Category Archives: Marriage & Divorce
Cardi B seeks advice about her post-pregnancy body
Cardi B wants advice from other mothers about her post-pregnancy body.
The outspoken rap star – who has a three-month-old daughter called Kulture with her husband Offset – has taken to her Instagram account to post a picture of her stomach and to ask fellow parents how she can go about recapturing her pre-pregnancy appearance.
Cardi – who is wearing a crop top in the photograph – wrote: “Ladies how do you guys get rid of the black line in the middle of your stomach after giving birth?? cause b***h (sic)”
The post has already been liked more than two million times, and plenty of Cardi’s followers have been happy to offer their advice to the 26-year-old star.
Meanwhile, Cardi recently admitted to doubting whether she and Offset could sustain their marriage due to their busy schedules.
She shared: “When I got married with my dude, we still had a lot of doubts, because our relationship is not like everybody’s.
“He was always travelling, and I was always travelling. We’re artists.
“So I used to see him, like, twice a week, and, you know, he’s known for having different women, and I’m known for, like, not taking s**t from guys. But we really loved each other, and we was scared to lose each other.”
Cardi also revealed she’s determined to create the best possible life for Kulture.
She said: “I do not want to raise my future kids where I was raised, and I know the only way to do it is working, working, working, working, working.
“I don’t want to live in a small Bronx apartment. I don’t want to have three kids that got to share one room. I don’t want my kids to go to school and get gang-affiliated. I don’t want to do welfare. I don’t.”
Roman Catholic diocese salutes long-term marriages
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington on Oct. 14 held its annual Marriage Jubilee Mass at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More.
A total of 114 couples celebrating their 50th anniversary and 108 couples celebrating their 25th anniversary participated in the Mass, overseen by Bishop Michael Burbidge.
“It is always a great joy for me to celebrate the Mass honoring husbands and wives celebrating 25, 50 and even more years of faithful married love,” Burbidge said. “It is my hope and prayer that the love they share will grow stronger with the passing of each new day.”
Among those participating were Jesus and Sylvia Cota, who have been married for 50 years.
“Time has gone by so fast,” Sylvia Cota said.
Her advice for a long and successful marriage? “Respect each other. When you argue, do not use foul language and do not say things in the heat of the moment.”
The Big Bang Theory Recap: Marital Mathematics
Professor Proton returns!
It’s in Sheldon’s dream, of course, since Mr. Cooper’s beloved childhood hero is dead. But Bob Newhart’s charming wisecracker is still floating around in Sheldon’s very special psyche, from whence he occasionally pops in to offer words of wisdom.
For this reunion, Sheldon’s “favorite ghost” is sitting in a delicatessen in Dagobah — wearing his Jedi robes and outlined in a glowing light — after Sheldon makes a colossal mistake that impacts his personal and professional relationships with Amy.
Now that the honeymoon is literally over for the Coopers, it’s also figuratively over when Amy’s busy research roster makes it impossible for her to be as available as Sheldon would like her to be for them to work on their joint super-asymmetry project. But when Amy shares that excuse with her hubby, he takes it upon himself to help open up her schedule. That means a chat with Caltech president Siebert (guest star Joshua Malina), who agrees to let Amy take a sabbatical from her own neuroscience projects so she can concentrate on the physics paper with Sheldon.
The problem: Not only did Amy not want to take a break from her work, but she certainly didn’t want her husband to talk to their boss about rearranging her assignments. So when she walks into her lab one morning and finds another scientist trying to read her research notes — and then finds out Sheldon is the one who facilitated the move — well, that’s why Sheldon’s in need of Professor Proton’s advice.
In Sheldon’s defense, he did have good intentions. He’s excited to work with his wife. Also, as arrogant as he can be, the fact that he’s willing and excited to collaborate with anyone is a big sign of respect from him. All good stuff for the marrieds.
It has to be noted, though, that defending him isn’t altogether easy in this situation, especially since, during Shamy’s joint meeting with Siebert after Amy finds out about Sheldon’s interference, he tries to score points with his wife by telling Siebert not to mansplain to her, then proceeds to mansplain to her what mansplaining is.
Fortunately, as per Professor Proton’s advice, Sheldon learns marriage rule number one: Never go to bed with anger between you and your spouse. So he wakes Amy up — she’s got two things to be upset about now — to work out the issue.
She tells him the real root of her anger (as if the fact that he tried to manipulate her career wasn’t enough): As much as she loves working with him, she’s also determined not to lose her own identity, her own work and interests, to their joint life. She’s worried that “the things that are mine are getting subsumed into the things that are ours,” she tells him, which, happily, he understands.
He’s also very happy about her use of the word “subsume.” “That’s one you don’t hear enough,” he says.
The downside of the maturing, evolving Sheldon is that Professor Proton’s advice is short and sweet, and we get to spend too little time with him. Here’s hoping we get another chance to see Professor Proton and Newhart — whose comic timing is as perfectly tuned as ever — again during this final season of TBBT.
