Brady Bunch Syndrome

February 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As we repeat over and over on Today’s Modern Family, the statistics are stunning.  65% of all remarriages end in divorce.  The big question everyone always has for me is why?  People think that just because they were married before, they will be able to apply themselves better the second time around.  The same mistakes won’t be made, they have all their old problems and issues worked out and they will make it work this time.  However, the dynamics of a remarriage are totally different than those of a first marriage.  Factor in you are blending in adults and children from totally different backgrounds, rules, ways of life, etc., and you can have a disaster on your hands before you know it.  I know that this might sound like I am being rather negative.  Quite the contrary.  There are several positive aspects to remarriage, too many to count actually, but at the same time, people who jump right into remarriage after divorce or death per say have this unrealistic idea that their new-found family will run just as smoothly as Carol and Mike Brady ran theirs, except they are forgetting one main component.  Carol and Mike Brady were made up characters that had all of the answers ahead of time because they read from a script!  Unfortunatley for those of us living our daily lives in real blended families,  life isn’t as easy as tuning into old episodes of the Brady Bunch.  Moreover, the Brady Bunch not only steered families into unrealistic expectations of real stepfamily life, it did a disservice to all of us.

In Mala Burt’s 8 Step Progeram for Successful Family Living she notes the following common myths that plague stepfamilies:

1.  Love Occurs Instantly Between the Child and Stepparent

An expectation exists that because you love your partner, you will naturally love his or her children and they will instantly love you. This expectation often sets up a family for failure as partners then question what is wrong with them. The answer is nothing is wrong with you. Relationships take time and there are many positive steps you can take to develop it.

2.  Stepmothers Are Wicked

Many fairy tales tell us so. This negative concept may make stepmothers very self-conscious about their step parenting. It can cause confusion about our roles. Stepfamily research tells us that stepmothers have the most difficult role in the stepfamily.

3.  Children Adjust to Divorce and Remarriage More Easily If Biological Fathers or Mothers Withdraw

Children will always have two biological parents and will have an easier adjustment if they have access to both. They need to see them and think well of them. This is important for their emotional health; except in those instances of parental abuse or neglect.

Peace & Blessings.
Diane

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Diane’s Shepherd’s Pie

February 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

TMF Readers, today, for some reason, I have been doing a lot of reflecting.  Reflecting on my childhood and my grandparents and for some odd reason, one thing I could not stop thinking about was the food that I remember being prepared in my mom’s kitchen.  My mom was a single mother from the time I was 10 until the time I was out of high school.  She worked long, hard hours and didn’t make much  money.  We lived on a strict budget but us kids never missed a meal.  She cooked the best she knew how and today, I want to share my “kicked up” version of her Shepherd’s Pie.   I changed it around a bit in order to spruce it up a bit and I actually prepared it tonight for my  mom.   By the way, she loved it and so did my children and husband.  I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

12 potatoes peeled and cut into quarters
3 large cloves of garlic
1-1/2 pounds of ground beef
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. Ketchup
3/4 cup of beef broth
3 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions:

Boil potatoes and garlic in boiling water until tender.  Brown ground beef, stir in flour and cook 1 minute.  Add mixed vegetables, broth and ketchup.  Cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Heat oven to 350 degrees; drain potatoes, return to pan.  Add sour cream; mash until potatoes are smooth and mixture is well blended. 

Put meat mixture into a 10×13 inch glass pan; cover with potatoes.  Bake for 15 minute sand then top with remaining cheese and bake until cheese is melted. 

Enjoy!

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No One Can Grow In The Shade!

February 19, 2011 By 4 Comments

“YOU HAVE GOT TO DISCOVER YOU, WHAT YOU DO, AND TRUST IT!”    BARBARA STREISAND

With divorce comes a vast variety of emotions.  Unbeknownst to many of us, our lives have been shaken to it’s core and we are totally unprepared for the challenges that come along with the big  bad enemy we call  D-I-V-O-R-C-E!  To be quite honest, it sucks!  However, as we all know, after every rain shower, there is a rainbow.  The same holds true for life after divorce.  Problem is, we tend to hide from life after divorce.  We tend to decide that we can no longer shine.  We tend to accept what our temporary emotions are telling us and instead of making lemonade out of lemons, we stay stuck.  

