Categories
Let's Look

Let’s Look: How We Maintain Relationships

Hello all! Happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a great week so far! This has been a busy, but fun week for me! We had the Super Bowl on Sunday, tomorrow is Galentine’s Day, but I have been celebrating all month long with friends but setting up one on one dates with friends and then this weekend is Valentine’s Day. I’ll be out of town for a weekend getaway which I’m excited about too! 

Here’s how I have been celebrating the month of love! 

Enjoying lots of sweet treats!
And baked goods too!

Love is the topic for today’s Let’s Look as I link up with  Shay and Erika!

In January, we covered low level goals.

Today the topic is How We Work on Our Marriage. Since I’m not married, I switched the topic to how I work on my relationships, with friends, family, and my boyfriend.

Let’s start with friendships! I cherish my friendships with my gals, whether they are near or far away. One of the biggest ways that I maintain my friendships is by being consistent with my friends with routine dates or check-ins. Besides sending random texts or check-ins with my friends, I try to set up weekly or monthly dates depending on our schedules. Life can get busy, but having something on the calendar is important for holding each other accountable. For example, my one friend and I have monthly facetime dates. We talk at the end of the month for about an hour and catch each other up on all our life happenings. We will still occasionally text through the month, but we save all the girl talk for our facetime dates since we live far away from each other.  When it comes to friends who live in town, my friends and I try to see each other once or twice a month for a walk, coffee date, or meal. For me and my friends, having something on the calendar keeps us in a good rhythm of visiting one another. 

When it comes to my family, I live at home with my parents and one brother (the other two are grown and out of the house or in college). Family dinners are super important to us, we always make time for each other and love to hear about each other’s days. I love the connection that sitting down for a meal offers. When it comes to my brothers who aren’t home, besides texting, I try to call and check in about once a week. We talk about our weeks, what’s new and life in general. I love the connection that a phone call or facetime offers as opposed to a text.

Lastly, my boyfriend. I keep my relationship pretty private. But we have been together for almost five years and every day is better than the last. We have grown and learned a lot through our relationship. We met through work and worked together for a few years, before he decided to make a career change and now we are going long distance. We have learned a lot by going the distance and grown in our relationship too. The biggest thing I have learned is the importance of communication, whether it’s something that’s good or bad, being upfront and honest with one another has been so helpful when we are hours apart. We talk and text through the day and try to visit each other once a month and when we are together we try to have a balance or doing things and just doing mundane things. Having good communication skills, putting each other first and giving our best effort are top priorities for us. 

Relationships are so vital to our lives, whether it’s friendships, family, or significant others. I try to maintain relationships the best that I can and in ways that works best for me. With Valentine’s Day just days away, how do you maintain your relationships? Let me know in the comments below! Have a wonderful ramp up to Galentine’s Day and Valentine’s Day! Sending you lots of love!

Categories
Fabulous living

Things I’m Looking Forward To…

Hi everyone!

Happy Wednesday! I hope you are making it through the midweek slump, we are halfway to the weekend, which is much needed, in other good news…it’s March!! Anyone else had a tough time making it through the end of February?!

Last week, we got a day of sunshine and temperatures above 50! I had no idea how much I needed to feel sunshine and warmer temps, it was a definitely a burst of sunshine…no pun intended. Hehe….I am counting down to warmer weather and spring time even though we have a long way to go. 

One of my favorite blogs that I read every day is Carly’s. She has been blogging since college and writes about everything from fashion, food, lifestyle, home living and more. I love to start my days with her blog.  She did a post about things she is looking forward to after the pandemic and I loved the positivity, I wanted to try it for myself. To read her post, click here. The whole point is to think about what fun things you are looking forward to once things back to a semi-normal.

Here’s some things I’m looking forward to…

-Seeing people: I’ve kept my bubble of people fairly small this past year, mostly only seeing immediate family, a few close friends in the summer and co-workers. I’ve been able to talk to friends thanks to Facetime and Zoom way more frequently which has been such a blessing. I can’t wait for the day to see friends in person and give them a hug. Isn’t it weird how much we miss physical touch when we can’t have it?!

One of my last visits with my friend, Danielle, before Covid hit.

-Spontaneous Trips and Travel too: Right before the pandemic hit, I was visiting friends in Pittsburgh and then a week later we all got shutdown…I can’t wait to plan spontaneous trips and visits with friends on my days off. I want to enjoy myself and not be worried about being too close to people, going to another place and being concerned about getting others or myself sick. I also am looking forward to seeing more family. I was able to see some on the summer when cases were down, but once fall and winter hit, I’ve been hunkered down at home. Plus, I have a whole list of places that I want to explore and see, I’m hoping to do more of that once things settle down.

Looking forward to more travels in the future.

-Concerts: Although, I haven’t been to too many of them, there is nothing like live music. Although, it will take a while to get there, I’m looking forward to live music again and the whole concert like experience. 

One of the last concerts I went to was in 2018 and it was Ed Sheeran, I can’t wait to be get back to concerts in the future.

-Community Events: It may seem silly, but I miss the community atmosphere of my hometown, spontaneous meet-ups and nights spent out. In the summer there are always weekend activities and festivals and it’s always a fun time to see friends and neighbors out and about. 

 The most important is to get as many people vaccinated and to keep doing what experts are telling us, all to put an end to Covid-19. In a time full of loss and suffering and pain, it’s so nice to look on the bright side of things and dream about getting back to a semi-normal. If I have learned anything from this pandemic is how much I appreciate and love the little and simple things in life. It’s crazy what things we take for granted. 

What things are you looking forward to in the future?