More Marriages will Survive

The bad news is that almost half of U.S. marriages end in divorce currently. The good news is that government researchers expect a decline inthe divorce rate over the next decade.

“Itappears that divorce, remarriage,and redivorce may have peaked in the late 1970s and will recede” between now and the endof the century.

The reasons for this trend reversal include later marriages, more realistic expectations, and less pressure to wed.

Here is an interesting article found in the internet. Take time to read.

For better or for worse

Sooner or later most couples face a test of their marriage vows: a serious automobile accident, the loss of a job, a diagnosis of cancer in the family, a house fire, the death of a loved one. Going through tough times can leave a husband and wife feeling closer and more committed to each other than ever before, or it can sever their relationship.

How would your marriage fare in facing such traumatic times? Would it survive?

The key to helping your marriage survive tough times is to make sure your relationship is built on a strong foundation before hard times strike.

“Some couples come through a crisis and feel that it strengthened the bond between them because they conquered the problem together,” says Norman Epstein, professor of family studies at the University of Maryland. “But in the majority of cases, unfortunately, tragedies tend to drive husbands and wives apart.”

It’s during tough times that couples often do the things that tend to undermine their marriage, just when they need each other the most. “When couples are under a lot of stress, they tend to only do the necessary things for day-to-day survival, and their relationship fades into the background,” Dr. Epstein says. “They focus all their time and energy into the crisis and don’t have any energy left for their marriage. Eventually they may get worn down to the point where they feel alienated from one another.”

“If you let a stressful situation dominate your life, that’s when it’s easy to start thinking your mate is not doing his or her share of the couple’s responsibilities and begin keeping score,” says Scott Stanley, codirector of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver and author of Fighting For Your Marriage.

One Hello

If you’re not afraid
Of what love brings
Then endings are beginnings
Of beautiful things
Its a chance you’ll take
It’s a chance you’ll win
If someone’s gonna find you
First you gotta let them in

Coz love begins with one hello
The hardest part is over
Now its easy letting go
One hello is how it starts
You might win it all or lose your heart

If you’re not afraid
Of what you feel
Then try and keep it simple
Or try and keep it real
And if being real means
Means you’ll some day will say goodbye
Remember my friend
Goodbyes not the end
Its a circle you know
And it starts with one hello

Love begins with one hello
The hardest part is over
Now it’s easy letting go
One hello is how it starts
Remember my friend
Goodbyes not the end
Its a circle you know
And it starts with one hello
It starts with one hello

A Sad Moment

When someone dies, the people who loved that person may seem different for a while. They might cry a lot or feel angry or confused. Or maybe just more quiet than usual.

These are different ways of coping or grieving. Coping and grieving are two words that describe the way people adjust to or deal with a difficult change in their lives. The death of a loved one is a big change, and people cope and grieve in different ways. That’s fine. There isn’t one right way to grieve.

It’s hard to know which ways you will cope or grieve until you face a difficult change. You might want to be alone and sit in your room. Or maybe you would want to talk with your mom, dad, or a friend about the person you miss. You also might want to scream at the top of your lungs — even if you’re usually a calm person.

And some people might just want to get back to normal life — go to work, enjoy, do the regular things they usually do. All these feelings are normal and a person might experience a whole lot of different feelings while he or she is going through this hard time.

Hitting on “Hitman”

This not-so-bad action flick based on a video game stars Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47. Trained since childhood to be an assassin who never lets conscience or emotion block his target, Olyphant is an intensely efficient, skillful killing machine.

The film presents a montage explanation of Agent 47’s dehumanizing training and a brief explanation of the assassination agency that transformed him and other rejected children into slaves whose sole purpose is killing.

If you can get past the fact that the barcode tattooed on the back of Agent 47’s shaved head is recognized only by his fellow assassins, Hitman, directed by Xavier Gens from a script by Skip Woods, appeals beyond the obvious action scenes and stunts. For one thing, it’s almost immediately clear the soft-spoken Agent 47 isn’t so heartless and not inherently evil.

