The fireworks are exploding, there is music in the air, and a song in your heart – you just can’t get enough of your new mate. But is that “love” thing you’ve heard everyone talking about, or is this just one more jumble of excitement about someone new and physical desire? Telling the difference between love and lust is not easy for anyone, and unfortunately making the wrong call means it will all end in tears. The good news is that there are a few ways you can tell long lasting true love from pure physical attraction. To find out if your love is destined to go the distance or if you are going to be so over this person in a month, compare your relationships to these three signs of the real thing.

The first sign of real love is good communication. Of course, like most things love/lust related, there is actual good communication and there is communication that seems to be good but is really superficial. Ask yourself how many deep and revealing conversations you have had with your new mate. Have you argued or disagreed and lived to tell about it. Do you know his or her stance on kids, the checkbooks, religion and other touchy issues? Do you know their goals, ambitions and plans to reach them? Or, on the other hand, can you recite their favorite song, favorite candy bar and favorite movie? You’re trying to build a relationship here, not a preteen fan club for this person. If you can only rattle off trivia but are afraid to have a disagreement, love may not be in bloom.

The second sign of love that will last is your level of comfort in the relationship. This is not necessarily about being comfortable with seeing each other without primping first or crossing the bodily function comfort level threshold (those these things don’t hurt). This kind of comfort level comes from knowing you aren’t constantly in a battle to keep your partner’s interest. If you have a really bad day and take it out on your partner, do you feel confident that you can apologize and move on without ruining your relationship? When the going gets tough, is your partner the first person you want to turn to because they are your best friend, or do you try to keep it from them for fear of sending them running for the door? If you can’t relax and revel in the glow of your stable relationship, then you are just trying to keep alive the flames you subconsciously know will die a little every day. Pay close attention to obsession versus a relaxed partnership. Obsessive relationships that become close overnight are almost always doomed to end just as quickly. If you are not comfortable being apart, then you probably don’t have a future together.

The third sign of a loving relationship is that it all comes down to respect. Do you respect your partner, warts and all, or do you have a running list of things that if only they would change, then they would be your perfect mate. In truth, no one is perfect. Love is when you know your partner isn’t perfect – you just don’t care. If you don’t have that feeling about your partner, or you feel like your partner doesn’t have that feeling about you, be prepared for the relationship to peter out.

Telling the difference between love and lust is something people have been trying to do since the dawn of man, and it is not an easy task. Often however, a simple, honest evaluation of your relationship can give you the answer you are looking for.

Are you tired of the hustle and bustle of every day life? Do you need a place to get away from it all and activity that can take your mind off of all of the trials and tribulations you are facing? Then gardening can be the perfect activity for you! Gardening is a guaranteed way to get rid of a lot of the stress you are carrying around at a given time – many people claim that gardening is the only way they can shake off all of the dust from a bad day or even a bad week. If you need some way to decompress and get rid of the stress, consider adding gardening to your schedule.

Just why does gardening help soothe the troubled soul so much? There are lots of good reasons why gardening offers such stress relief. One thing that gardening offers is lots of time outside in the sunshine. Doctors are becoming more and more convinced that sunlight is crucial to feeling happy and healthy – and yes, stress free. Some people even suffer from a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder that comes from a lack of sun. This disorder presents itself as depression and anxiety. Even if you don’t have to deal with that particular disorder, sunshine is a natural remedy for a lot of life’s little ills. The vitamin D in sunlight gives your immune system a boost and may even be linked to the releases of feel good chemicals in your brain. When you are outside under the sun toiling away in your garden, you’ve giving your body the tools it needs to get rid of the stress naturally.

Another reason gardening is so helpful for dealing with stress also has to do with being outside. Simply getting back in touch with the natural world can help many people feel more grounded. So much of life these days is spent indoors staring at a computer screen or in a car rushing from place to place. Shaking off all of these artificial environments and getting back to the “real world” can be a grounding experience that can help you get your priorities in check. When you are sitting outside, working in nature, you can get a sense of perspective on all of your problems – you know that your little garden and piece of the natural world will always be there no matter how your problems turn out, and that little bit of continuity can help give you some peace in a stressful life.

The act of planting a garden is a bona fide stress buster as well. When you are planting your garden, you are actively creating your own haven and oasis from the pressures of your daily life. The work of planting the garden will make you feel like you are taking control of your feelings and providing yourself with the tools you need to cope with life. Plus, when your garden is complete, you will be able to revel in your accomplishment.

Of course, like anything else, the garden can become stressful in and of itself if you let it. Remember, the key here is that your garden is supposed to be a stress reliever. Don’t but pressure on yourself to design a garden straight out of the pages of a magazine. A simple garden that you can easily enjoy is the goal. Don’t make it a chore. If you can’t tend to it one weekend, or you don’t feel like it, don’t. Keep your garden a stress free haven so you will always have some place to go when life feels a little overwhelming.

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Keeping a food diary can be a shocking eye opener for people who don’t realize how unhealthy their eating habits have become. It works the same way as writing down every dime you spend when you’re watching your budget. At the end of a week or two, most people are shocked at how much money they’ve spent or how much and what kinds of food they’ve eaten.

Keeping a food diary can also help you to pinpoint certain eating triggers. For example, do you always eat when your favorite show is on or do you gorge yourself after having had a bad day at work? Start keeping a food diary now and you’ll be surprised at the end of a week or two. Then, you’ll be able to go back over the list of the things you’ve eaten and look for ways to make healthy and sensible substitutions.

You may not even realize how many calories you are taking in just by hitting the vending machine at work each day. Once you begin to write down everything you eat and drink, it will help you to plan healthier choices. For example, if you know you always need a “pick-me-up” every afternoon at 2:00, why not go to the grocery store ahead of time where you have a wide variety of healthy choices instead of being limited to the high calorie, low nutritional foods found in most vending machines?

Planning your diet is important because you will not get stuck with foods that offer little nutritional value just because you are in a hurry but you will be able to choose a healthy snack when it comes snack time. Just like we budget our money, we must budget our food intake and plan accordingly. Once you have kept a food diary for a week or two, look at the entries that are the unhealthiest and see what kind of changes you can make for next time.

Remember, the purpose of this entire series is to explore common sense ways of losing weight. Still, fad diets are all the rage as savvy marketers find more and more ways to draw people in who are desperate to lose weight. Tomorrow, we’ll explore how you can recognize a fad diet so that you can avoid being taken in as you strive to employ a common sense guide to healthy living and weight loss.