Today I’d like to chat about a question that has been tossed around several times over the past few months in the Lively household:

To eat out or to eat at home?

After a long day at work, Mr. Lively often wants nothing more than to come home and cook dinner. Meanwhile, after my long day at work I want nothing more than to get outta the house and enjoy a meal at one of our favorite neighborhood spots – or delivery, if I’m feeling lazy.

For a while, we attributed this difference of dinner opinion to the fact that Mr. Lively likes cooking and I do not.

However, upon closer examination it’s a bit deeper than that.

Because I work from home, 99% of the time I eat breakfast and lunch in the apartment. There are many days (especially in the Chicago winters) where I may not even leave the house before 6pm, aside from taking Franklin out.

So by eating from the same selection of foods over and over and over, working and living in the same space, and being a fan of the local cuisine, I naturally want to get the heck out of the apartment the minute Mr. Lively steps foot in the door.

Whereas Mr. Lively, who has been gone all day and often eats out during lunch, wants to come home and spend time in the apartment with a home-cooked meal.

It’s a tricky business.

We also realize that my penchant for ordering from a menu is not very economical.

But even so, there are days where eating at home after being home all day makes my skin crawl. 

I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s true.

For now, we’ve decided that we will give ourselves a target of cooking dinner on three weeknights and the other two can be my choice.

With all of this in mind, I have to wonder: do any other couples or work from home people experience this same mealtime predicament?

This week I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the greater significance that a career path has on our lives.

Similar to an a-ha moment I had about marriage, I’ve come to realize that a career is about much more than just our financial gain, or even our purpose.

As Mr. Lively and I approached the next stage of our relationship last year, marriage took on a whole new meaning for me. Instead of the common “finding Mr. Right” marriage paradigm, I swapped it for the understanding that a long-term partnership is about learning to grow as a human to become more understanding, compassionate, and universally loving.

Up to the point where we got married, I had reached a certain level of independence and self-mastery. I was far from perfect in these areas, but I knew that the greater evolution and growth I had to make as a person rested in the inter-dependence of sharing my life with another.

At that point our ceremony wasn’t so much about anything completely ego-induced (though it may be impossible to avoid all shades of ego in a special relationship), but it also was a symbolic new life lesson. To live with understanding, compassion, love, and support of another person as unconditionally as possible.

For me, life partnerships aren’t primarily about completing the other person or “making” them happy. It’s about learning and evolving as a human into a more compassionate, loving being and then sharing that love with the world.

Now, as of this week, I understand that there are greater contexts to our careers as well.

For a long time I’ve been keen on the idea that we all have talents to share with others, which may maintain our livelihood in many cases. At the core, these gifts center around simply serving those around us in whatever way we can in the present moment.

But I never made the connection to the greater life lesson that a career provides us as individuals. I’ve been so focused on how we can help others, I’ve never seen the power that a career can have in our own evolution.

For example, I have been self-employed my entire career. I have learned to serve those who work with and for me, I’ve learned to serve others through sharing my stories on this blog, and I’ve learned to serve those I consult with daily to help them improve their lives and businesses.

I have learned over the years to serve in these ways. I’m comfortable in these areas and they come naturally.

But my newest frontier, design, puts me in a new position. While I still am ultimately hired for my expertise in design and branding, I am also a contractor working for my clients.

I’m no longer serving from the same vantage point as I do in my other pursuits. I need to learn to serve someone that I work for.

I know that may seem obvious, or even perhaps easy for some. But for me, it’s something I have not done in my career before and that means that there is opportunity for me to grow.

I now understand that my design projects, for my personal growth, aren’t about “being a better designer.” They are here to help me serve others in a new way. To expand my compassion, love, support, and understanding for others.

Each day that I serve my clients, my focus now should not just be on the design I create, but also on the way that I’m serving the people who hire me. Elementary? Yes. But not something I’ve done before when working for myself.

The concept of life lessons in a career can apply to virtually any situation.

Earlier this week, for instance, I worked with a Life with Intention client who is at a job that she hates and has seen as simply a means to an end (money). She is working towards supporting herself with a new business, but until the business can support her, she is choosing to stay at this job.