TMF Readers, can we talk?  Albeit, divorce and remarriage both have many pitfalls.  If you go to any library in your community you will find many books on the subject.  However, no one book can prepare you for the injury you feel when divorce happens.  With that, today, I want to give you a few tips on learning how to nurture your emotional and personal growth after divorce.  As the title of this post reads, No One Can Grow In the Shade!  What do I mean by this you might ask?  Well, it’s simple.  Staying stuck holds you down.  It keeps you in the dark and forces you to keep assigning blame to yourself instead of truly evaluating the whole big picture.  It keeps you from accepting what has happened and it keeps you from moving on.  It keeps you from discovering the new person that you are and what personal gifts you have been blessed with.

Here are some tips for you to use in your journey:

  • Reflect — but do not dwell.  During my divorce, I kept a journal.  Write down your feelings and leave them there.  Capture what you think went wrong and learn from it.  Using a journal to express yourself keeps you from making the huge mistake of being over-emotional around your children, etc.   It is a form of release. 
  • Rebuild. Divorce can literally suck the life out of you — IF YOU ALLOW IT TO.  Find things you enjoy (i.e., hobbies, personal time, vacations, etc.) and focus on yourself.  In order to rebuild your life, you have to have inner strength and a main component of inner strength is taking care of yourself physically, emotionally and mentally.  Find what you like to do and DO IT!  Take time for the pleasures in life that give you peace. 
  • Eliminate and reduce stress/anxiety.  This may be hard to swallow, but you are divorced.  Yes, it’s over but your life is not.  Worrying about what could have been or what should have been done or what you could have done differently isn’t going to change the fact that you are divorced.  Take time to meditate on you.  Get a massage, hit the gym, find a space in your house that is all yours and relax.  Reduce your stress by writing down your feelings and then decide to move on.   Part of your learning process means you don’t have to make the same mistakes again — that in itself will lessen your anxiety.
  • Fight your fears.  After divorce, people are so afraid to be alone that they, at times, jump from the frying pan to the fryer.  Patience is key.  Being alone doesn’t have to be the big ”fear” everyone makes it out to be.  It is important to have time to redefine yourself.  It is important to have time to rediscover what it is about you that makes you happy.  It is important to reflect on how you can grow from this situation.  You cannot do all of these very important things while at the same time jumping into a new relationship.  It doesn’t and won’t work.  Being alone and giving yourself your own undivided attention will build your self-esteem and self-worth.

TMF Readers, you cannot grow in the shade!  In order to be truly happy, we have to be able to acknowledge and find that WE, as individuals, can fulfill our own needs.  Hence, we can move on with our lives and become a better partner in our future relationships.

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

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Laughter: An Important Key To Your Relationship!

February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“Laughter gives us distance.  It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on….Bob Newhart”

Isn’t there just something extra special and charming about a man or woman who can make you laugh.  My husband is definitely that man for me.  It’s one of the best traits he has.  Being able to laugh in your relationship adds a completely different and important dimension to your relationship.  It adds to your marriage and gives it that extra zing which comes in handy when tensions arise.

Milton Berle once said that “laughter is an instant vacation.”  Think about that statement and how it relates to our marriages and remarriages.  If we are able to remember that in the instance of an argument we can find something to laugh about then we literally “get away” from the stress and drama of what might be causing our tension.  Laughter is more than an efficient tool to have in our (re)marriage tool box, it is essential to the health and emotional state of same.

Laughter is play and good marriages are playful.  Couples who can laugh at themselves and together are actually much stronger when situations arise between them.  However, keep in mind it is important to have balance when it comes to laughter and joking.  There are lots of ways to bring healthy humor and laughter into your marriage.  Of course it’s important to remember that sometimes humor can hurt if it isn’t used properly so here are a few tips to guide you along the way:

  • Be more aware of humorous moments together
  • Be playful together; playing brings on laughter
  • Reflect back on the funny situations that have happened in the past with you and your partner
  • Keep your humor clean when it comes to your spouse.  Don’t offend.
  • Your humor should never be at your spouse’s expense (i.e., joking about weight and/or how they look in general.  That is hurtful.

My husband is not just my life partner, but my lover, my shoulder to cry on, my best friend and my security blanket.  If I have a bad day at work or with a friend, he always has a reason to make me laugh out of the situation.  He has an uncanny ability to make me smile even if I don’t feel like it — I really think it’s because he loves to see my big dimples when I smile (only because he tells me that all the time).  I guess I could have married a stuffy-shirted serious man but I don’t think I would have had near as much fun as I have with my husband. 

Life can be as funny as we make it out to be.  Look for laughter in your daily experiences and share them with your spouse and/or significant other.  Humor in our relationships builds trust and mutual respect.  Take it from me, the benefits are enormous.  Let’s get to more laughter TMF Readers.  Your relationship is worth it!

