together. No time for the pumpkin patch – going to have to pick up a few at the grocery store (but tell them that they came from the organic local vegetable stand down the street). You get three (let’s face it, dad has only ever participated under protest and these things were expensive) and bring them home. You inform your oldest that he is going to participate in the forced family fun. Each kid gets a pumpkin and a knife and you hope for the best. You get a glass of wine (but only one in case you have to take one of them to the emergency room). You perform the age-old duty of scooping the guts, and wonder why you thought this was a good idea so many years ago.
Outcome: Hmmmm…who knew these kids were somewhat artistic…guess we can put these outside. You take a picture and post it on FB as proof that you actually do things with your kids.

Married, Teenage Kids – It is October and you would barely notice by looking at your house. You have been running in so many different directions that you haven’t even had time to get out one Halloween decoration. And no one has said a word. One night over your evening cocktail you turn wistful…you don’t really have many more of these days left where they will be around to carve pumpkins. Saturday morning you declare it family day, you load everyone into the car and force them to the pumpkin patch. While you drive everyone is on their phone, but you don’t care, you are all together. When you get to the pumpkin patch the kids quickly grab the closest pumpkin and declare it “perfect”. You return home and as the kids go to dash out the door with the friends, you remind them that they aren’t carved. They inhale sharply and manage a perfunctory jack-o-lantern.
Outcome: Well, the pumpkins do have 2 eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Guess that is something. You put them out and take a picture – this may be the last one you get.

Married, College Students – It is October and you miss your kids and your traditions. They won’t be home for Halloween, so you make a care package of candy, a small pumpkin and cash (of course) and send it to school. A few days later you get a text with that says “thanks mom” with a picture of the small pumpkin that has been carved.
Outcome: You cry into your glass of wine as you look at the picture and think, “Who raised that sentimental kid?”

Empty Nesters – Your husband looks at you and says, “Hey honey, it is that time of the year…let’s go to the pumpkin patch.” You burst into tears at the fact that this man knows you so well. You head off hand-in-hand for a leisurely day of strolling in the crisp fall air. You watch the families and the children as you reminiscence about the many hours you have spent doing this same thing. You take a picture of the two of you and text it to your kids… “Mom and Dad miss you guys. Love you.”
Outcome: You have a pretty pumpkin on your coffee table that makes you smile as you sit with your glass of wine in the evening.

Empty Nesters with Grandchildren – Your son calls you up and asks you if you want to go to the pumpkin patch with the grandkids. You say yes before he can take a breathe and you immediately start planning! You are more excited than the kids are when you get the pumpkin patch – you let the kids pick out whatever size pumpkin they want and even treat for hot chocolate for everyone. You take enough pictures that day to create a whole photo album. When you get back to the house you sit back with your glass of wine, and you watch as your son struggles to wrangle the kids and carve their pumpkins. He looks at you as he is cleaning up and says “Thanks.”
Outcome: You could care less what the pumpkins look like, and you think to yourself, “I guess I did something right.”

Disclaimer: This isn't my family, in fact, I don't know these people, but don't they look like they are having a great day! — Disclaimer: This isn’t my family, in fact, I don’t know these people, but don’t they look like they are having a great day!

October 17, 2013November 20, 2014

Rooting for the Ultimate Winning Team (and no, it is not the f*&#$g Patriots)

It is my favorite time of the year! We are knee deep in sports season in our house. But unfortunately I can’t say it is all good news. My Steelers SUCK, the Nats couldn’t win enough games down the stretch to garner a playoff birth, and the Capitals are off to a miserable start. My son’s baseball team has lost more games than they have won. My daughter’s diving team hasn’t even been able to get it together to start training for the season (governmental bureaucracy is GREAT). And one of my fantasy football teams is so bad I think I might need to apologize to everyone for joining the league.

Now before you call the suicide prevention hotline, I will tell you it isn’t all bad. My adopted NFL team, the Miami Dolphins, is doing better than any pundit predicted (though for the record Richard called this in August). My son had a kick-ass game last night. And in my neighborhood FF league I am currently undefeated!

But as I was thinking about my love of all things sports, a question my daughter asked recently came to mind. You see, I wrote this on their bathroom mirror a few weeks ago:

Shortly after I wrote that my daughter asked, “Mommy, why did you write that in our bathroom?”

And my answer was quick and easy because to me the reason was obvious: I did it because I love you and we are a team all together and I want you to succeed and win in life.