Instead of looking at her time there as deplorable, but financially profitable, she too as a greater life lesson to learn.

For her, the people she works with are often negative, reactive, and afraid to make decisions. Because of this, she dislikes interacting with her co-workers and going to meetings.

During our session we discussed what greater lesson she might gain from this situation. For her, the concept of learning to not let others steal her joy is the greater meaning behind her position.

No matter how reactive or negative her co-workers might be, her lesson is to not let them steal her own happiness.

If she can truly learn this lesson in her current job, she will have that strength to apply to her business, when the time comes as well.

There may be upset customers, slow sales periods, or production delays that might try to steal her joy. But if she applies the growth she makes from this current situation, she’ll have greater patience and a steadier, more joyful outlook during her self-employment as well.

What she learns now will serve her for the rest of her life.

I believe that if we look hard enough, we will find that almost every job is ultimately here to teach us something far more valuable than our paychecks.

Over the weekend Mr. Lively and I discussed a few of our intentions for next year, including our intentions for our marriage.

While reflecting on 2012, we realized we strayed away from a lot of the positive communication habits we had while dating.

Early on, I was intent on using a lot of communication skills to help us set a good foundation like empathic listening and “the talking stick” (to help me listen more patiently when I was upset).  But as we focused on many major life events like the engagement, elopement, home, and puppy this year, we stopped communicating as effectively.

Instead, we subtly let familiarity and the comfort of our vows keep our bond strong, not our communication.

This distraction from properly talking to one another didn’t mean we fought more often, but it did mean any disagreements we had were not dealt with very well. We didn’t listen quite as deeply nor reflect back to the other person as often.

To help us work those discussion skills back into our marriage, we have decided to create a term we can use when either of us feels the need to talk about something important. We’re calling it a Check-In.

Rather than let a topic that may seem insignificant to the other person go unnoticed, or escalate later, we can use this term to communicate the importance of a conversation. It also indicates that we want to have an emphatic dialogue right away, which will help avoid potential arguments.

By having a specified term, we can even interject a “Check-In” in the midst of a discussion as well, if needed. Which will help us bring effective communication into a conversation that has already begun… and might have the potential to become an disagreement.

Though I am sure it won’t stop us from ever having another argument in 2013, I do believe that having this shared term will help us build our Seeking to Understand skills, communication, and marriage overall.

]]> http://jesslively.com/check-ins-for-marriage/feed/ 7 http://jesslively.com/stress-fighting/ http://jesslively.com/stress-fighting/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:32:17 +0000 Jess http://jesslively.com/?p=15896  

Over the weekend Mr. Lively and I were frantically finishing the apartment for both our extended families which are coming into town this week to celebrate our elopement. People start arriving tomorrow (so things will be light on the blog over the next few days).

With Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, a cocktail party on Friday, and a nice dinner downtown on Saturday, we have a lot to prepare for beyond the decor as well.

While we have been pretty good at avoiding conflict over the last few weeks, even with the stress of learning to raise a young puppy… this weekend things hit the fan. A non-stop list of to-dos and little sleep, thanks to Franklin’s 3am and 6am potty breaks, made us two cranky campers.

I had three separate meltdowns directed at Mr. Lively yesterday alone. And the truth is that though disagreements were bound to pop up here and there, the degree to which I was upset was unwarranted.

And the ironic part? We are stressing out at each other in preparation for events which are meant to celebrate our love and union. 

So as I went for my morning run today I was setting an intention to be nicer and less argumentative with Mr. Lively this week. But knowing that we are already this tired going into the festivities has me a bit worried. How am I going to cope better when things are about to get even more challenging?

The answer turned out to be simple. I need to make time for my spirituality.

Over the past few weeks since getting Franklin my morning routine of reading from A Course in Miracles for a little bit and meditating/praying has taken the backseat to (very) early morning potty breaks for the little guy.

And in general we have been so worn out due to his erratic sleeping schedule that I don’t get around to my morning reading and reflecting. I’m simply getting by and trying to give him attention in between his naps while I’m getting ready for the day or doing work.