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

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Romantic Stay At Home Meal

February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Who says you have to go out to have a romatic meal with your spouse?  Stay at home and make this Honey-Soy Skillet Chicken and I am promising you will get not just rave reviews, but a little something something on the side too.   Everyone who knows me knows I love to cook.  I have a wealth of my own recipes and some, like this one, that I store in my numerous, highly organized file boxes in my garage of different food magazines, etc.  This yummy recipe is an original from Woman’s Day’s March 8, 2005 issue.   Enjoy!

Using a whole chicken and pantry staples keeps the cost down, but when a dish is this delish—with its thick cinnamon, honey and ginger sauce—money will be the last thing on your mind!

Active Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Recipe Ingredients

1 quartered chicken (about 4 lb)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
1 Tbsp oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp each chopped garlic and fresh ginger
2 cinnamon sticks (about 3 1/2 in. each)
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup each lite soy sauce and water

Garnish: scallions.  Serve with: short-grain white (sushi) rice, diced mango

Recipe Preparation

1. Grasp chicken skin with a paper towel and pull off. Remove visible fat with kitchen scissors or a sharp knife.

2. Mix flour, salt and pepper in a gallon-size plastic food bag. Add chicken a few pieces at a time, close bag and shake to coat chicken evenly.

3. Heat oil in a deep 12-in. nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and cook, turning once, 10 minutes or until golden. Remove chicken to a platter.

4. Add onion to skillet; sauté 3 minutes until golden. Add garlic, ginger and cinnamon sticks; sauté until fragrant. Add honey, soy sauce and water. Stir until honey dissolves. Add chicken, bring to a simmer, cover and cook, turning chicken occasionally, 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Garnish with scallions.  Serve with rice mixed with diced mango.

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Valentine Krispy Kisses With The Kids

February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

  Everyone knows that Valentine’s Day is for lovers but we here at Today’s Modern Family didn’t want to leave out the kids that mean so much to us on Valentine’s Day so I thought I would inject a little bit of fun that I often share with my two younger children.   It’s a fun little project and one that will create a special memory with your kids and plus…who in the world doesn’t like Krispy Treats?   Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 food or oil funnel (can be found at any dollar store or in the houseware section of your local store)
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 package (10 oz., about 40) regular marshmallows
- OR -
4 cups miniature marshmallows
6 cups Krispy Rice cereal
Food coloring (optional)

Directions:

1. In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

2. Add cereal. Stir until well coated.  Stir in food coloring (optional).

3. Use funnel and press krispies into the funnel and pull mold off. 

4.  Wrap in plastic wrap and then in tin foil and place a strip of tissue paper (cut thinly) with your favorite message written on the paper and  wrap foil around part of the paper to give the krispy that special Kiss look.

Have fun making memories!

Diane

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Spicy Wifey Giveaway!

February 6, 2011 By 4 Comments

All this month we’re encouraging couples to purposely pay attention to their marriages and our friends over at Spicy Wifey are donating a gift package to help you do so.  We know how important it is to nurture our marriages and oftentimes reliving old memories is a perfect way to enable you to see the person you fell in love with and reignite that spark in your relationship. So, tell us about your spicy spouses. Do you remember your first kiss? How did he propose? Where did you spend your honeymoon? What first attracted to you to your spouse? Briefly tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win some Spicy Wifey his and her apparel. The contest starts now and the winner will be randomly chosen on the last day of February.

 

 

 

 

 

About Spicy Wifey

 

Spicy Wifey is a lifestyle brand designed to inspire, encourage and invigorate married women and women on the path to marriage.  We provide fashion-inspired apparel and services that celebrate the committed and married lifestyle.  Remember, being a wife is HOT!

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THIS IS WHO I AM!

February 6, 2011 By 12 Comments

There are two primary choices in life:

1.  To accept conditions as they exist; or

2.  Accept the responsibility for changing them!

This holds true in our marriages, our co-parenting responsibilities and most importantly, our personal lives.  Learning how to let go, moving on and rising to the occasion of what’s really important is key to being released and truly happy.