Agent 47 gets an assignment to kill the popular, moderate Russian president in St. Petersburg. As always, he executes the job perfectly. But something is wrong. Agent 47’s next assignment is to kill a witness to the shooting. But when he sees Nika Boronina (Olga Kurylenko), he knows she’s not a witness because she doesn’t recognize him. He holds his fire.

Contrary to his training, Agent 47 becomes Nika’s protector. There’s a connection between the two — they’re both the slaves of cruel masters who suddenly have no use for them.

Another complication arises when President Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen) appears in public, regardless of the fact that Agent 47 knows Belicoff took a lethal shot in the head.

Intrigue and much more killing follows as Agent 47 sets about the business of discovering why he’s been set up. All the while, a determined Interpol agent (Dougray Scott) from the United Kingdom who’s been tracking Agent 47 is puzzled that Belicoff survived the prolifically accurate assassin’s fire.

Hitman’s performances by Olyphant as Agent 47, the tall and sultry Kurylenko as Nika and Dougray Scott as the uncompromising Interol agent outclass their video game-derived material. These are all credible characters, not video-game drones, even the supremely coolheaded Agent 47.

Regardless of being flashy, trashy entertainment, Hitman works on a second, deeper level, the ability of a human being to change and see beyond his normally small patterns of existence.

The Mostly Enchanting “Enchanted”

Giselle (delectable Amy Adams) is a princess ejected from her magic kingdom by a curse from her evil potential mother-in-law (Susan Sarandon) in the inspired Disney fairy-tale mash-up Enchanted. And when the heroine pops up in New York City, dazed by her transformation from animated cartoon girl to live-action beauty, she’s put up for the night by a stranger, a harried divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey). But there’s a hygiene problem. He’s the distracted single parent to a little girl (Rachel Covey), his girlfriend (Idina Menzel) is on his case for more commitment — and with no time to clean, his apartment is a mess. So Giselle does what any classically trained, sweet-natured Disney heroine would do: With a lilting yodel, she summons her charmed animal friends to help her tidy up, and they sing, sing, sing while they toil. Of course, this being New York, the wildlife workforce consists of rats, pigeons, mice, and well-organized cockroaches.

The hilarious ”Happy Working Song ” production number, with music and lyrics by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, encapsulates the joys of Enchanted — an unironic affection for classic Disney fairy tales of old, salted with modern smarts about how the non-Disney world really works for single parents, kids, working women, divorce lawyers, and cockroaches. Somewhere deep in the movie’s genetic structure is a chromosome or two of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s bi-level wit mixed in with the DNA of Mary Poppins. The resourceful heroine is soul sister to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, and as such she comes accessorized with a handsome fairy-tale prince (Hairspray’s James Marsden, wonderfully earnest, and therefore charming, as a princely dolt). But New York works its own magic on Giselle — and so does Lawyer McDreamy.

Enchanted is festooned with extravagant set pieces — there’s a great number in praise of romantic gestures, and a ballroom scene to make even grown-up girls swoon. So I hope no one thinks me a mean stepsister when I say that the movie is also one baggy final act too long, as Sarandon’s whole evil-older-woman subplot climaxes with a technically showy but really dragging chase and rescue sequence of a King Kong kind. An old queen ought to know when to step aside and let the next Disney generation claim the crown.

Miss You MoM

I miss my mom so much. The thought of her always lingers in my mind. As I look back in time, I do remember a lot of advice from her. To recall a few:

Finish school and work… that taught me to become independent.

Fill your head first before your heart… that is why the head is over the heart.

Always be humble… as sometimes my ego can be very big.

Be thankful for the people around you… hard to explain.

Do the best you can and God will do the rest… truly.

To always look back from where I come from… It makes me not take everything so seriously.

To be myself and not imitate someone else… because i will never be the other person nor i will be like her.

Invest in good karma… need not to explain.

For most of these pieces… i have to say “I love you, ma.”