I visited NYC recently - and checked out In The Heights on Broadway. Great play! One particular song totally brought me back to when I left for university - leaving my boyfriend behind in my hometown… the beginnings of my first long distance relationship. If you (or your partner) are about to separate then this song will probably hit home.
Since our first list of 20 questions seemed to be a favorite… here are 20 more questions (better ones… we humbly think!)
1) Favorite childhood memory?
2) Best highlighter marker color?
3) Website you visit most often?
4) Lemons or limes?
5) Worst day of your life?
6) What is your favorite place in your house?
7) Best picture you have every taken?
A regular normal thing that I do that turns you on?
9) Most patriotic you have ever felt?
10) When was the last time you were surprised?
11) Favorite food that I make?
12) Best time of day?
13) Disco or country music?
14) Most recent movie you have seen?
15) Nicest thing you have for someone else this week?
16) Books on the “to read soon” list?
17) Favorite star constellation?
18) The person you know who always is trustworthy?
19) The one possession you could not live without?
20) Favorite quote?
Love love love Drew - and the fact that she is doing this movie with her real life partner will hopefully make it good. The trailer is cute.
Here is the greatest Tshirt combo ever. Matching his/hers Star Wars t-shirts. Unfortunately, you can only get them by attending the Orlando conference.
This isn’t anything specific to long distance relationships… but it seemed like a good list that applies to all relationships. The list was compiled by a professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Dr. Terri Orbuch, who recently wrote 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great
Be generous with praise: According to Dr. Orbuch’s research, husbands reported a need to hear compliments from their partners – even more so than wives, who tend to get affirmation also from their friends. Men who said they didn’t feel special to their wives were two times more likely to get divorced.
Shake things up: “Knock your partner off balance just a little bit,” Dr. Orbuch says. That may mean exercising together or watching a scary movie or hopping on a roller coaster. Active couples are happy couples.
Talk about what you’d do if you won the lottery: Take time each day to talk about something besides the kids, work and the house renovation, a topic that reveals something to you about your partner. For instance, Dr. Orbuch suggests: “If you had all the money in the world, where would you travel?”
Know your partner’s top two expectations: Frustration sets in, Dr. Orbuch says, when there’s a big gap between what you expect to happen and what’s actually happening. The top expectation in her study, according to nearly every husband and wife: Never hurt or deceive the other person.
Sweat the small stuff: This seems counterintuitive, Dr. Orbuch says, but she’s not really talking about the toilet seat being left up. If your partner always leaves the room during a fight, for example, and it irritates you now, it will probably drive you crazy later. Talk it over.
People has an article about long distance couple, and Mamma Mia co-stars, Amanda Seyfriend and Dominic Cooper. They believe the secret to a successful long-distance relationship is lots of flying to see each other and Skype. Amanda says that talking to each other with a webcam has become so ritual, “we don’t even sit in front of the computer,”. “The other day, I was cleaning, he was cleaning,” she recalls. “We couldn’t see each other – we were just scrubbing away and talking like we were in the same room.” Amanda admits “there’s nothing easy about” a long-distance relationship – so they do hop on planes when their schedules allow to enjoy real face time.
A little long distance = a lot of love 
Looking for gifts for your long distance partner? Check out BoldLoft. They have matching pillowcases, shot glasses, t-shirts, etc that are all sold in pairs and meant to be separated. Their designs are the perfect level of cheesiness - cute, but not over the top.
Below from here…
My heart went out to Russell Crowe, when the bad-boy superstar was arrested and charged with second-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon after attacking an employee at the Mercer Hotel in New York. As Crowe later explained to David Letterman, he had repeatedly tried and failed to call his wife in Australia. I’m not condoning the use of a phone as a weapon, of course, but long-distance relationships can be tough enough to make even the calmest person edgy, much less a hard-rocking gladiator with a temper.
When I heard about Crowe’s rage, I’d just spent three months apart from my husband, Andy, in Tours, France, attending a language institute and living with an unconventional host couple in their fifties. (By “unconventional,” I mean that they had matching red leather pants. He gardened in his Speedo. Their home had leopard- and zebra-print decor and dozens of stuffed—by a taxidermist—animals. I’ve seen her breasts. Have I said enough?)
My first reaction on the day I arrived, exactly six months after Andy and I were married, was not aggression but something akin to hysteria. Exhausted by 15 hours of travel, I actually cried in my coq au vin when my hosts, who had already revealed their penchant for public displays of affection, asked me how my husband felt about my leaving him for so long. Later that night, despair escalated into a tantrum to rival Crowe’s when I discovered I had only one minute’s worth of prepaid cell-phone time left.
It’s a scenario many know all too well. Despite the teary goodbyes, lonely nights, flight delays, and outrageous phone bills, an estimated 14 million Americans are currently in LDRs, according to the Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships. That number includes couples of all kinds, from those who fell for each other while living on opposite coasts to those who’ve been married for years but decided to live apart while she takes that plum international assignment or he goes back to school.
How do they do it? The simple answer is that, barring the occasional attack on a hotel clerk, long-distance relationships can work—and work well. Research suggests that they don’t break up at any greater rate than traditional, geographically close ones. Plus, multiple studies have found that LDR couples’ levels of relationship satisfaction, intimacy, trust, and commitment are identical to their geographically close counterparts. LDR couples might worry more about infidelity, but they don’t actually cheat more.
…Article continues here.
To be honest, until Ellen did this on her show I had never heard of the thing! Its kinda funny…. When they flash to the audience - check out how happy the only guy is