But as I thought about it I realized that my applying the framework of sports to my family was about more than just a surface “Go Fight Win” cheer. It is about teaching our children the values that we have identified (at our 48 Hour Relationship Retreat…sorry, couldn’t help putting in a plug here) – the same ones that we hope they will learn when we encourage them to play sports, only within the safe, supportive, non-threatening confines of our family unit.

“So,” I hope you are asking, “What do you think your kids can learn from your cockamamie application of the team sports approach to your family household?”

So glad you asked! Here are a few of the lessons I hope they learn (DISLAIMER: I wish I applied all of these things all of the time…in reality I do some of them some of the time, and most of them occasionally, and all of them sporadically):

– Celebrate your victories. Sure, easy to do when there is a tough game win, or playoff birth, or even better yet a Super Bowl championship. So what is the family equivalent? Maybe it is the playroom that everyone worked to clean up, the test that you studied really hard for that you got a B on (really – sometimes a B is a huge victory), or the fact that you made it through an evening without getting into a fight with your sibling. There are no trophies for family unity or room cleanliness. But I read somewhere that “we value what we celebrate,” and I think that is true – so we need to celebrate what we want our kids to value. Make up a World Series of Teeth Brushing or a Superbowl of Friendship or whatever silly crap works in your house and celebrate when you make it to the Big Dance.

– Everyone is valued for their contribution. Sure, it is easy to overlook the long snapper because they aren’t the star and they aren’t on the field all that often, but just ask the Redskins what happened this weekend when Nick Sundberg, their starting long snapper, went down with a torn meniscus (hint: it wasn’t good). Sometimes we end up with one child/family member who thinks they are THE STAR and they don’t value their sibling as much as they should. Each person has a role to play in my household, and every role is important. We wouldn’t be complete if my son weren’t his typical Type A self and reminding us all of the rules, nor would we be the same if our daughter weren’t dancing around bringing lightness and joy to the whole room. We all have a purpose and all need to be appreciated for what we contribute to the overall success of the family.

– Set your goals and work hard to get there. This is easy to say, but oh so hard to for kids to embrace. Right?!? They don’t want to work hard, and they don’t have any perspective (heck, for probably ½ of their lives they have been babies or toddlers). But that is where I come in. Where we can help them set goals and plans to get there and monitor their progress and show them how their hard work is paying off. Start small, and build up. But be careful not to blow smoke up their a@@. Kids can spot a faker a mile away. So you have to pick goals that they actually do have to work hard to reach. And you probably have to be the bad guy and make them do the hard work (reference the early statement about how kids don’t actually like to work). But if you are intentional about it and help them monitor their progress and eventual success you will have taught them an amazing lesson that they will be able to use all of their lives.

– When one person on the team screws up you don’t put them down, you pick them up. “You broke the _________”, “You spilled the ______”, “We can’t go to the movie because your room wasn’t clean!” NO, NO, NO!!!!!!! We are a team. When Payton Manning throws an interception (ok, bad example because he has only thrown 2 interceptions this year) his teammates don’t throw rotten tomatoes at him. His defense goes out there and does their best to get the ball back. And his offense works extra hard when they are on the field to help him recover and be his best. To help our children realize that it is better to be positive than negative is a huge gift that will have ripple effects all of their lives.

– Heart is as important as talent. And if you don’t have talent, you need a TON of heart (and by heart I mean desire to meet your goal and commitment to do what it takes to get there). Sure, we all have heard the stories about the kid who comes out of the womb throwing a 95 mph fast ball. But what interests me more, and the stories I tell my kids, are about the athletes that weren’t supposed to make it. About Diana Nyad who at the age of 64 swam from Cuba to Florida. Or Bethany Hamilton, the surfer who survived a shark attack. These are the people I want to be their role models. The people who worked hard to get what they wanted. And the best way I know of doing that is to model it for them. To let them know what my personal goals are, to watch me work hard to achieve them, and then to celebrate when I do reach the goals that I have set. So that they can see that big accomplishments take hard work, but it is possible.

– You might be down, but don’t count yourself out. Yep, I was watching when Tom Brady threw the last second touch-down pass to beat the New Orleans Saints last weekend. And as much as I hate to give any attention to one of my least favorite athletes, I have to say this – that guy never gives up. There will be plenty of times in life when the people around you don’t believe in you or don’t think you can do something. Or when you have been pushed down and kicked around. But learning to have the reserve to believe in yourself will see you through those times and lead you to your own personal victory. But the question is, how do you teach that to your kids? Well, I let my kids see when I fail and when I have set-backs and when I get back up and go forward. It is hard. Because as parents we want to be strong and brave and right (oh yeah, mostly I want to be right). But sometimes I have to say “I was wrong,” or “that sucked,” or “this hurts.” And I have to let my kids see that raw side of life in order for them to see me being strong and overcoming that obstacle. And yes, bad shit happens, but that doesn’t mean we quit…it just means we get back to it and attack it from a different angle.

