Required Reading for February 1st, 2012 is a post from Sweetney. © 2012 Sweetney.com. All rights reserved.

And you're surprised why, exactly?

Caught on tape! Hand in the till! Hand in the till!1!!

Honest to jebus though, he LOVES fruit. Bananas, mangos, apples, and ESPECIALLY Larabars. I’m a fruit bat, you do the math, lady.

Something is very… not normal with this “dog.”

My Dog on Stuff: Fruit Bats Love Fruit Edition is a post from Sweetney. © 2012 Sweetney.com. All rights reserved.

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter – not THAT kind of “do it” (though, to an extent, that’s relevant)! No, they mean ”do” the relationship. They want to know how it is that after a few years together we’re still so absurdly, stupidly moon-y and in love. How does that work – in practical terms and otherwise? How do we navigate problems and issues and make our relationship healthy and happy on a daily basis? One dear single friend wrote:

TEACH ME. Please please please tell me how you guys make it work… what frictions you have, how you work through crapola, how your daughter gets on with him. In short, tell me that there is Someday Hope, or that it’s all an appalling ruse and you are horribly malcontent.

I should say at the outset that I’d never claim to be a relationship expert of any sort – I’m so very clearly not. But I am someone who’s probably had, relatively speaking, what would be considered a fairly wide range of dating and relationship experiences over the course of my life, running the full gamut from blissful and excellent to horrifying and heartbreaking. I’ve dumped and been dumped. I’ve had unrequited feelings and snubbed the advances of others. I’ve loved and lost. I married and had that marriage fail. And now here I am at the ripe old age of 41 having the best, healthiest, happiest romantic relationship of my life. It’s something worth talking about – how I got here, to happiness. How and why I failed in the past, and how and why I’m making it work now. But I don’t have all the answers, and this is why I really want and need your input and insights and stories. Fair?

So then, this coming month – February, the month most associated with romance – I’d like to talk about love. The good and bad, the failures and triumphs, yours and mine. About how we so often look for love but can’t find it, or find it only to watch it turn sour. And about how we can and do make it good, make it work, make it last. Sound like fun? Sound fun-ish?

Alright then, to begin, I’d like to turn the mic over to you here, in comments. What topics would you like to see covered here – covered by me, about my own experience, my situation, my relationship, and opened up for discussion and sharing generally to all? All suggestions and ideas welcome! What questions do you have? What experiences and insights do you have to share? What should we talk about when we talk about love?

ETA: If you’re feeling shy and would rather ask a question or pose a topic in private, please don’t hesitate to email me: sweetney(@)sweetney.com. Anonymity guaranteed, I swear on the life of the fruit bat!

A Month of Love: Making it Good, Making it Work, Making it Last is a post from Sweetney. © 2012 Sweetney.com. All rights reserved.

Guilty Pleasure

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This could have just as easily been The Bachelor, but Bachelor dude is nowhere near as pretty as these bitches.

[Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]

I finished up a day early, such is my over-exuberant enthusiasm for this photo challenge. I’ve decided to keep at it, and to do the February challenge, too. So, you know, I hope you like pictures and stuff.

Snapshots: January Photo Challenge Edition (Part 4) is a post from Sweetney. © 2012 Sweetney.com. All rights reserved.

I looked at him, equal parts dubious and incredulous. This is not a man who needs to lose weight. “But WHY?” I asked.

“I’ve put on a few pounds this winter, ” he replied, tapping his completely non-existent anti-belly. “I want to give it a shot.”

“You realize there’s no bread on this diet, right? No bread, no pastries, no sugar. Nothing” I said, in ominous and foreboding tones. “And you’re, like, a baker. Did I mention no bread?”

“Just give me the goddamn book.”

“Fine.”

And this is how we came to be doing That 4 Hour Body Thing, aka the Slow Carb diet, together.

*

I weighed myself yesterday morning and found I’d lost a grand total of One Whole Pound last week during my first full week of dieting. Now, don’t get me wrong, a pound is a pound, and losing a pound is a good thing. Never look a, umm, gift pound in the mouth (?). I get it, I do. But understand, I’ve been working out 5 days a week for an hour each time. I’ve been counting every stinkin’ calorie, like a crazy obsessive-compulsive person, and WOE IS ME, SUFFERING HORRIBLY AND TERRIBLY (well, except for those French Martinis in Annapolis. BUT PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN). And really, after all of that effort to come away with a loss of just one stinkin’ pound seems… Well, it seems downright unjust. Uncalled for and unfair. Especially when I have so freakin’ much to lose. In past diet times, when I’d get close to my goal weight I’d slow down to about a pound-a-week rate of loss, but I’d most certainly expect to be doing better than that when I’m – jesus – something like 40 pounds out from where I want to be. It seems I should be practically melting with all the effort I’m putting forth, you know? And so I’m starting to wonder if, indeed, something isn’t right. And if maybe that something-that-isn’t-right is that my diet has long been, and remains, relatively high in simple/white carbs and low in protein.

So we’re gonna find out, it seems. Because today is the first day of the rest of my breadstickless, white-carb-free life.

Umm, yay? I mean YAY!1!!!!

To kick things off, I’m also not going to exercise at all this first week. Well, unless getting up to change the channel when the remote buttons stick (stupid remote) could qualify as “aerobic.” Believe it or not I actually do *want* to exercise (well, to some extent I do, because as much as I hate it on one level on another I almost always feel better when I’m exercising regularly), but I’m going to use these first 7 days as an experiment, to see what kind of a difference going Slow Carb can make, all else aside. I’m going to follow the diet to the letter – no counting calories, no exercise, eating only the allowed foods – and weigh myself in one week. If I’ve done better than a pound loss, then I think it’s pretty clear what I need to be doing, right?

And let’s face it, it’ll be HUGELY helpful to have Charlie doing this with me. Before now, I’ve always been the one with the crazy, hair-brained (or not) diet schemes, trying to follow strict diet plans and control my caloric intake, while he would sit across the table from me, face buried in a mac & cheese calzone, wondering why I was so dang cranky. BUT NOW WE CAN BE CRANKY TOGETHER!1!!! WOOHOOO!!!

(Or, you know, something.)

Honestly though, I’m kind of weirdly excited about this because we’ll be doing it as a team. Having that support and reinforcement will be huge, I think. Have any of you gone the Slow Carb route with success? And if so, any tips, tricks or suggestions – particularly for someone who isn’t a big meat eater (me)?

The couple that goes on weird meal plans together stays together is a post from Sweetney. © 2012 Sweetney.com. All rights reserved.