Self-Helped and Beloved

I'll admit it: I read self-help books every now and then. They seem to get a bad rep for being cheesy but for the most part, I love how helpful they are in understanding ourselves and the people around us. In spite of the Gouda. No, the authors aren't always right all the time, but you take bits and pieces that help you see things clearly and leave the rest.

Months ago I stumbled upon The 5 Love Languages via RJ's blog. I never read the book(s) but I did take the quiz and it reconfirmed what I have always suspected, but never verbalized: giving me gifts doesn't make me feel loved, but spending quality time with me does. My results:

Interpreting and Using Your Profile Score: 
The highest score indicates your primary love language (the highest score is 12). It's not uncommon to have two high scores, although one language does have a slight edge for most people. That just means two languages are important to you. The lower scores indicate those languages you seldom use to communicate love and which probably don't affect you very much on an emotional level. 

6 Words of Affirmation
12 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
4 Physical Touch

In Quality Time, nothing says "I love you" like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes you feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed activities, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.

A few things I took away from this:

• I made the boyfriend take the quiz and his results were pretty similar. Thankfully, this means we could just spend a lot of quality time together and we'll mutually feel loved at the same time. Perfecto!
• There's something about an expensive gift that actually rubs me the wrong way and I can't quite pinpoint why. Theories: (1) I feel like people are trying to buy my love, which monetizes my love and thus lessens its actual worth (i.e., priceless). (2) I can't and/or won't be able to fully reciprocate. (3) I would feel indebted. I HATE FEELING INDEBTED. Thankfully, this hasn't come up a lot. No, there's no long line of people waiting to give me new cars and expensive jewelry. Thank goodness! :-D
• I enjoy being hugged and kissed by the boyfriend but I'm pretty sensitive about other people - especially strangers - invading my personal space. 
• And, true to the results, I am hypersensitive when it comes to people whipping out their smartphones during our one-on-one interactions. Unless it's completely pertinent to our conversation, I do find it hurtful. I'm also sensitive to being kept waiting for more than 10 minutes. 

Anyway, I found this quiz to be very informative and helpful in understanding how and why I react the way I do to different things. I imagine that if you're in an intimate relationship with someone, you should know these qualities about them so that you can avoid hurting them or making them feel unloved unintentionally. Sure, you kind of inherently know these things, but the thing I like about these resources is that it spells it out with terminology and lingo built in to better understand it all.

Hope this helps you feel loved. :)

41 Days

I turn 30 - THIRTY! - in 41 days. I will not be doing what's depicted above, mostly because I hate "junk" and wouldn't want to inflict needless things upon people (I'm a practical minimalist). But this is just a nice video to show random acts of kindness, which I'm a huge fan of!

Happy Monday!

Ella-ella-ella-ella....

"When the sun shines we shine together!"

Mr. Sammy

Sammy really is a very endearing miniature schnauzer. According to the Muttville site, he's 11 years old but he definitely doesn't look his age. You know how old he looks? He looks ADORABLE YEARS OLD! :) If you're looking for a sweet dog, you should consider him - he's available for adoption!

I love cute doggeh tushie. :)

The Door is a Lie

The green is just fantastic! Happy Monday!

Eats!

This is what $11 of local organic produce looks like. I'm lucky enough to live about five blocks away from a farmer's market (Waller & Stanyan Streets, in Upper Haight) so I finally decided to come out for some good eats. Here's a random listing of my experience:

• A bunch of the Tuscan kale, Russian kale, and dandelion greens were 3 for $5. That is mighty awesome for local produce grown organically!
• I freeze some kale since I don't use it quick enough and I also bake a small batch every time. It is so good and so easy.
• The tomatoes were $3/pound and the smaller ones were so sweet and fantastic. I must enjoy them now while they're in season. There's no reason to be eating bland tomatoes off-season any more.
• Umm, the gluten-free cake is not really "produce" per se, but it looked yummy. So I bought it! I graciously included a close-up below for you sweet-tooth folks. ;)
• Two ladies were standing next to me at the gluten-free cake stand and they uttered something like, "Oh, it's gluten-free! It's good for you." I usually keep comments to myself but I couldn't help but say, "Uh, that's not how it works...."
• The dandelion greens were SO BITTER. SO BITTER. I talked to the vendor and she warned me that they're really good for you but they're really bitter (no kidding!). But she also recommended that I juice it, which I did. And after diluting it with a pound of carrot juice, the taste wasn't so bad!
• I love carrot juice. A little random factoid for your Sunday.

Om nom nom!

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers"

Three random strangers I'm thankful to:

The two men who shared the elevator with me and gave impeccable directions to where I was heading to. Thank you! And to the security guard who gave me a band-aid? A huge, huge thank you! Running in heels is absolutely not my forte. I don't know if I would have been able to keep walking if not for the band-aid to cushion my left heel.

A little San Francisco skyline for you to enjoy.

Oh. My. Cuteness.

I never know what I'm gonna get when I show up to photograph a baby. Has he been fed? Is she rested? Am I gonna get poo on me??? (Just kidding about that last part - I don't photograph naked babies so the diapers take the brunt of it.)

This fella right here? He wins, hands-down, for friendliest baby. And it was also amazing that my camera noises got and kept his attention throughout our quick session - that almost never happens. I'm glad it did because his baby blue eyes? BEAUTIFUL.

More to come.

Advice from the Bottle

"Shake Well. Settling is Natural."

And on that note, I'm enjoying this new, updated Blogger user interface. Great job, Googlers! (And, also, it's about damn time! :-P)