And to me these “sports” lessons apply to all the areas of our lives. To being a good friend/spouse/parent/sibling. To excelling at school. To worshipping our God. And even to playing a sport.

So be on notice. We are TEAM BARNEY. And we kick ass and we take names. We set goals and we work hard to reach them. We value each “player” for what they bring to our team. We aren’t out when we are down. And we even huddle up and have a family cheer now & then. (Think I’m kidding? Check it out: Team Barney Cheer and yes, we are dorky like this!)

July 11, 2013November 20, 2014

Separating the Urgent from the Important

Sorry I left you hanging on that cliff for so long, but brilliance can’t be rushed.

For those of you eagerly awaiting this blog which is part two of the Pulitzer-winning blog entitled: “I want more hours in my day!” your wait is over. When we last checked in with our hero, he just identified the fact that prioritization is the key to successful time management. “But, BAM, KAPOW, ZOWIE” you say, “how do I do that?”

Thank goodness you came to the right place! I have an amazingly original and brilliant answer to this question (as well as answers to many more of life’s difficult challenges – someone should notify the President – he’s really missing out on a major resource).

These solutions have come from the 17 years of retreats that we have done as well as my 25 years in business management.

Face it. We all wish we could spend more time on key goals but so much is happening around us that even though we start with good intentions, we often get distracted (kinda like how I INTEND to eat well, but then I get distracted by the pan of brownies cooling on the counter). We know that we need to address the “urgent” tasks first, but the problem is that everything seems to be “urgent.”

By urgent, I’m not just referring to emergencies. I mean text messages that need a quick response or the phone ringing that needs to be picked up or someone interrupting you at work with a question to be answered. Especially in our increasingly digital world, we feel like everything is urgent and needs our immediate response – even that silly text message while we’re driving.

If urgent were a movie character it would be The Joker trying to wrestle control from Batman (btw – you are Batman in this analogy and The Joker is all the people/things that are so “urgent” but are really just a joke – ha, ha).

So the answer lies in determining what is most important to you. What do you believe in? In 5 or 10 years, what do you want to know you gave the most attention to? Do you really want your kids, spouse, faith, health, etc. to be the most important things in your life? Then you need to act like it! When you’re clear about what your top priorities are, it becomes a matter of holding yourself to that standard.

One way to take back control of your life is to critically analyze what is merely urgent and what is truly important. Even if you’re swamped, taking a few minutes to think about this will actually free up time for you.

If you’re out of the office at an important meeting, do you answer your e-mail during that meeting? Probably not. And the world doesn’t end, does it? That e-mail probably wasn’t nearly as urgent as you might have thought. Another way to look at it is to remember that other people don’t know what you’re doing every hour of every day. When your phone pings and you realize you have a text message waiting, your pavlovian response might be chirping in your head urging you to grab that phone (despite the fact that you are sitting across the table from your mother and you know that she HATES when people text while in a conversation). Instead that person can wait for your response – because as far as they know you could be taking a nap, in the shower, or maybe even having lunch with your mother! And if you were doing any of those things your response would have to wait. So putting off your response for your own convenience should be acceptable as well.

And to apply this to your relationship: going out on a date night once a month with your partner might not be urgent. However continually postponing your date because you’re doing things that other people have convinced you are urgent is a problem. You are letting someone else’s list of priorities overrule yours.

Another strategy: schedule your most important things into your day and let the other stuff fill in the gaps. Trust me, if you don’t get to some of those “other things” they probably weren’t that important!

If spending time with your wife is important (before you get to divorce court that is) then schedule that in. If you believe that spending time with your kids is crucial (before they’re out of your house just like in that “Cats in the Cradle” song) then make the time now. If you don’t want to be sick all the time as you get older (and you probably don’t) then work on your health starting today.

Finally, if others are trying to control your calendar and eat up all your time, then give them a deadline. Tell them when you will respond (i.e., I have some things on my calendar this morning – I’ll get back to you by 8 tonight). This will put you at ease and will also keep others from badgering you.

Scrap the Crap Tip: Be proactive. Determine what’s most important and what’s merely urgent. Make a list – on paper – and keep that list with you and review it often. Then make a commitment to get the important done. Accomplish your priorities first, then work on everyone else’s urgent items.

