Essence of Commitment

If you ever have been part of a winning team, not just a winning team but a team that meshed and worked like magic and overcame huge obstacles like the 1980 US Hockey team that beat the Russians, you know what synergy means. It is like magic. When a couple becomes committed to each other, they become a team. It means they leave their respective families and join together to make a new family that is the first family and the roots of a new family tree. It is sort of like a seed that drops on the forest floor and becomes a brand new tree. That seed is no longer attached to the parent tree. It is not a difficult concept. However, it seems to me that most people entering into marriage have ambivalence about the concept. They have ties to their birth family and in many cases to their former spouses, and in-laws that are difficult for them to sever.

The bottom line of this message is that when you are in a committed relationship, there is only one other person that you must consider when making your decisions and that other person is the person to whom you have committed. You are now a grown up.

Sounds good on paper, doesnt it?

What happens however, when your father becomes suddenly, critically ill, or your mother unexpectedly arrives in town and wants to visit when you have plans with your spouse? How about when your ex is hospitalized and has no one to take care of your children when you and your spouse have non-transferable reservations for a week long cruise. If you understand that you and your spouse are a team, you are one. This is when you must enforce the boundaries that you have previously determined. You decide together what the plan will be. You may have to make some compromises, in order to deal with the situation, but the two of you must come to agreement and respect each others point of view. The two of you together have more power and ability to deal with challenges than either of you would alone. You can argue, you can disagree, you can even join different political parties, but when it comes to an issue which involves the integrity of your family, you are always both on the same side. Let me clarify what I mean by on the same side. You do not have to agree on the issue, but you must be coming from the perspective of what is best for each other. In more basic terms, I love you, I want what is best for you, I want what is best for us, and from my heart I believe that this POV is what will support our love for each other the best.

It appears that the most difficult to sever are the parental and sometimes sibling relationships. What each of you must remember is that you are no longer your mothers son or daughter, first. You are a spouse. You have your own first family, and all of your relatives, that includes, parents, step-parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins etc. are secondary family members. You must be gracious to them but you do not answer to them. You are the ruler of your own first family. You get to make your own choices and though you may consider their feelings, your decisions reflect your best choices for the welfare of your first family.

You did this to me or you did this to hurt me will never be your point of view if you are a team. You can fight and you can disagree, but your partner must always know that you are coming from that place of sacred intimacy that the two of you share where you know you are both on the same side. You are a synergistic team. Your end result will always result in an outcome that is greater than either or both of you could have done alone. Even when it seems that you are at odds and the differences cannot be resolved, if you know that your sacred promise to be on the same team is secure, that is your COMMITMENT. Everything else about commitment is a story. Please note that if and when you come from that mean place inside of you that aims to cause pain to the one that you love, you are no longer on the same team.

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Better to Be Safe Than Sorry

Many documents in your possession may either be impossible to replace, or extremely difficult to replace, should the need arise. A safe-deposit box or a fireproof box is the perfect solution to storing these types of documents. You will need to determine whether or not you want the document stored on-site at your home, or off-site at your bank.

Items that Should Not be Placed in a Safe Deposit Box
Anything you would need in an emergency
Will
Living Will / Medical Directives
Funeral or burial instructions in case you need them over the weekend
Power of Attorney Originals
Passports in case you need to take a sudden trip outside the country

Insuring Contents of a Safe Deposit Box

Be sure to read the contract for your safe deposit box carefully. Banks do not insure the contents of what you put in the box. Fire, floods and theft are very rare at banks, but it does happen. Most banks will only be liable if you can prove that they were negligent and failed to use reasonable care to prevent a loss. If you are concerned about this, you should check with your insurance agent to find out if you need additional coverage for items placed off-site that may not be fully covered under your homeowners or renters insurance policy. Items typically placed in a safe deposit box that you would want insured may be; jewelry, coins and stamps. If you are storing checks or cash in your safe deposit box, you also will not be covered under the FDIC since you have not deposited them directly into your account.

