i am working on my pictures again....i had a very hard, long and hott weekend...what about you? i was soooo extremely exhausted this past weekend...i need to recover from that one!

i am working on the pics and as soon as i have them loaded, i will post them up.

love ya sexies....

-lav

Human beings crave intimacy, need to love and be loved. Yet people have much trouble doing so.


Related Articles
PT's Relationship Rules
Crossing the Line: Inappropriate Relationships
[url]http://health.yahoo.com/relationships-couple/relationship-rules/pt--Psychology_Today_articles_pto-20041022-000003.html[/url]

It's clear from the many letters I get that lots of folks have no idea what a healthy relationship even looks like. Because I care about these things, and care about the environments children grow in, I'm using this space as an attempt to remedy the problem--again.

From many sources and many experts, I have culled some basic rules of relationships. This is by no means an exhaustive list. But it's a start. Print them out and pin them up on your refrigerator door. I won't test you on them--but life will.

* Choose a partner wisely and well. We are attracted to people for all kinds of reasons. They remind us of someone from our past. They shower us with gifts and make us feel important. Evaluate a potential partner as you would a friend; look at their character, personality, values, their generosity of spirit, the relationship between their words and actions, their relationships with others.

* Know your partner's beliefs about relationships. Different people have different and often conflicting beliefs about relationships. You don't want to fall in love with someone who expects lots of dishonesty in relationships; they'll create it where it doesn't exist.

* Don't confuse sex with love. Especially in the beginning of a relationship, attraction and pleasure in sex are often mistaken for love.

* Know your needs and speak up for them clearly. A relationship is not a guessing game. Many people, men as well as women, fear stating their needs and, as a result, camouflage them. The result is disappointment at not getting what they want and anger at a partner for not having met their (unstated) needs. Closeness cannot occur without honesty. Your partner is not a mind reader.

* Respect, respect, respect. Inside and outside the relationship, act in ways so that your partner always maintains respect for you. Mutual respect is essential to a good relationship.

* View yourselves as a team, which means you are two unique individuals bringing different perspectives and strengths. That is the value of a team--your differences.

* Know how to manage differences; it's the key to success in a relationship. Disagreements don't sink relationships. Name-calling does. Learn how to handle the negative feelings that are the unavoidable byproduct of the differences between two people. Stonewalling or avoiding conflicts is NOT managing them.

* If you don't understand or like something your partner is doing, ask about it and why he or she is doing it. Talk and explore, don't assume.

* Solve problems as they arise. Don't let resentments simmer. Most of what goes wrong in relationships can be traced to hurt feelings, leading partners to erect defenses against one another and to become strangers. Or enemies.

* Learn to negotiate. Modern relationships no longer rely on roles cast by the culture. Couples create their own roles, so that virtually every act requires negotiation. It works best when good will prevails. Because people's needs are fluid and change over time, and life's demands change too, good relationships are negotiated and renegotiated all the time.

* Listen, truly listen, to your partner's concerns and complaints without judgment. Much of the time, just having someone listen is all we need for solving problems. Plus it opens the door to confiding. And empathy is crucial. Look at things from your partner's perspective as well as your own.

* Work hard at maintaining closeness. Closeness doesn't happen by itself. In its absence, people drift apart and are susceptible to affairs. A good relationship isn't an end goal; it's a lifelong process maintained through regular attention.

* Take a long-range view. A marriage is an agreement to spend a future together. Check out your dreams with each other regularly to make sure you're both on the same path. Update your dreams regularly.

* Never underestimate the power of good grooming.

* Sex is good. Pillow talk is better. Sex is easy, intimacy is difficult. It requires honesty, openness, self-disclosure, confiding concerns, fears, sadnesses as well as hopes and dreams.

* Never go to sleep angry. Try a little tenderness.

* Apologize, apologize, apologize. Anyone can make a mistake. Repair attempts are crucial--highly predictive of marital happiness. They can be clumsy or funny, even sarcastic--but willingness to make up after an argument is central to every happy marriage.

* Some dependency is good, but complete dependency on a partner for all one's needs is an invitation to unhappiness for both partners. We're all dependent to a degree--on friends, mentors, spouses. This is true of men as well as women.