Beyond my running routine, my spiritual time helps me cope with difficulty more than anything else. So it’s time that I make that a priority again, this week especially. No matter how tired I am, I need to make sure I keep the intention to reflect internally in order to start my day in a positive direction. I’m also more likely after my morning time to talk to the Universe about the troubles as they occur, rather than snapping at Mr. Lively.

In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr:

“I have so much to do today that I had better spend another hour on my knees.” 

This week I’m so, so, so thankful for the teamwork and rhythm that Mr. Lively and I have created when caring for little Franklin.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m big on individualization and we’ve found a good balance. Since I’m the morning person in the relationship, I have been in charge taking Franklin out anytime after 5am. And once Mr. Lively comes home from work until bedtime the potty training up to him.

I feed Franklin most of the meals because his feedings are at 7am, 12pm, and 5pm when Mr. Lively is at work.

And because I’m home working during the day with him, I am pretty worn out by the time Mr. Lively gets home.

What has been the biggest sanity-saver for me is how Mr. Lively has shifted his schedule and tasks so that I can get the breaks I need at night. He’s stayed home every evening this week so I can consult, go out to dinner with friends, and speak at an event.

He’s also switched sides of the bed with me to be closer to Franklin’s crate so I can sleep better (I hear every little sigh and noise from him which means I haven’t gotten more than four hours sleep in a row since we got him). And last night he offered to take him out regardless of the time in the morning or night (Amen!).

It’s been really reassuring to see that even when we are exhausted, stressed, learning to parent our puppy, and maintain the home, we are acting like a team. No matter how frustrated we’ve been with our little one’s mouthing or chewing we worked together on the same side.

And that makes all the difference.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

When Mr. Lively and I got married the number of important documents that I needed to keep track of tripled. Not only did I then have Mr. Lively’s birth certificate, social security card, etc. but we also had car documents and ring appraisals to store.

Rather than scour the apartment every few months to find that one little piece of paper that we need in the future, I decided to corral all the papers in one central location. This makes locating and storing life documents super simple. Plus, it also lets Mr. Lively know where to look if he ever needs to track something down and I’m not around.

While in college I received this Life.Doc binder which was created with this purpose in mind.

Inside there are tabs for many important categories.

On the back of each tab there are pockets for tucking papers.

I used the family one to house our birth certificates, passports, social security cards, and other “life” documents.

But other document categories warranted their own sections which were not included in the kit. So I simply made my own sections with sticky tabs and plastic sheets.

Which really goes to show you don’t need any fancy kit to make one of these binders. Just some plastic sheets and a sticky tabs does the job.

When our little puppy comes home or when kids enter the picture, this binder will house even more information as needed.

Currently we are storing this binder in a hidden part of our apartment. And if we ever get a safe, it will be stowed there. Our financial information is also not stored in this binder for additional precaution.

During my name change process I needed to grab many of these documents for different purposes at different points in time. It was handy to always know where to look for the exact papers I needed. And if we ever have a fire or need to leave the apartment quickly, we can grab our information easily on the way out the door.

Though the apartment still has varying levels of progress (read: chaos) in each room, it feels nice to know this essential aspect of our lives is organized and tucked away.

Before Mr. Lively and I got married we had a few in-depth conversations about money and how we wanted to manage our finances. We were focused on setting a good foundation as a family and money management was something we naturally wanted to plan for right from the start.

Once we got married we had a financial coaching session at Next Door to confirm our plan our money intentions from a professional perspective.

After the session we felt confident taking the steps to combine our finances in a way that works for our family.

Though every couple’s situation is different, I thought it might be helpful for some people if I share how we decided to merge our finances. There are dozens of ways to do this which are all equally right, this is simply how we felt most confident moving forward in the Lively household.

Checking Accounts

For our checking account, we turned my personal checking into a joint account. Mr. Lively can now direct-deposit there and it’s already pre-linked online to my business accounts which makes it easy for me to access and deposit into as well.

We then closed Mr. Lively’s previous credit union checking account to consolidate. He was admittedly bummed to lose the credit union account from New Hampshire. But we wanted the convenience of having everything in one place that is prevalent in Chicago.

