Posted: August 12, 2011 | Author: abatchelor14 | Filed under: Free Fun for Fridays | Tags: bath, beloved, free, Fridays, intimacy |
Although many of you may feel like you’re taking an involuntary bath this week because of the wild gyrations in the public markets, we’re going to encourage you to take a real bath in your bathtub as a special treat.
It can be difficult to change gears from the stimulating environment of the office to be fully present with your beloved in the evening, especially if your commute home is just a continuation of your day, with email and texting (not while driving, please!) and crossing items off your To Do list until the very moment of arrival.
A bath when you first get home, ideally with candles, soothing music, and bath salts like lavender or geranium, provides a wonderfully intimate and physically relaxing time to either talk or not talk and let the cares of your day fall away. Your evening will be more calm, and you might even be inspired to enjoy some adult activity before being exhausted at bedtime.
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Posted: July 29, 2011 | Author: abatchelor14 | Filed under: Free Fun for Fridays | Tags: awe, beloved, night sky |
This weekends’s idea for free fun is:
Go outside and look up into the night sky.
Step AWAY from the computer. Put your phone down. Stop typing. Take off the headphones. Stop watching television. And even though Apple makes that awesome star mapping app, the point of this exercise is to be enveloped in silence and wonderment, ideally while holding hands with your beloved.
Then you can come back inside and watch the Hubble Ultra Deep Field movie while still filled with wonderment.
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Posted: July 22, 2011 | Author: abatchelor14 | Filed under: Free Fun for Fridays | Tags: communication, free, Fridays, lists |
I know the expression “talk is cheap” is meant to be derogatory, but the truly nice thing about talk is that it’s not just cheap – it’s free (it’s even called free speech sometimes) and it’s an excellent way of creating connection and intimacy with your beloved. We will discuss other, more adult rated ways of creating connection and intimacy in future posts, once we get to know each other a little better.
Each Friday we’re going to suggest some free fun things to do for your weekend together. This week’s free idea is List Making.
I love lists. If I were a character in The Matrix, I would be the List Maker (although the Keymaker would be a close second choice). While making lists may not sound like a fun idea for your weekend, it’s actually an excellent catalyst for exploratory conversations in which you get to think about the future, think about things to do together, and have fun talking to each other. And even if you don’t love lists, you can engage your beloved in a conversation about whether he or she loves lists!
One of the wonders of a lifelong relationship is realizing that it takes an entire lifetime to really know someone while at the same time you know your beloved better than you know anyone – sometimes even better than you know yourself. It’s one of the paradoxes of love.
So the lists I’m thinking of aren’t the grocery list or your task list or lists that make you feel even more burdened by responsibility – these are lists of things you might agree or disagree about, or already have some history of checking off, or you can make your own lists.
Here is a list of books of lists (a meta-list!) to give you ideas for your own lists:
14,000 Things to be Happy About
1001 Ways to Be Romantic
1,000 Places to See Before You Die
1,001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
1001 Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die
and for the less outdoorsy to see before you die:
1001 Movies
1001 Books
Books often cost money, but they still have these relic artifact things called Libraries where you can borrow books for free.
And executing on your lists will likely cost money, but looking forward to being able to execute is actually part of the fun.
I’m a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, where she writes about how anticipation is a big part of happiness.
So enjoy your list making conversations, and share some of your lists here!
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