* Maintain self-respect and self-esteem. It's easier for someone to like you and to be around you when you like yourself. Research has shown that the more roles people fill, the more sources of self-esteem they have. Meaningful work--paid or volunteer--has long been one of the most important ways to exercise and fortify a sense of self.

* Enrich your relationship by bringing into it new interests from outside the relationship. The more passions in life that you have and share, the richer your relationship will be. It is unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of your needs in life.

* Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate. Share responsibilities. Relationships work ONLY when they are two-way streets, with much give and take.

* Stay open to spontaneity.

* Maintain your energy. Stay healthy.

* Recognize that all relationships have their ups and downs and do not ride at a continuous high all the time. Working together through the hard times will make the relationship stronger.

* Make good sense of a bad relationship by examining it as a reflection of your beliefs about yourself. Don't just run away from a bad relationship; you'll only repeat it with the next partner. Use it as a mirror to look at yourself, to understand what in you is creating this relationship. Change yourself before you change your relationship.

* Understand that love is not an absolute, not a limited commodity that you're in of or out of. It's a feeling that ebbs and flows depending on how you treat each other. If you learn new ways to interact, the feelings can come flowing back, often stronger than before.

Last Updated: 10/28/2004

8 Ways Illness Can Be a Spiritual Practice

Though illness can be scary and unpleasant, there are spiritual gifts to be found in it.

By Toni Weingarten

Most people think of illness as inconvenient at best, tragic at worst. We focus on what we are not doing: our normal daily routines, work, outings with friends, being physically active, time with family. Yes, illness is a time-out from our normal lives of health and activity, but it needn't be time 'lost.' Illness can be a fertile time if you can focus your attention away from what you do not have, and focus on what it offers in abundance.

Even if your illness is one from which you may not recover, making it a spiritual practice will imbue your journey with rich rewards. Here are eight ways to turn physical infirmity into a sacred time of life.

Toni Weingarten is a spiritual director, and has completed a one-year hospital chaplaincy training. She lives near San Francisco and writes on faith, spirit, and religion. Visit her online at ToniWeingarten.com.

[url]http://www.beliefnet.com/gallery/spiritualgiftsofillness.html[/url]

1. Slow Down and Watch

"Healing happens in the slow lane," hospital chaplains tell patients. Think of life like film, 24 individual images moving rapidly in sequence to create the illusion of action. When illness makes you slow down, you have a rare opportunity to view each individual moment of your life on its own, and see how you unconsciously string moments together to create patterns of behavior. This new view gives you the chance to reorder moments into new and healthier patterns of behavior.

For instance, when I was bedridden for 3 months last year with pneumonia, I realized how I had grown used to being able to rush to rescue someone with a problem. I spent my precious energy on others and thus depleted myself, contributing to my illness. Weak from illness, I couldn't rush to anyone's aid and had to rescue myself. It felt healthy and I've since made it my practice to give others a chance to resolve their own issues, and fix my own first.

2. Practice Acceptance

Spiritual practice is about bowing to and saying 'yes' to the reality of life, even when that reality is illness. During my pneumonia, my daily mantra and spiritual practice was the phrase, "It is what it is." When I came to fully embrace this concept, I felt a deep sense of peace with my situation. I gave into my newfound understanding that my illness was as much a part of God's plan for me as my health. And, I used my energy to heal instead of struggling against my unpleasant reality.

"I believe that fighting or doing battle with any disease creates strong emotional currents that feed and strengthen the condition," says hospital chaplain Brent Davis. "What we resist, persists."

If the truth of your situation is you won't get better, accepting this frees you to make good choices for yourself in these circumstances, and to be honest with loved ones. It also frees your heart to feel God's love.

3. Let Yourself Be Held

The man lay on the bed in the emergency room, writhed in fear, as doctors worked to save him. I stood by his bed and gently stroked his brow and told him, "Let us hold you now. You are in good hands with the doctors and God. You don't have to struggle so hard here." He calmed down. I stood in the corner and prayed, knowing that God was holding him, and me. This man did survive and I learned about putting my fate in God's hands.

