Cooler weather, changing leaves, and pumpkin spice lattes, oh my! Fall is in the air and you too can enjoy it on a budget! As soon as the cooler weather hit in August it immediately felt like it was time to hit up an apple orchard or pick out pumpkins to decorate the front porch. Fall is a treasure here in Minnesota and there is plenty of free or low cost family friendly fun to be had this fall! We never know if we will get one month of fall weather before winter hits or three, so get out there and enjoy it while you can!
Apple orchards and pumpkin patches seem to become synonymous in the fall, with many farms offering both. This is great for those strapped on time as well, especially if you only have the kids every-other weekend since you can essentially take care of them both in one stop. You won’t have to travel far to find top-notch apple orchards or pumpkin patches around the Twin Cities. Here are a few of our favorites: Emma Krumbees in Belle Plaine, Dehn’s Pumpkins in Dayton, Minnetonka Orchard in Minnetrista, Afton Orchards in Hastings, Deerdorf Orchard in Waconia, and Apple Jack’s in Delano! View a complete list of all 119 Minnesota Apple orchards
here. Don’t forget to bring the camera! Fall photo opportunities are everywhere at orchards – start thinking about those Christmas card photos! Bring the fun home and bake an apple pie or two with the kids!
Have you been to the Saint Croix River Valley in the fall? If not, you are missing out. Whether you take a day trip with the kids or want a low key but impressive date night, the views of the changing leaves along the river can’t be beat! Depending on where you live in the cities you can check it out within just a half hour to an hour drive. Take a stroll along the river in Stillwater, trolley tour, gondola ride, or one of the many charter cruises offered on the river. Looking to get a little further out of town? Head south a bit to the LaCross/Onalaska area on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin for one of the most scenic fall drives in the country! To ensure you hit the leaves at the peak times watch the Fall Color Finder on the
Minnesota DNR website.
If you need a little more action after a relaxing day trip check out one of the many corn mazes, haunted houses, and hayrides across the area. And finally, are all your friends posting about that coffee shop pumpkin spice latte? You too can enjoy that on a budget! Who needs a $5 coffee when you can make it at home for CHEAP! Thank you Pinterest! Just type in “pumpkin spice latte” in the search and you’ll have dozens of recipes at your fingertips to make your own at home! Here is one that’s perfect for a crowd, great to throw in a thermos for a cool evening football game or a hayride:
Crock Pot Pumpkin Spiced Latte
- 6 cups of milk
- 4-6 cups of strongly brewed coffee
- 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup of vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
- 3-4 cinnamon sticks
In a crock pot, combine the milk and coffee. Whip together the pumpkin, vanilla, sugar and cinnamon and pour into the crockpot. Mix together well. Toss in 3-4 cinnamon sticks. Cover the crockpot, and cook on high for 2 hours. Enjoy!
Happy Fall!
In his book about how to avoid human conflict, Don Miguel Ruiz suggests these four agreements that a person makes with himself or herself:
1. I will be impeccable with my word.
2. I will not personalize the anything the other person says, does, feels, thinks or believes.
3. I will make no assumptions.
4. I will do my best each day with the energy I have been given.
This post will focus on the Third Agreement, which can be very difficult to keep, in part because of how we are wired. Our human brains are constantly analyzing our environment and making conscious and subconscious decisions about whether or not a threat exists. Without this vigilance, we would not have survived as a species. Our vigilant human brains are also designed to categorize and sort, and then to recognize patterns. When patterns repeat, we give the patterns a meaning and define this as learning. This is how our brains are designed to work.
However, it can happen that when we recognize patterns, we give them the wrong meaning. We can make an incorrect assumption (which is the definition of a superstition). We get further and further from real meaning if we persist in believing and acting on our assumptions. This can create unnecessary misunderstanding and conflict, and it happens all the time, especially in intimate relationships. Rather than make assumptions, it is important to remain open to alternate interpretations and ask good questions.
One can easily make misguided assumptions even when absolutely sure one is right. When I met my mother-in-law, her home was filled with frog ornaments. For years, family members gave her frog-themed items for her birthday and Christmas, and she found places to display them all. After 10 years, I happened to ask her when she first started to like frogs. She responded, “Oh, I don’t like frogs.” All evidence to the contrary! I said in puzzlement, “But you have such a collection of frogs, I just assumed you liked them.” She smiled and told about receiving frog-decorated towels as a thank you gift from a guest. She put the towels in her guest bathroom, and the next guests assumed she liked frogs and bought her a frog ornament, which she promptly displayed. What was never true about my wonderful mother-in-law was that she liked frogs. What was true was that she proudly displayed the gifts she was given, to honor the givers.
In the relationship crisis of a divorce or break up, it can be especially easy to make negative assumptions about one’s spouse or partner, and express these assumptions directly to other people. A child once told me in tears about hearing one parent say to the other, “This divorce is proof you never really loved your family.” Making the Third Agreement helps ensure that children will be kept at the center and out of the middle.
