What's Your Love Language?

A while ago, I read a book about the 5 Love Languages and how each person has a different way of understanding/receiving love. For example, i love surprises while my husband doesn't care too much for them so when I threw him a surprise birthday party 2 years ago, he loved it, appreciated it, and had a great time but it didn't have the same effect on him as it would have on me.

At first I felt so cheesy reading this book with all it's metaphors and terms like "filling up your love tank" but it has actually enriched our marriage after we truly understood what each others' "language" is.

The 5 Love Languages: 

Words of Affirmation 

Quality Time 

Receiving Gifts 

Acts of Service 

Physical Touch 

One of my love languages is receiving gifts. Now before you think i'm a selfish materialistic person, let me clarify that i'm not looking for expensive gifts (although, i wouldn't mind them. :P) but it's more of the thought that counts for me. For example, my husband knows that I love pocky and he'll occassionally surprise me with a box... it only costs $3.99 and i am one happy camper :) Like they say...

Happy wife, Happy life. ^___^

His most recent surprise: We don't normally celebrate Valentine's Day so I was very surprised when at the last moment before February 14th ended, he pulled out a sweet card and DOMO all wrapped up! What's more surprising is that it was months and months ago when I mentioned in passing that I thought DOMO is cute.... turns out he was listening. Hahaha! I guess we should give our significant others more credit ;)

What's YOUR love language?

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Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and....

"When you hurt, i hurt" - I remember my parents telling me that when i was much younger and i never really understood it until now. Not that i have kids of my own now (or do i...? ;P) but i've experienced this with my fiancee. Especially lately. 
He recently developed tendonitis on both of his wrists due to the nature of his job (at first we thought it was from working out and playing too much video games, haha) and he's feeling pretty helpless. He's  lost a lot of weight because he can't eat properly, he can't sleep properly, he can't do anything as easily anymore. 
I feel lost. 
How am I supposed to help him? Sometimes I wish I was a physiotherapist so I could just take care of him. Instead all I can say is "it will get better, i promise" or "i understand" but do i? I've never experienced not being able to do basic tasks due to losing the function of my hands. It breaks my heart at the end of every work day when i ask him how his day was. Since I can't be of any medical help to him... I guess I can just be there to listen and provide comfort as a friend and as a wife-to-be. 
"For better or for worse, in sickness and in health... " right?
Have you ever been in a situation where someone close to you was hurt and you couldn't do much about it?

"Felipe" on Love...

After reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert... I continued on to start reading her follow up book "Committed" to find out what happened to the author after she met and fell in love with "Felipe" in Indonesia.

Call me corny or cliche, but I really enjoyed this analogy by Felipe about what it means to love someone. Enjoy!

this beautiful picture was taken by a beautiful friend and fellow blogger, Tessa! thank you for letting me use your photo! check out her blog here!

"When I used to go down to Brazil to buy gemstones, I would often buy something they call 'a parcel'. A parcel is this random collection of gems that the miner or the wholesaler or whoever is bullshitting you puts together. A typical parcel would contain, I don't know, maybe twenty or thirty aquamarines at once. Supposedly, you get a better deal that way -- buying them all in a bunch --but you have to be careful, because of course the guy is trying to rip you off. He's trying to unload his bad gemstones on you by packaging them together with a few really good ones.

"So when I first started in the jewelry business," Felipe went on, "I used to get in trouble because i'd get too excited about the one or two perfect aquamarines in the parcel, and i wouldn't pay as much attention to the junk they threw in there. After I got burned enough times, I finally got wise and learned this: You have to ignore the perfect gemstones. Don't even look at them twice because they're blinding. Just put them away and have a careful look at the really bad stones. Look at them for a long time, and then ask yourself honestly, 'Can I work with these? Can I make something out of this?' Otherwise, you've just spent a whole lot of money on one or two gorgeous aquamarines buried inside a big heap of worthless crap.

"It's the same with relationships, I think. People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other's personalities. Who wouldn't? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that's not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner's faults honestly and say, 'I can work around that. I can make something out of that.' ? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it's always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you."

Thoughts?