Often we feel we need to be in control of our lives, to constantly hold ourselves up - or what, we'll crumple to the floor? The reality is that much of life is out of our hands. We need to let ourselves be held by others - by the medical staff, by our families, by God. We need to let ourselves be cared for. We need to receive unconditionally and be fully vulnerable.

4. Keep Your Faith

A serious illness tests our faith. Even when doctors tell us eventually we'll recover, illness can seem to drag on interminably and we sink into despair; our current reality of pain, immobility, and weakness blot out our memory of health. Have faith that you will get well, especially if your doctors tell you so. Practice having faith that "the land of wellness" exists. Believe in your own recovery.

During my pneumonia, I came to imagine myself on a shipwrecked raft at sea. While I couldn't see land (health) I knew that it was out there and believed that I would someday wash up on its shore. As I slowly recovered, I had glimpses of it in the distance and my spirits rose; in my mind I rode the crest of wave towards this far shore. Then my strength waned and I imagined myself in the trough between two big waves, and I could only see water all around me. I kept faith that the waves carried me towards health, even if I couldn't see it. I held fast to my faith, as I would to a raft at sea, until I did indeed eventually wash ashore, stand up on shaky legs and slowly walk back to my life. Hold tight to your faith.

5. Have a Beginner's Mind

"Part of my journey with cancer is giving myself opportunities to be a learner again," says musician Eileen Hadidian. "One of the most powerful ways to experience playing and teaching music without striving towards perfection is to become a beginner again on a new instrument. I let go of abstract expectations of having to achieve a goal by a certain time, and remember why I am taking lessons: for the joy of it."

For Eileen, her journey through cancer has taught her to let go of her attachment to product and outcome - the opposite of what she normally does as a professional musician. Now, she is experiencing the pleasure of music for her own healing.

6. Be Present

"The most common things I hear from people with serious or life-threatening illnesses is that it has taught them to live more fully in the present, to savor each day, and appreciate all the little things more," says hospital chaplain Bruce Murphy. "Just going for a simple walk can bring a sense of wonder for someone who has been bedridden."

I remember when I started to recover from illness, I felt a thrill whenever birds flew past me, as I sensed their "alive-ness" as keenly as I felt my own. I felt awed to be part of the web of life.


7. Be OK with Silence

Silence is the goal of many spiritual retreats and practices, and silence usually exists in abundance during illness. There is the silence at home when the rest of the household is at work and you are alone. There's also the silence of a hospital room (other than the machines beeping and medical staff, of course) between visiting hours.

Surrender to the silence and find what it has to offer. Look for the sacred in it. Rather than fear silence as an empty void, feel God's enveloping embrace in it. Cleanse yourself in the silence and use it to heal. Silence can be a mirror of your heart and soul, reflecting back to you what lies deep within you. If you can fill your heart with acceptance and self-love then the silence can sing to you of the Divine within and around you. Listen as it affirms that you are fine as you are - illness and all - and that you need do nothing but be there, resting and healing.


8. Find the Positive in Negative Space

If you've studied art, then you know that what makes a painting powerful and effective is not only the objects the painter depicts, but the negative space between those objects. Can you imagine a family portrait without defining spaces between family members?

Your life is also a work of art, and the pauses between the peak actions of your life say a lot about you and help shape your overall being and journey. So instead of feeling concern that you are in a period of down time amidst your otherwise active life, look to how this period of reflection and inactivity can give deeper meaning to the actions that bracket it - and how your illness may, eventually, redefine your activities. Embrace this negative space - it is something, far from nothing.

as i return briefly to check on email before i get dizzy again, i am happily surprise to hear from all the wonderful friends out there. take a bow and thank you from the bottom of my blessed and happy heart.

it has been just about a week and half for me since my surgery and i must say this, please do not take your bodies for granted! whatever color, greed, shape or size you are....LOVE yourself and make all the wonderful and passionate love you can with yourself or with your partner, because youre healthy body is all you have and some have one chances at life with it, and then there's lucky ones who get a second chance at life with it. i am blessed to have a second try at it and although i have been tremendously humbled even more than i can say, i am lucky to be alive.

my body has been butchered. as painful as that was to admit, i have to say its a saving grace and a blessing in disguise. i have a very long way of healing ahead of myself and i have alot to do after i am physically healed. my breast cancer awareness has only begun and i will need all my NN friends along the way to help me in my crusade ahead.

as soon i get stronger, i will let you in more to my work, but for now, i want to take this time to thank you all and praise you for the wonderfulness you all are!!!

i love you all and god bless you always.