Elsewhere, you’d think Raj would be all about the wedding planning now that he and Anu are rushing into marriage, but she’s completely MIA this week. Instead, there’s another round of bromance with Howard, whom Raj doesn’t want to include in his Griffith Observatory planetarium show, because he fears Howard will steal his thunder. Howard’s feelings are hurt. Raj gives in and invites him to don his astronaut uniform and be a part of the presentation, which turns into a love-fest where Raj tells Howard he’s proud of him and they embrace, while Leonard cries in the audience and Penny and Bernadette roll their eyes at all the male emoting.
Theor-ems:
• Sheldon: “I’ve upset my wife, and I don’t know how to make it right.”
Professor Proton: “And you’re coming to me for advice? I upset my wife every time I woke up in the morning!”
• Professor Proton: “Rule number one in a marriage: Don’t go to bed angry. Rule number two in a marriage: if you don’t recognize the shoes under your bed, they’re not your shoes.”
• Howard: “You don’t want to talk about the stars next to an actual astronaut. That would be like doing karaoke with a rock star.”
Raj: “First of all, I’ve totally done karaoke with a rock star. Or are you forgetting when the Spin Doctors handed me the mic at the Orange County Fair?”
• Sheldon: “I know what you’re thinking: They’re newlyweds, how are they going to keep their hands off each other? Let me assure you, we will not engage in workplace coitus. I mean, if I won’t put a bagel on my desk, I’m certainly not putting Amy’s bare bottom.”
• President Siebert: “I must say, I do not enjoy our talks.”
COMMENTARY: Some sage advice for startup entrepreneurs
Successful entrepreneurs know their limitations and seek out partners, employees, mentors and external service providers that can complement their skill and value. – 123RF Stock Photo
So, you are thinking about entrepreneurship or you have made the decision and are taking those first steps in a startup. Owning your own business can be a wonderfully rewarding experience but it can also be fraught with a pervading sense of uncertainty about the “right” steps to take. While the list that follows will not assure success, it should go a long way toward reducing the risk of failure:
DO NOT listen to your family and friends without skepticism — Your family and friends care about you. This affection can manifest in exaggerated support for your business idea that isn’t grounded in market reality. Conversely, it can manifest in projecting fear and negativity that is designed to protect you which may also not be accurate. These familial support systems should be a source of emotional support and possibly a source of patient capital, but not the kind of objective business counsel that the nascent entrepreneur needs.
DO your own customer discovery — The most important voice for the burgeoning entrepreneur is that of the customer. Unless you are solving a real problem for a customer or offering them a unique benefit, you do not have a business. Understanding the problem you are trying to solve from the customer’s perspective is critical to your success and it should not be outsourced, or reduced to surveys. Have a conversation with potential customers and keep speaking to them for as long as you are in business; they hold the keys to your success or failure.
DO NOT believe the myth of the solo entrepreneur — While popular culture romanticizes the achievements of Steve Jobs, we may have never heard of him if it wasn’t for Steve Wozniak. The disparate skills required to successfully start a company are seldom possessed by a single individual. Additionally, the benefits of collaborative problem-solving using multiple perspectives are seldom eclipsed by the efforts of an individual. Successful entrepreneurs know their limitations and seek out partners, employees, mentors and external service providers that can complement their skill set and add value.
DO carefully consider splitting equity — Often in the quest to find that mix of talent that can drive a startup from idea to launch, the founding entrepreneur is willing to give up equity as compensation. Splitting equity can best be thought of as a marriage, and is not to be entered into lightly. In an ideal sense, equity splits should be determined on the basis of the relative contribution of the team members but that can be difficult to determine objectively. This is no time for egalitarianism as it is unlikely that two founders are making exactly the same contribution to the value of a startup. Regardless of the split, ensure that a shareholders agreement exists because undocumented understandings over share ownership that occurred <QL>in the idea stage take on a different complexion when the company is profitable.
DO NOT undervalue yourself — Entrepreneurs should remember that they get paid for what they do, and they earn a return on what they own. Therefore, if you are working in the business, develop a financial model based upon paying yourself a market-based wage for the job you do because if you don’t, you are lying to yourself. You should be developing a business model that can generate a return with all of the costs of inputs included. If you develop a model that discounts your labour to zero, the model is unsustainable.
DO embrace ambiguity — Tolerance for ambiguity is the degree to which you are comfortable with uncertainty, unpredictability, conflicting directions, and multiple demands. Most people despise ambiguity, but successful entrepreneurs accept it as a normal state of existence. Operating within ambiguous situations requires a dedication to learning; learning from customers, learning from mistakes, and learning from others and then applying those lessons to better serve the market. The successful entrepreneur charts his own path to success on the basis of perpetual, just-in-time learning while those that cannot embrace the vicarious existence of the entrepreneur attribute success to timing, or good fortune. In the words of American journalist, Harvey Earl Wilson “Success is simply a matter of luck. Just ask any failure.”
Craig MacMullin is president and CEO of Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development Inc.