June 22, 2013November 20, 2014

I Want More Hours in My Day!

OMG!

This past Wednesday was crazy and these days it seems like every day is similar. Up early for boot camp. Off to work. Race to my daughter’s swim meet where I’m timing. Then its home to pack for the next day, chat with the kids, play with the dog, and pack for a Boy Scout Leadership campout.

If most every day is like this, plus weekends filled with baseball games, soccer games, church, etc., when in the heck am I supposed to find time to work on my big life goals?

It seems like most everyone, I find myself asking, “How do I get more done?”

Fear not! I found the solution!

The answer lies in the time-turner necklace that Hermione used in Harry Potter and the Prisonr of Azkaban. She deftly utilized this necklace to take a double class load – to technically be in two places at once. It works great.

What?!? You don’t have a time-turner necklace?

Hmmmm. Then I guess we all need to go at this another way.

During the course of working on our book, we realized that while The 48 Hour Relationship Retreat might be a handbook about a couple’s retreat, the underlying theme is really all about being proactive. Working together to figure out what’s most important and then making those things a priority in your life. Basically, taking control of your life instead of letting it control you.

When it comes to the problem of getting more done, the only solution is prioritizing. We can’t get more hours in our day (I’ve tried, but seems that making a larger sun dial does NOT actually slow the rate at which time advances). The key is to get more of our top priorities done during the hours we do have.

If spending time with Amanda is my top priority (and she informs me that it should be), I need to put it into my schedule and work the rest of my day around that. Time management experts all preach the same basic mantra – determine what is most important (not what is most urgent) and then schedule those items. Let the lower priorities fill in around them.

All time management books stress that it’s crucial to be deliberate. Setting our goals and hoping that the top priorities get done is not enough. We need to take a moment to put those key items into our day ahead of time. And then stick to them like we would a doctor’s appointment.

In fact, my recent doctor’s appointment is a great example. Somehow, when I need to go to the doctor so I can get my medication refilled, I find a way to fit that into my schedule and work our other responsibilities around that. If one of your highest goals is spending more time with your kids or date night or exercise, treat that like a doctor’s appointment. Schedule it, don’t miss it, and the world won’t end.

I might not have a time-turner necklace like Hermione, but what I do have is a daily to do list that I create each day before I leave work. I write down all the things I want to accomplish the next day (it includes the things I want to do and the things other people want me to do). And then I prioritize them. I put “A”s next to the things I absolutely need to get done in the day, and then “B”s and then “C”s for the things that it would be good to get to, but they are at the bottom of my list. Then the next day I tackle the A’s first, and I treat the time on my calendar that I have set aside for those items as sacred…if someone tries to grab that time I get very protective and think twice before impinging upon it.

And yes, before you ask I do the same thing for my weekends. We determine what things we want to get done around the house, or with the kids, or which friends we want to see. And we put them on our to do list. And then the other stuff fills in around that. Does it mean some sacrifice (like I might not watch all of the Nats game, but rather catch just an inning or two)? Yes, it does. But I can stomach that sacrifice when I see the results of pursuing my priorities instead of the stuff that just gets thrown at me.

Scrap the Crap Tip: Stop lamenting your lack of time. Decide what is most important, get that into your schedule, protect that time, and let the rest fill in where it will.

Cliffhanger: Tune in to my next scintillating blog when I will to try to tackle the burning question: “How do I determine what’s most important?”

March 6, 2013November 20, 2014

Close the #$@*% Cabinet – Richard’s Take

Basically I think I’m pretty darn close to perfect (although I can’t seem to get anyone to agree with me on this – especially not Amanda). However, even I will admit that I can’t seem to close the cabinet doors in the kitchen. Putting down the toilet seat – no problem. But closing kitchen cabinets seems to be a skill that I missed somewhere along the road. And boy does that tick off my wife!

It’s often not the big stuff that really gets Amanda really angry with me. I’d put cabinet door closing in the “not really too big” category.

Believe it or not, this topic actually came up for discussion at one of our 48 Hour Relationship Retreats a few years back. I remember the conversation because we were relaxed and we started having fun with the topic. We both tried to “analyze” my childhood to see what traumatic event had happened to put a mental block on cabinet door closing. We also “analyzed” why Amanda had such a visceral reaction that bordered on filing for immediate divorce every time she saw a cabinet door open.

While we haven’t yet solved our particular psychoses, we have moved on – for the most part.