Items to store in a Safe Deposit Box or Fire Proof SafeThe following list is intended to be a reference for you. It may not be a complete list of the documents or articles in your possession that you need to protect in a secure environment. You may wish to store all of your items at home in a fire proof box, or you may desire to store them off-site in a safe deposit box. You might determine that the best solution for your needs is to have a combination of both storing some of the most important and most difficult documents to replace in a safe deposit box and the rest in a fire proof box in your home. The solution you choose to store these important items is for you to decide, but which ever solution you select, be sure to follow through and take the steps needed to store these important documents. You will thank yourself later when you are looking for these documents, or heaven forbid should there be a fire or flood in your home.

Adoption Papers (Originals only)

Automobile title(s)

Bank account numbers and contact information

Baptismal and other Religious Certificates

Birth certificates (Originals only)

Cemetery Deed (Originals only)

Child Custody Agreements or Parenting Plans (Originals only)

Citizenship papers (Originals only)

Collectibles that are valuable

Credit card account numbers (copy the front and back of each card so you have both the account number and the customer service numbers)

Death certificates (Originals only)

Diplomas

Divorce decree(s) (Originals only)

Employee Benefit Records

Family historical information

Household inventory and appraisals of antiques, artwork, collectibles and furs you may also want to include photos or videos to help document these items

Important contracts

Immunization Records

Insurance policy names and numbers (home, auto, medical, life, renters)

Investment certificates

Jewelry and jewelry appraisals

Leases

Marriage certificate (Originals only)

Medals

Military records

Mortgage

Naturalization Certificates

Negatives of important photos such as those from your wedding

Patents and copyrights

Photos of Possessions

Rare Stamps and Coins

Real Estate Deeds

Retirement plan information

Stock and bond certificates

Veterans Papers

Accessing your Safe Deposit Box in case of an Emergency

In case of an emergency, you will want to know in advance who will be able to have access to your safe deposit box. Different states have different laws on who can access the box when you die. Some states make it easy for a family member or the executor of the estate to access the box, while other states require a court order to remove the will, which will take time and money. You can rent the safe deposit box jointly with a spouse, child, or someone else that would have unrestricted access to the box. They will however need to sign the rent agreement as well. If you die however, in some states there still may be delays for the co-renter of the box to be able to access the contents. Giving someone a key to your safe deposit box, does not give them permission to access the box, rather their name needs to be on the contract with the bank.

Create an Itemized List of Contents

The final steps to organizing your important papers and valuable items is to be sure to create an itemized list of those items that you are storing in either the safe deposit box, fireproof box or both. Be sure that you list the location of each item and the date that it was stored. Periodically, review the contents to see if you need to update any of the items that are being stored, such as new banking or credit card information. If you have a safe deposit box, take the itemized list with you and update it with you while you are there.

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The Kirby Vacuum Cleaner Can't Make It Rain Near As Well As Your Grandmother's Old Clothes Line

The Kirby vacuum cleaner, along with the Rainbow vacuum and the Thermax vacuum were instrumental in changing the way people in American clean their carpets. In the old days before the vacuum cleaner was invented, people had several different ways to get their rugs clean. Remember the old rug beaters?

A rug beater was very simple to use. All you had to do was take your dirty old rug outside and hang it on some suitable length of rope or wire. Generally, you would find that everyone used the clothes line. If you are under 30 years old you may be scratching your head and saying to yourself, "what's a clothes line?".

A clothes line was simply a small rope strung out between two poles or posts. It was then used to hang wet clothes on, in an orderly fashion, in the hopes that the cloudly overcast would go away and let some of the bright sunshine in on your wet clothes. Hanging wet clothes out on a clothes line was also used to control the weather in some regions of the country. If your city had been experiencing a drought, all you had to do was let the laundry get almost dry and it was a sure fire way to make it rain.

Back to the dirty rug. After hanging your diry rug on the clothes line (remember, the Kirby vacuum cleaner hadn't been invented yet) you simply take your son's old baseball bat and beat the dickens out of the rug. Seemly endless clouds of dust will appear and cover you and every thing in your back yard with black powder. At this point you need to hang some wet clothes on the clothes line so that at least you will get a shower to settle the dust. Which, now that I think about it would solve your dirty rug problem too.

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