A strategy used by some divorcing spouses and their attorneys is to threaten that they will take the other spouse to court. Threatening court is a negotiation strategy in an effort to get the other side to give up or significantly compromise their position(s).
When attorneys use this tactic, they often will prepare for a trial. The trial preparation ends up being extremely expensive and emotionally exhausting for the involved spouses. Often a hatred for the other spouse develops because of trials and/or the threatened use of court.
The reality is a small fraction of divorces end up in trial. The overwhelming reason those cases do end up in trial is because spouses and their attorneys refuse to negotiate. Sometimes a spouse will tell their attorney to go for the throat or they say I want to make him/her pay. It is the divorcing spouses and unfortunately their children, if any, that end up paying the price financially and emotionally. Seeking revenge does not have a place in any divorce process and accompanied by an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith sets up a strategy to fail.
It happens all the time – the parents who stayed married “for the kids” eventually do go ahead with the divorce. When parents’ divorce while the kids are still young, or at least minors, the children really have no choice but to adjust to their new schedules, in most cases they still see both parents, and after a while their parent’s divorce is a thing of the past and eventually everyone learns to live with their new normal. No, it’s not always quite that easy, but as minors, even when the children are upset with one parent they have no choice but to accept that they are still under both parent’s roofs and rules, and generally they enter adulthood having established some form of relationships with both of their parents as individuals.
When couples with adult children divorce things can be a bit dicer to navigate. Adult children are not forced to maintain a relationship or share custody with either parent. Taking sides and determining loyalty may be expected from parents knowing that their children are old enough to make their own judgements. Instead of these parents deciding where the children have to spend holidays those are now decisions adult children now need to make on their own. These decisions can make for very difficult situations for adults, and can even lead to family fall outs.
Unlike when children are young, people don’t concern themselves with the emotional, physical, and financial toll of divorce on adult offspring. Watching the family home and assets being packed up and fought over shatters your world, no matter how old you are. So how can you make your divorce easier on your adult children? Encourage them to focus on their own lives. Don’t put them into a situation where they are forced to choose a side. It’s unrealistic to expect your adult children to spend Christmas eve with Dad and Christmas day with Mom, especially as they establish families of their own. Respect boundaries, divorce with dignity by not bad mouthing your ex to their children – just because they are adults and can handle it, doesn’t mean they should have to. This isn’t to say that you should keep things from your adult children, simply that unhealthy bashing is not good for either party. It’s natural to need to talk about the divorce and your past, but having a good friend to vent to rather than your children may help you to filter what is necessary for your children to know or not.
Maybe you are not quite to the graying divorce yet – perhaps you are amongst those with younger children still and are considering a divorce or “Staying together for the children.” Research shows that adult children of divorce are less satisfied in their lives compared to adults from intact and happy families, however, they ARE happier than adults from families that were miserable but stayed together. This confirms that if you and your spouse really can’t stand each other, and “staying together for the children” means raising them in a miserable and unhappy home, divorce might be a better idea. 
Understanding the difference between interests and positions could make all of the difference in helping you negotiate a better outcome in your divorce.
Position-Based Bargaining: Most people have a tendency to negotiate by arguing in favor of their positions. In divorce, this type of “position-based” bargaining can actually make it more difficult to get what you want. Once you and your spouse become locked into positions, the need to defend those positions can lead to a lengthy and expensive divorce. Often position based negotiations come to an end only after both parties have reached a point of physical and emotional exhaustion only to reach a “meet in the middle” agreement. One of the many problems with meeting in “the middle” is that the best solutions may have existed outside of either position. Creative negotiation that avoid positions and focus on interests can lead to outcomes that are better for both parties.
Interest-Based Bargaining: In divorce, couples start by determining their interests and look for true “win/win” scenarios. In order to appreciate how interest-based bargaining works, it is important to understand the difference between positions and interests.
Positions are narrow; “win/lose” proposals can only be satisfied in one way. For example, statements such as “I want Sole custody” or “I need $5,000 per month in support” or “I must have the house” represent positions that require the other person to “lose” in order for you to win. On the other hand, “interests” (sometimes called goals) focus on big picture desires that can be satisfied in many ways. Statements such as “I want our children to be kept out of the conflict” or “I want financial stability for both homes” or “I want us to be able to communicate better in our co-parenting” are requests to have an important interest met.
One of the advantages of focusing on big-picture interests is that you and your spouse are likely to have many of these interests in common. Therefore, although working on the details of how these interests can be met will still require some problem solving skills (and some bargaining) the negotiation becomes easier because you are both working toward these important common goals.
Interest-based bargaining is a skill that needs to be developed over time. Divorce negotiations are usually improved when the professionals involved have significant training and experience in this method so that they can teach these skills to their clients. Most mediators and Collaborative professionals have training and experience in interest based bargaining. To locate a professional who understands this method to interview and to learn more about interest based divorce negotiation go to