<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"What I enjoy about blog writing is that I get immediate responses from readers. What I dislike about blog writing is... I get immediate reactions from readers. Sometimes the responses are super. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re like having a cup of virtual coffee with a good girlfriend!&amp;quot; Others are less than pleasant. &amp;quot;Maybe if you weren&amp;#039;t so busy writing a column you would find more time for sex.&amp;quot;   The truth is, not all &amp;quot;fan mail&amp;quot; is from people who, if they met me in person, would like me. I can be too direct, and sometimes too clumsy (literally, I walk into stuff wherever I go.) What&amp;#039;s humorous online isn&amp;#039;t so funny when a six foot 1 mama walks into a princess party and knocks over the crown jeweled cupcakes.   The opposite stands true from the &amp;quot;hate mail&amp;quot;. What is easy to criticize, from the safety of one&amp;#039;s home, is not so easy to poke fun at in real life. For examples, if those critics bumped into me at a PTA meeting, they&amp;#039;d have time to get to know me first \u2013 to see the layers beneath the one dimensional computer screen. We might chat about hair spray, politics, careers, thrift store shopping and the pros and cons between a traditional family, an adopted one, a surrogate or a Petri dish.   I used to run from criticism. Like a violet in winter, I&amp;#039;d shrink at the first sign of the sun. &amp;quot;No, no... it&amp;#039;s getting hot! I&amp;#039;m melting! I&amp;#039;m melting! And there&amp;#039;s a bee&amp;#039;s ass on my face! Get it off! Get it off!&amp;quot;   But that changed about ten years ago. Going through a painful divorce taught me that we can either take bad experiences and hide from them, or use them for our growth. This new enlightenment, along with my ex-husband (howdy Baldo&amp;#039;s daddy) became my friend. And so, too, will the not so nice comments. Because maybe, just maybe, when I get past my own ego, I can see some truth in them. And maybe, just maybe, even someone else can learn from me.  Now that I&amp;#039;m married again, I catch myself making the same mistakes I did the first time around. I&amp;#039;m more mature this time, though, and with two kids and almost 4 decades on my side, I&amp;#039;m not so apt to run out the door. Well, I&amp;#039;m &amp;quot;apt&amp;quot; when I&amp;#039;m completely exhausted and hormonal, but I won&amp;#039;t. I know a good thing when I see it, and this marriage is it for me.   It&amp;#039;s important, when we go through the inevitable slump of boredom, to not forget each other. And more important ourselves. That&amp;#039;s when we lose the &amp;quot;I love you&amp;#039;s&amp;quot; under the pile of &amp;quot;You never&amp;#039;s.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s when the &amp;quot;Get it yourself&amp;quot; takes precedence over &amp;quot;What can I do for you&amp;#039;s&amp;quot;? And it&amp;#039;s when, like the one dimensional screen of the computer, we forget to see the layers to the amazing person we married.   A few weeks back, Rex was attempting to cook dinner. After searching five minutes for three different tools, he spluttered, &amp;quot;The kitchen is always messier than when I started!&amp;quot;   What I wanted to scream, when he  But I just found the spatula for him. And he went on with his dinner prep.   That night, before drifting off to sleep, I told him I loved him. Followed quickly by a, &amp;quot;What you said really pissed me off.&amp;quot; I can forgive, but I&amp;#039;m not a martyr. If I don&amp;#039;t tell him, who will?   He apologized. He then told me that I&amp;#039;m the best mother on the planet, the best wife he could ask for, and that I have to keep on him when he loses perspective.   He was so sincere. I&amp;#039;d more than keep on him. I&amp;#039;d have jumped right on him. But I didn&amp;#039;t. Because I already finished doing that, five minutes earlier. I couldn&amp;#039;t help it. That man can really cook. (Lucky for me, in the kitchen and the bedroom. What can I say? Like his lasagna, and my friends in real life, he has many layers.)  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a2726/blogging-about-sex/>