Tougher Love’s Neighborhood

It's True. Tiger and I have had an affair for 18 months.

I've got the texts to prove it and 2 of my friends say its true. Anyone want my story so I can be famous for about 12 seconds?

Lots of golf terms, as euphemisms for Tiger's sexual antics have come to mind this week. Pardon me for chuckling, but he played his round and now he's got to score it. You can make up your own jokes, even if you don't know golf....

ball in the rough

just playing through

using a driver

plugged lie

penalty stroke

teeing off

its in the hole

putt for dough

handicapped score

sweet spot

ground under repair

short game

threesomes and foursomes

ladie's tee

open stance

cart path only

out of bounds

ball washer

up and down

ten finger grip

winter rules

Any others you can think of?

I've been lurking around my intimate hood for two days now. That's the first time in a very long time, that I've done that. I'm catching up on as many posts as I can, but its tough when you only pop in once or twice a month.

While my absence has gone largely unnoticed, life has gone on for all of you. You continue to amaze me with your strength, talent, resilliency, persistence, wit and candor. There have been some amazingly powerful posts in my hood over the last week or so....stories of life, living, death, desire and victory. It has reminded me of the "old Vox", when I couldn't wait to see my hoodies' updates from one day to the next. You had enriched my life, and I felt compelled to oblige you all with posts of my own--some humorous (at least I thought so...), some as serious as a heart attack. But, perhaps oblige isn't the right word. I was driven from within; inspired by all of you, to enlighten, entertain, create and inspire in return.

I don't know how effective I ever was at returning the favor, but I tried. And, tonight, I feel some reconnection here. I had absolutely nothing to do with it, though. It was all of you.

These past couple of days, I've felt the stark pain of a parent's death, relived a decade of incredible transformation, overcame obstacles that one should ever have to confront and shared blessings too copious to recount. And, none of any of this, happened in my life....they happened in yours, and I thank you all for sharing them with me. This week, as we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, I wish I had the words to properly thank each of you.

It is my sincere hope that all of you, find something, anything--even something as simple as a nomadic band of loosely connected "e-neighbors", to be grateful for this week. I certainly am.

To those outside of my (our) Voxhood, this is nothing but a lifeless cluster of electrons---barely able to be construed as 'words on a page'. To those within, this is life. This is pain. This is love. This is home.

I am thankful to be back home this Thanksgiving. Thank you for granting me the privelege of being a witness to your wonderful, amazing lives.

Love you guys...

Crush

Dolf and April Braswell2

As a Dating Expert who has both lived in a few different metro regions (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles/The OC and Las Vegas) as well as worked with singles in a number of different cities both within the United States as well as around the world, one of the considerations a number of singles have is they want to meet, date, and mate with another single in their local area.

Click here to >> Subscribe to Connecting with April Braswell – Dating and Relationship Ezine

Yes, you will see on some of the online dating niche sites, like those which are faith based for Muslims, Christian or Jewish Singles, is that the single will often make some statement like, “Distance is no object.”  They think the are open to loving and partnering up with another single from any where in the country.

And in a manner, they are open like that.  They are open to love coming to them from just about anywhere.

And then reality kicks in.

In order to really fall in love, to attract your Soul Mate and build a relationship, you actually need to open up and share each others lives together.  Courtship which leads to marriage requires that you share your lives and actually BE with each other.  So much of the dating style of the “Single – Never Married” folks is to either “hang” on the sofa and watch movies, while fun, eventually becomes boring, or to go do the consumer single dating style of going “out” all the time.  Neither of these models is actually what we DO in the normal LIFE of a married couple/life partner relationship.  When I coach singles who are divorced or widowed and we get to that part of my coaching system, they say, “OMG, April, you are brilliant! This is so true!” (I heard this today from one widowed lady.)  And they can see how I approach relationship attraction and building form reality and not from some pipe dream which will never happen.

Real relationships are between human beings.  There are some crass metaphors for describing this which I will refrain from using to illustrate my point.

When you are looking to attract love and build a life partner relationship, generally speaking, to do so you need to be in person.  In order to experience that, this means you want to date another single who is local to you or at least in your metro area region.  That can still mean that they live a few hours away from you.  However, unless you travel to certain metro areas repeatedly for business, you want to keep your targets on another single who lives within a few hours of you, and not thousands miles away, which would be just fooling yourself.

Then you actually have a chance of attracting, meeting, and mating with your Soul Mate and developing the kind of lifelong love relationship which you are craving.