Credit Cards

We each kept our credit cards from before the marriage. But since Mr. Lively had two cards that were not with our new family bank, we closed the most recent one with the shortest credit history so that we didn’t have four cards to balance every month. It might slightly affect his credit history in the short-term, we know long term juggling four accounts is more hassle than it’s worth.

We also opened a mutual credit card for our family expenses. This is where most of our purchases will go and be paid in full at the end of every month.

I also have my old credit card to use as a “fun budget” card. We discussed the fact that I prefer to budget a “fun budget” factored into our expenses at the outset of the month to spend as I please. I hate the idea of questioning or feeling guilty for every J.Crew purchase I make. I’d rather have a clear, mutually determined budget at the start of the month to work with. Having this budget linked to the separate card from the family expenses keeps the balance clean and easy for me to track at a glance.

Mr. Lively also has the ability to have a “fun budget.” But since he rarely spends money on himself, and I’m usually with him when he does, we don’t have a need to track his purchases with a separate card. In the future if this does become an issue we will simply work this into our plan. But until then, it’s not something we are focusing on at the moment.

Retirement and Emergency Fund

Mr. Lively already has his retirement set up through his work, so that is staying put as is. I on the other hand have not had the luxury of a retirement account while to being self-employed. It simply has not been financially possible. But I am working on getting that started soon.

Up until now I have been keeping my money in an emergency fund through ING. We now have this fund as our emergency fund for our family and can ear-mark different savings goals like a down payment, emergency fund, and future trip back to Paris on our five year anniversary.

Merging our finances in this way has allowed us to pretty seamlessly incorporate our budgeting goals. As I’ve mentioned, Mr. Lively is our budget-master and uses Mint.com to monitor our spending as we go along. And I keep an eye on things every time I log into my business accounts as well.

Though it was a bit strange at first to think of all income as “our money,” the discussions and decisions we made suit our life well and have created a smooth transition overall.

Individualization, according to Marcus Buckingham’s Strengths Finder Assessment, is my number one strength.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed to find out that was my biggest strength. It definitely does not sound cool or sexy.

However, when it comes to running our household, it has its advantages.

Without even thinking about it, I tend to figure out what people are best at and then divide up work according to each person’s biggest strengths. I do this with the Jess LC ladies and we also apply this to our family.

When it comes to chores and life maintenance, Mr. Lively and I have come to a pretty clear and evenly divided set of responsibilities. Having clarity and ownership over different parts of our lives helps us each feel like we are contributing to the family in important ways. It also helps clearly set expectations, so neither of us feels like they “do more” than the other.

In the home we have divided up the chores based on who prefers to do each task. Or in some cases, what I want to have cleaned more frequently (I’m talking to you, polished nickel bathroom faucet).

Mr. Lively is in charge of vacuuming, trash, recycling, cleaning the toilet and shower, and helping me make the bed. He also does the laundry.

I am in charge of cleaning the kitchen and bathroom sink, dusting, general clutter removal, and helping Mr. Lively make the bed. I fold the laundry and put it away.

As for frequency, we do these chores about once a week or more frequently, when needed. We have also discovered that Mr. Lively prefers that I simply ask him to vacuum or clean when I would like it done rather than stick to a strict schedule.

In larger household areas like health-care and finance we have again found ways to divide and conquer.

Because I am giddy at the prospect of having high quality health insurance (Mr. Lively works for a hospital) after being on self-employed insurance, I lept at the chance to be in charge of the health care for the family. I pick the doctors, make the appointments for us both, get prescriptions filled, and generally make sure we are healthy.

Mr. Lively on the other hand is in charge of the family finances. He has a passion for mint.com and enjoys tracking expenses. I do not. So again, it was a pretty easy decision to hand this over to him. This means that he monitors our spending, retirement, saving rates, and pays our bills (except rent, that’s mine). I of course also have full access to the finances and all the money, I just don’t have to write the bills or monitor as frequently.