So, in a fit of introspection, I’m taking a couple of minutes tonight with a Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat beer to reflect on what I learned. Here’s what I got – do with it as you wish:

Inject laughter. It’s hard to be ticked off while laughing
Put the problem out there for BOTH of you to work on together. When Amanda and I both find ourselves working together against a common goal (in this case the great cabinet kerfluffle) it’s easier for us to find solutions than working on one another’s faults. “We vs. it” is easier than “you vs. me.”
It’s often better for us to bring up these issues while relaxed and to bring the issue up in a non-threatening, sharing manner. I’d recommend only having these discussions with a tropical drink in one’s hand while on the beach in Hawaii but that might not be too practical.
It’s important to talk about how the situation affects you – rather than pointing blame at the other person. It was easier for me to chat about the problem of the cabinets when it didn’t start out as a pointed attack on me like “you’re so lazy because . . . “
If Amanda and I come into a discussion with a genuine desire to work on the problem, it’s usually quite easy for the two of us to work out a compromise.

Of course, it’s easier said that done in most cases. When the cabinet doors have been left open for the 345^th time that day, it’s hard for Amanda to just “put it aside” for a better time. Yelling does sometimes seem like a better option!

Well, I’m done with my beer so I’ll stop here. I’m sure there are probably more things we learned from the incredible toll that the cabinet door positioning puts on our marriage, but I got nothing else right now.

(BTW, we are still looking for that incredibly poignant/interesting/amusing way to finish all of our blog posts, so feel free to send us your suggestions.)

March 2, 2013November 20, 2014

Richard’s Not So Sure about this Blog Thing

Ok, I’ll admit it right up front. While I do have a big ego, I don’t consider myself to be an expert on relationship topics. All my life I’ve actually referred to myself as a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” That would apply to relationships too.

So, we’re launching a book and a web site which obviously means we need to have a blog, right? But are the random pontifications of Amanda and me really worthy of others spending precious time to read? I’ll admit I’m a bit squeamish about it.

So, to ease my own insecurities, here are my ground rules / guiding principles for this blog that at least I am going to follow. (Amanda doesn’t really like to follow rules so much of this may or may not apply to her blog posts!)

I’ll try to limit any advice I’m handing out to things we’ve learned during our 17 years of 48 hour retreats or things I’ve learned in leading/managing people for the past 25 years in business.
Even if there isn’t a disclaimer in each blog, I’m going to operate from the perspective that I’m just providing some musings, thoughts, learnings, etc. but I am NOT passing myself off as some sort of smug relationship guru. That blanket disclaimer has now been issued – you have been warned!
You are totally welcome to disagree with stuff we write – see #2 above. Just remember that you were warned and if some introspective pondering was generated, I’ll be happy.
I’ll try to keep my musings focused on the issues surrounding the retreat and the implementation of goals, plans, etc. in the months that follow a retreat.

I’m not sure if you feel any better but I feel that a huge weight is off my shoulders. I’m not Dr. Phil. I’ve clearly warned you that I’m not Dr. Phil. And, I’ve given myself some direction for providing blog posts in the future.

Disclaimer complete.

Mission accomplished.

Blog finished.

I’m off to bed.

March 1, 2013November 20, 2014

The Next 48 Hours

Welcome!

(That seems to be a weak way to start this off but we’ve got nothing else right now!)

This blog grew out of the collective beliefs of Amanda & Richard and our experiences gained in 17 years of annual relationship retreats. Plus, working on our own relationship every other day of the year since we met way back in 1994 has contributed to our ideas here.

We believe that each individual is capable of effecting change in their lives if they just have a plan and execute their plan. With two people working together, that change can be (as our son likes to say) epic! And generally all it takes to get started on the right path is 48 hours. Just two days.

And it is simply amazing (though not coincidental in the least) that this blog concept supports the subject of a book that we have written that will be out on the market soon. Our book is about a 48 hour relationship retreat where couples delve into all the aspects of their lives and make plans for success together.

So in addition to random posts about topics that occur to us, we may post about topics in the book and tangent subjects that come up as we finish the book. Basically, this is all about relationships between two people who are committed to each other. But, we reserve the right to wander off topic occasionally if something strikes our fancy. You’ll just have to deal with it.

The Blog Cocktail Ingredients:

2 parts kick in the pants to make personal change
3 parts helpful advice on how to make those changes
Splash of humor
2 dashes of irreverence
1 jigger of sarcasm

Time to wrap this blog post up – all the “experts” suggest that people have the attention span of a gnat these days and long posts will never get read.

So, we hope you’ll drop by again soon.

Maybe we need a “catch phrase” to end all our posts? Let us know if you come up with one!