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell

Las Vegas Baby Boomer Dating Expert

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...you have to cut yourself to remember you're alive.

Life is what you make it, and make of it. Yeah. I'll die someday. I'm working towards accepting my mortality. But, for today...

There's nothing like a moshpit in front of Metallica and 19,000 head-banging lunatics to remind me how fragile and beautiful life is. Teenagers and fortysomethings. Raw vitality and awkward resistance. Generations apart, but united and tangible energies. Living. Alive. And nothing else matters.....

With my work as a dating and relationship coach, I have the fun privilege of seeing a lot of happy brides and grooms connect and hook up and get married.  My mother had her Wedding Attending Dress.  I have this sparkling coral crochet number which is starting to become MY Wedding Attending Dress.

Well, don't blame it on President Obama because he has only been in office for 9 months.  But we really ARE in a down economy.

And a lot of brides and grooms want to have a Budget Wedding and keep things Frugal and Cheap for their nuptials.  Yes, you can just bop over to the Justice of the Peace or wing it in Vegas or Reno (Have you seen "The Women"? the original?  that is my FAVORITE Reno, NV tribute!).

What about the rest of you who want to celebrate your special day on a show string budget?

Well check out http://www.weddingplanningontheweb.com/

Resources for the Frugally minded bride who is more interested in investing her buckage on her house than on a 1-Day party (however fabulous)

Happy Dating and Relationships!

April Braswell

Sonia and Mich feeding cake3

When you are looking to plan your ideal wedding....

you will want to be sure to check out

http://www.weddingplanningontheweb.com/

For all the online internet wedding planning resources for the modern bride....

In fact, what is very cool about this wedding planning resource is it is about how to do a frugally planned wedding.  Cool, or what?  With the downturn in the economy, I ask you, who DOESn't want to save a little (or a LOT) of money when they are planning their wedding?  The average wedding costs over $15,000 (think over $20,000, but I'm trying to reflect that more brides and grooms are doing this on a budget anyway, so I'm deflating the price now from what it was a few years ago for wedding, ok?)

Bride and Groom at Their Wedding

Happy Dating and Relationships!

April

Some of my latest friends here at at VOX have additionally created some new websites.

Some people are even PRAYING for Google to find them

www.buggingin.com/blog

http://salesjunkie.net/

http://kerieagan.org/

A lot of Baby Boomers are very concerned about their health, vitality and longevity, and will love:  GetHealthyHQ.com

A new Steve in my life.  Mr. Steve Chambers will still hold the first Steve place of affection in my heart. No detraction from the New Mrs. Chambers!  http://www.stevebt.com/

http://www.gregdougall.com/

Yes so many people are concerned about their horrific energy bills.  All the Las Vegans have HUGE air conditioning bills and will definitely appreciate the green energy wisdom offered at: http://www.championgreenenergy.com/

http://katemckeon.com

http://blogprofitcenter.com/

www.smallbusinessdesigncenter.com

Hello, I am at heart, a LOVE coach.  Who does not LOVE, get a touch verklempt, and reach for a hankie at the sight of a beautiful bride as she enters to meet her groom, seeing her bestowed in all her beauty, giving herself to him? Alrightie then, need I saw anything more. All things for the Bride: www.bridalthreadshq.com

A man with fitness passion:  www.terrytom.com

Many women are still looking for Mr. Wright.  He is Write here!   http://www.martin-wright.com

http://www.businessandmarketingmakeover.com/blog

Now I just want to say to some of my old (don't you just love having that label applied to yourself? ack!) Vox social media buddies where the Google gods aka The Spider has already discovered your existence, I'm not repeating myself here.  However, please don't feel neglected or that you are any less LOVED by me or ... The Gooogle gods.

The Grief Recovery Group, which most grieving people think of as a bereavement support and counseling group is just wrapping up in the Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa area of Orange County.  Yes, I know it sounds a little goofy to cite all those cities, but if you actually live or work here, then you know that they are all within a few blocks of each other.  I always have to describe the area and workshop location to grieving clients so they can load it into their Garmins and get here without getting too lost.  Because of course, many people grieving the loss of a loved one have a tendency to get a bit distracted.  Some of us describe it as not being fully present, not 100% present.  That is just to be real about WHAT Grief looks, acts, and feels like.

One widow who worked with me described the work as "Priceless!" when she completed it, she had found it so helpful.

I have been fielding a number of inquiries from a variety of grievers, those dealing with a suicide in the family, parent death, Pet Loss Bereavement, as well as Divorce Grief.  Indeed, I do take one-on-one clients to give people more personalized attention and more time.