For years, I have to admit that I was such the people pleaser that I constantly worried about what people thought about me.  I constantly felt I had to conquer all problems that one might ask me to help them with. I had to be the best wife, mom, stepmom and friend that walked the planet earth and I wanted everyone to know it.  I wanted to be appreciated and liked by everyone.  I wanted to be appreciated and liked by my children all the time.  I wanted to be accepted and liked by my stepdaughter and her mother so that they would know that I was committed to my stepdaughter and to my family.  I wanted to be the “fixer of all things” for my husband so I would go overboard with my friendship with my husband’s ex wife so that I could “fix” everything and be responsible for his issues that involved his daughter and ex-wife so that our family could work cohesively all the time — or so I thought.   Through all of this however, I wasn’t being myself.  No matter how much I tried to hide the big elephant in the room, I couldn’t – because the big elephant was ME!

What I was doing was not only unhealthy for me emotionally but also I was putting undue pressure on others in my life to fill the need that they always had to make me happy.  As you can see, I have used the word “I” so many times above because “I” was making it all about “me.”  Life isn’t always happy.  Parenting and co-parenting isn’t always cohesive.  Kids and parents aren’t always going to get along, wives and ex-wives aren’t always going to like one another all of the time, dads and step-dads might not always see eye-to-eye.  I am not perfect and once I realized I didn’t have to be perfect in order for people to appreciate me, a huge weight and monkey was lifted off of my back.  I don’t need approval from anyone but myself!  I realized that I am who I am because God made me to be a beautiful, loving, caring, kind and yes, an imperfect  individual person.   Accepting the fact that I don’t have the responsibility to make everyone happy all of the time, opened the door for my relationships to get better.   The realization that my children will be fine if I am not pleasing them all the time, that my husband can ”fix” his own issues, that my stepdaughter will know I love her and that I don’t need everyone’s approval was liberating.  The fact that I didn’t have to go overboard with my friendship with my husband’s ex (not to mention the fact that it put her, at times, in an awkward position) just to prove to her that I love and am committed to my stepdaughter and our blended family was essential to my, my husband’s ex-wife and our blended family’s emotional health.

The mere fact that I am no longer worried about what people think about me, how they feel about me or what they say about me, whether they are my friends, my colleagues and even my family was absolutely life changing.  With acceptance comes change and it is our own individual responsibility to make ourselves completely happy in our lives.  No one person can make us well-rounded and happy if we are not happy first with ourselves.

That being said TMF Readers, my new mantra, love me or hate me….THIS IS WHO I AM!

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

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RECIPE FOR LOVE

February 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A little bit of me and a whole lot of you.  Add a dash of starlight and a dozen roses, too.  Then let it rise for a hundred years or two.  It doesn’t need sugar ’cause it’s already sweet.  It doesn’t need an oven ’cause it’s got a lot of heat.  Just add a dash of kisses to make it all complete, and that’s the recipe for making love.  

The truth in Harry Connick, Jr. words to his song “A Recipe for Love” stated above says it all.  Allowing yourself to receive love is just as important as giving love.  More importantly, another important ingredient to the Recipe for Love is to believe in your love which is profound to any marriage.  Of course, there will be times when conflict rears its ugly head but it is how you deal with those conflicts that matter the most.   For example, it is super important to remember that you love your spouse so this simple or maybe not so simple argument will not break you.  Be mindful at all times that you can work through anything together.  Trust in your love.  Show your commitment to your partner by making sure he or she knows that breaking up or leaving is not an option.  Share your goals so that you stay on the same page and understand one another’s direction.

Keep your love alive, vibrant and healthy by showing appreciation for your spouse and reminding yourself why you fell in love.  Do something every single day to show your appreciation for your spouse.  This does not mean you have to send flowers, etc. every day, but simple gestures such as leave each other text messages or notes on the pillow, passionate hugs and soft kisses work too.  These small love gestures remind us of how important we are to each other.

Remember TMF readers, the smallest things you do will leave the biggest impression on your marriage, remarriage and relationships.  It is truly one of the biggest components in the recipe of love.

Peace & Blessings,
Diane

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Love Your Spouse on Purpose

February 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

February is the month of love. It’s a time to focus on your spouse. It’s a time to relive old memories, show your appreciation, buy flowers and chocolate and have a special date night. It’s a time to love your spouse on purpose!

During the month of February, we plan to encourage you every step of the way, with helpful articles such as: Tips to Build a Strong Marriage, Rebuilding Trust in Your Marriage, Recipe for Love, Keeping it Hot in the Bedroom and much more.

We’d also love for you to share your stories about how you met your spouse, fell in love, your first kiss, your wedding day or your perfect honeymoon destintation for your chance to win a prize from our friends at Spicy Wifey (details coming soon)! This month, let us all spread the love and help add a little spice in our marriages. Remember, the way you build strong families is by building strong marriages. There simply is no other way.

Lovingly Yours,

Kela and Diane

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