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"What I really wanted to title this post was &amp;quot;5 Reasons Long Distance Relationships Don&amp;#039;t Work&amp;quot;: 1. You&amp;#039;re not together 2. You&amp;#039;re not together 3. You&amp;#039;re not together 4. You&amp;#039;re not together 5. You&amp;#039;re not Together However, with Rex quickly approaching two weeks of being in Germany due to THE BLASTED VOLCANO I am realizing how important it is to stay positive. After all, he&amp;#039;s not fighting for his life in a man hole. I&amp;#039;m not starving. My kids are getting a bit ferral (Lord knows I&amp;#039;m crankier than Simon Cowell listening to a Milli Vanilli cover band) but... I&amp;#039;m safe. This article talks about 15 things couples can do to make long distance relationships work. I agree with most of their points, but it&amp;#039;s clearly written for people who don&amp;#039;t have children. It&amp;#039;s a whole different ballgame when you&amp;#039;ve got little ones tugging at your sleeve. Here&amp;#039;s my five tips for how to survive a long distance relationship when there are kids involved. (Army wives, please chime in here! You have it much rougher than I do.) 1. Don&amp;#039;t be a martyr: You don&amp;#039;t have to do everything yourself. Use the opportunity to call girlfriends for after school playdates. Can we all say &amp;quot;Community for 500?&amp;quot; In my case, I&amp;#039;m having my ex-boyfriend over for dinner tonight. He now dates men (that&amp;#039;s a whole other story) and we plan on laughing and laughing over stupid memories. This is something more difficult to do with Rex around as he doesn&amp;#039;t share the same history with Bruce as a I do. (And good thing or I&amp;#039;d have a second gay man in my life!) 2. Feed your tummy/feed your soul: Make sure you eat well - it&amp;#039;s a huge mood elevator. But also don&amp;#039;t go nuts. Get some frozen food, fresh fruit and make the microwave your friend. The kids are just as happy with Trader Joes premade nitrate free hotdogs as my classic Taco Tuesday. With less cleanup, I can get the kids in bed early and feed my soul with a good book. 3. Take a new man to bed:In my case, I&amp;#039;m referring to books on tape. For fun I picked up a Danielle Steel book -Miracle. I&amp;#039;d never read her stuff before. I am thinking of writing my own book, and wondered why this series was so popular with the masses. I&amp;#039;d always shrugged her off as being &amp;quot;light&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;stupid&amp;quot;. Honestly, I can see why people like her. The story was nicely developed with some decent character development. Predictable and a bit indulgent? YES. But so am I. It was nice to not take everything so seriously for a change. Perhaps most enjoyable was just sitting in bed, wrapped in a quilt, hearing a lovely man&amp;#039;s voice read to me. I know it&amp;#039;s not the same as having Rex in the room, but another &amp;quot;person&amp;quot; chatting really eased the lonliness of the evening. Also, instead of reading to the kids myself, I let them listen to books on tape, too. It gave me some free time to get the dishes done. (Thank you, Skippy Jon Jones - you nutty chihuahua!) 4. Get some sleep: I am a ten hour/night girl. I don&amp;#039;t always get it - especially when Rex and I go to bed late and then stay up later doing other stuff. Last night, I hit the hay at 9 and didn&amp;#039;t wake until 7am. Heaven. The kids - they went to bed by 7 and got up at 7 am. That has cut the crank in half. 5. Exercise: I can&amp;#039;t stress this enough. I have stopped moving the past few weeks and MAN my attitude is showing it. Yesterday I hit the gym for 20 minutes only... just to get started. Today I am going to do an hour of cardio. As for the kids, they are scooting, rollerblading or hiking every day after school. It&amp;#039;s been a Godsend to get their ya-ya&amp;#039;s out without Papa to roughhouse with. In closing, I have neglected my prayer life lately. It has taken a toll on my spirits. For me, it&amp;#039;s lovely to remember that I&amp;#039;m not the only person in control. There is someone else I can drop off my burdens to. I am starting my quiet time of prayer beginning... now. &amp;quot;Dear God, what the heck were you thinking with that Volcano. It&amp;#039;s really really annoying and...&amp;quot; Okay, wait. That&amp;#039;s not how I want to start. What about you? What works for you when your spouse is out of town? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a3145/5-ways-to-make-long-distant-re/>