If I did not run my own business and stay connected to finances everyday, I’m not sure I would have felt this confident letting him manage the money. But because I am dealing with cash flow, budgets, and income daily with Jess LC, BWI, and JessLively.com, I feel good knowing that if I ever needed to pay the family bills it would be a piece of cake compared to the companies’ finances.

And lastly, I’ve even found a way to individualize the move this weekend. We have decided that since I don’t mind packing and adore unpacking, I will be the packer for the move. Mr. Lively is in charge of shuttling loads of boxes to the new apartment. Though we have movers scheduled for Sunday to tackle the large items and storage unit, we think our labor sharing will be the most efficient on Friday and Saturday when we are on our own.

As our family grows we will need to change and evolve our roles and responsibilities. But I have no doubt I’ll be looking, consciously or unconsciously, for ways to figure out where our strengths lie and divide accordingly.

During our wedding ceremony Mr. Lively and I took turns reading aloud our marriage vows. These joint vows were in addition to our personal vows and now serve as the foundation of our relationship.

Similar to a constitution, we created these vows to last for a very, very long time unchanged. But as we evolve and our family grows, we plan to add amendments to these intentions to suit our future needs.

I had every hope of spending long hours curled by a fire drafting these intentions together. But in reality we discussed a few themes on some runs together, and took the time to write them down at an O’Hare International Airport bar with a Corona in hand.

Not exactly the romantic setting I had in mind… but it worked.

Once we move into our new home, I would like to frame these intentions and hang them on the wall. Then they can serve as daily reminders of what we believe and what we stand for as a couple.

And though our vows are customized to our lives and values, hopefully they might serve as an example of what marriage vows can look like.

Trust is the foundation of our relationship. We trust each other’s loyalty and integrity. 

We choose to love each other through good times and bad, because our marriage is worth it.

We seek first to understand, then be understood. It is important for each person to feel that they have been heard. This is the basis of our communication. 

We are capable individuals responsible for our own happiness. We come together to improve ourselves by helping each other. Our progress in this area will be extended to the world around us.

As you can tell, they aren’t particularly sweet or sentimental. That part of the ceremony was saved for the individual vows we shared with one another after these combined intentions where shared. The purpose of these vows was to provide a framework for us going forward that would help guide our actions.

The first statement is important to us because we believe that trust and loyalty is essential to have a prosperous and positive relationship. The second intention illustrates that love is an action, not a verb. We want to keep this in mind when we have challenges come our way and we may not feel lovey-dovey feelings but still remain dedicated to love in it’s truest form.

The third statement is really for me to keep in mind when we have disagreements. I think this is important to be in our vows so that I can remind myself when emotionally worked up that I have agreed to listen as much as share.

And lastly, we felt it was important to recognize that happiness is not an outcome of our marriage, it is something that we bring to it. I think it would be easy for either of us to blame the other if we are ever feeling unhappy. But the truth is we are both capable, proactive adults.

We do not need our happiness to rest on another person.

If we place too much emphasis on each other’s actions, we rob ourselves of our own strength and ability to create joy from within. It is not our job to make the other person happy. It is our job to share our happiness with one another.

We hope that by living from of this positive, empowered place we will be able to increase our joy and serve one another fully… which is the ultimate goal of these vows and our marriage as a whole.

photo taken by

Over the past few weeks of marriage, Mr. Lively and I have been putting a lot of thought and time into creating the foundation of our relationship. I’m happy to say we are thriving in this new chapter. But we have also had our share of disagreements as well. Not many, but a few.

During our first disagreement while married, we set a new intention for fighting.

While in the midst of an emotional rant, I found myself ending with “and we’ve only been married for a week and a half!”

Though that statement was technically true, once we resolved our fight, Mr. Lively was quick to offer a new perspective.

He suggested that we drop any reference of marriage length while arguing. If something is not right while married, something is not right while married. To him it doesn’t matter if we’ve been married a week and a half, six months, four years, or 22 years. If we had the same argument six years from now it doesn’t make what I was upset about “acceptable” because we were married longer.

So going forward if we get upset we are allowed to get upset from a place of being married. Period. We are as committed to one another now as we will be a dozen years from now. And our arguments should not be weighed against the length of our marriage at any point in time.

photo by