I don’t know about you, but after being married for nearly ten years, kissing is often a means to an end. I mean, we kiss hello and good-bye and will often smack a little bit longer to horrify our kids, but the bulk of our long make-out sessions happen before we, well, you know.

I saw this article over at Yahoo! Shine and thought I’d highlight the main points for you.

1.) Kissing boosts immunity. A recent study reported in the journal Medical Hypotheses says kissing may increase a woman’s immunity from a certain (very rare) ailment that can cause birth defects.

Read the rest of this entry

I’ve mentioned it before but my husband and I have been known to take separate vacations. One time I wrote about it, I had a commenter question the strength of my marriage and wonder how posting about separate vacations was supposed to strengthen a commitment. I was a little taken aback as anyone who knows my husband and I know that we not only work hard at our marriage, we truly do enjoy spending time together. I read article over at Divine Caroline titled, “Separate Vacations Don’t Have To Mean Divorce” that echo my thoughts on the subject and so I feel safe enough to bring the topic up again.

Read the rest of this entry

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics, the divorce rate is the lowest in 30 years. An article over at Yahoo! Shine discusses the different theories as to why that is the case.

One theory is that less people are getting divorced because of the economy. Divorces cost money and running two households is too expensive. Some couples simply cannot afford to do it.

Another expert mentions two kinds of divorce: those resulting from an unhappy marriage, and those resulting from “a weak commitment to marriage.” In good times, plenty of salvageable marriages are terminated but a recession creates more “commitment” to marriage.

Read the rest of this entry

While I may be a writer and photographer by night, by day I am an accountant of the Chartered variety. I recently switched from the educational side of accounting to working in an office with a bunch of other suckers who have chosen accounting as their profession. I am getting back up to speed with the technicalities behind the advice that we give. It has been as titillating as you might imagine.

One topic that I was asked to research and write a report on was the different legal aspects of being in a common-law relationship and a marriage relationship. I had always assumed that once you reached that point where you were legally declared to be “common-law” you were in the identical position as as those who had gone through the ceremony and legal hoops to be married. This is not the case.

Read the rest of this entry