Next week I will be in Las Vegas right after the Labor Day weekend and meeting with some grievers in the Pahrump, NV area.

Until then, stay well.

April Braswell
Widows Bereavement Counseling, Henderson, Las Vegas

Its been well over a month since my last post. My time on Vox has slowed to a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago. There's many reasons. Some of it is Vox's fault. I don't need to go into detail as its been well documented both here and in my hood. Some of it is that my hoodies have disappeared, or simply abandoned me as a neighbor. I'm easy to miss if I'm only updating my Vox page once or twice a month. I understand that, and no hard feelings if you're one of those that used to drop in. That leads me to the third and most prevalent reason for my minimal Vox time: Me.

Sure, the nanobots in my corporate IT department finally got wise and blocked Vox from my desktop. Perhaps they noticed that I spent as much as an hour a day here. What they haven't noticed, I'm certain, is that my productivity has likely dropped significantly by removing Vox as my daily distraction from the grind.

Ah yes...the grind. The grind has all but killed my spirit these last couple of years. The grind is primarily responsible for my withdrawal...Microcosmically from Vox; and macrocosmically from life.

I am not a defeatist, but I feel defeated. Life has finally got the better of me.

Have you ever read the articles that discuss the top stressors in a human's life? About 10 years ago, I slogged through 8 of the top 10 life stresses simultaneously. (The list was compiled from a survey of doctors and published in some some health/fitness magazine. They update it every year.) I'm not really excited about looking for the list right now, but you can guess most of them....  Divorce, loss of a job/unemployment, general emotional or physical trauma, loss of an immediate family member, financial troubles, addictions, health problems, moving, raising a young child, etc etc etc  Anyway, I simultaneously battled 8 of the top 10 and remember being emboldened by the fact that I was beating it. Life tried to kick my ass and I fought back. As I emerged beyond these stresses one by one  and over the course of a couple of years, my confidence never wavered. In fact, it made me stronger and more confident than I already was, in the knowledge that I could conquer the most stressful things that life can throw at you.  I did it without the support of a significant other. I did it without the crutch of prescription drugs. I did it alone. I did it.

Today, when perhaps only 2 or 3 of the top 10 stressors plague me, I am ready to throw my hands up and wave the white flag. What happened? Where did the confident, proud, breast-beating man go? I can make little sense of my emotions these days. I'm neither happy nor unhappy. I am thankful for what I have, but discontent in it. I yearn for a better life, or perhaps, just the life I used to live. What's missing? Can I regain my confidence and reemerge happy and content in my own skin? Or, is it necessary to shed my old skin, and rise as a Phoenix with new feathers just to cope? Or, has the grind finally caught up to me, exhausting my finite God-given pool of ability and capability forevermore?

The answer is within. That much I know. But today, as I stare into the abyss, it is empty. The very skin that has served me well in all my years before this, is weathered and scaly. My armor is rusted and the elements have seemingly won. The fire that I need to burn within, instead burns all around me, scorching my now-naked skin. The Phoenix is late in coming to this metaphor of life....

As some of you may or may not remember, I penned a list of 29 'Life's To Do's' at age 16. It's been the cause of much angst recently, as I am realizing I will never be able to cross 3 of those items off. EVER. Life has simply passed those opportunities by. While I hold 'the list' to the highest level of confidentiality, I'll share one example: Item #20 was to play at least one game of NHL professional hockey. And, while I rose to the semi-pro level briefly, playing for a regional team for a couple of years, I won't be needing Scott Boras or Jerry Maguire anytime soon. The game is simply too competitive for an old fart like me.

But, 'the List'-induced melancholia of recent days was tempered with a dose of exaltation today. I ran 10.5 miles today in my training for the half marathon in September. Item # 10 on the list? 'Run 10 miles without stopping, ' in verbiage that gives away my mid-teen authorship. ;-)   Anyway, even during the days of triple sessions summer workouts in high school, Navy flight training, and semi pro hockey, the most I ever ran at one time was 6 miles. Today, I eclipsed that mark--some 20 years later at age 40 something, and crossed the 17th item off the list of 29.

So, if 3 items just aren't achievable at this point, that leaves 9 more to-do's before I become one of the lost souls in my own Thriller video. When that time comes, I hope my dance will be one of celebration and victory, having kicked the ass of this crazy and sole go-around we all get.

Carpe Diem, my friends!