-hottlav

Today's Quote

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

-Mother Teresa

Breast cancer is a family disease. I experienced this first hand when I lost my mother to breast and cervical cancer when I was 16 years old. Her death knocked me off my feet and in some ways I am still dealing with that loss today.

Most of you know me as an actor on television, but I think the most important role I play is that of breast cancer activist.

As we approach Mother's Day, I am reminded of the pain and the uncertainty of this disease and how the loss of our mother affected me and my sisters. I am also reminded of what a remarkable woman my mother was. I cannot think of a better way to honor her than by working toward a world without breast cancer.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress for a Mother's Day commemorative coin. A portion of the proceeds from this coin will benefit breast cancer research. Will you join me in the fight against breast cancer by letting Congress know how important this issue is to you?

In the United States, one woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes.

Just stop and think about how many families will be affected by this diagnosis, how many children will have to see their mothers go through treatment, and how many will ultimately lose their mothers. I do not want my son to have to endure what I did.

We must put an end to this heart-breaking disease - and the Mother's Day commemorative coin will help us do just that.

Please click here to honor your mother by urging your members of Congress to support the Mother's Day coin.
[url]http://komenpolicy.org/campaign/us_mothersday_coin/877uei3ry7w8bej8?[/url]

Gracias,

Ricardo Chavira
Son of Elizabeth Ries Chavira

P.S. Another way you can support the women in your life this Mother's Day is with a specially designed Mother's Day tribute card from Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

DICTIONARY FOR WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS
40-ish..............................49
Adventurous.....................Slept with all your friends
Athletic............................No boobs
Average looking.................Ugly
Beautiful...........................Pathological liar
Contagious Smile................Does a lot of pills
Emotionally secure..............On medication
Feminist............................Fat
Free spirit..........................Junkie
Friendship first...................Former slut
Fun..................................Annoying
Gentle..............................Dull
New Age...........................Body hair in the wrong places
Open-minded.....................Desperate
Outgoing...........................Loud and Embarrassing
Passionate........................Sloppy drunk
Poet.................................Depressive
Professional.......................Bitch
Romantic...........................Frigid
Voluptuous........................Very Fat
Large frame.......................Hugely Fat
Wants Soul mate................Stalker
Widow..............................Murderer

WOMEN'S ENGLISH

1. Yes = No
2. No = Yes
3. Maybe = No
4. We need = I want
5. I am sorry = you'll be sorry
6. We need to talk = you're in trouble
7. Sure, go ahead = you better not
8. Do what you want = you will pay for this later
9. I am not upset = of course I am upset, you moron!
10. You're very attentive tonight = is sex all you ever think about?

MEN'S ENGLISH

1. I am hungry = I am hungry
2. I am sleepy = I am sleepy
3. I am tired = I am tired
4. Nice dress = Nice cleavage!
5. I love you = let's have sex now
6. I am bored = Do you want to have sex?
7. May I have this dance? = I'd like to have sex with you
8. Can I call you sometime? = I'd like to have sex with you
9. Do you want to go to a movie? = I'd like to have sex with you
10. Can I take you out to dinner? = I'd like to have sex with you
11. Those shoes don't go with that outfit = I'm gay

And finally.....

A recent scientific study found that women find different male faces attractive depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle.
For example, when a woman is ovulating she will prefer a man with rugged, masculine features.
However when she is menstruating, she prefers a man doused in petrol and set on fire, with scissors stuck in his eye and a cricket stump shoved up his backside.

NOW SEND THIS TO A MAN WHO NEEDS A LAUGH AND A WOMAN WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR

this is going to be the ink i will get on my back after all my treatments are complete.....