Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

 5 Tips for a Loving Relationship 5 Tips for a Loving Relationship Often we know what we're supposed to do to make our relationship work, but we don't know how. In the video link above, I've outlined some really easy tips you can do today to make a positive difference in your relationship. The video is just 45 seconds long, so in no time at all you'll have the relationship tricks that you need for a loving partnership, right at your fingertips. Or if you'd prefer to read the notes, click  Real Relationship Tips that Work . For a lighthearted look at positive ways to impact your relationships, I'll be offering my dating diaries eBook for free for a few days from 6 March 2022 . It's a quick read that you can enjoy together, as a couple, or by yourself if you're looking for ways to improve your relationship dynamics. Here's the link, but remember it's only free for a few days from 6 March 2022:  Creating Sparks that Last eBook The time zones are a...

Dating Risks https://unsplash.com/@marqquin Let’s have a chat about taking risks in the dating world. Dating Risks  - as you click on the video, the first 15 seconds are awkward silence while I waited to go live 🤣 Can you think of a dating disaster that still makes you laugh today? [To be clear we’re not talking dangerous dating mishaps, I don’t have the qualification to help but am including  THIS LINK if you need professional help from anywhere in the world]. https://unsplash.com/@krakenimages In retrospect, with my "far too many wines of glass already," line, it could have been risky, but we were a party of six and I was with my best friend. I think that's where we draw the line at taking chances with people we don't yet know, it's always wise to go in a group with someone you know and to be in a well-lit public space. Back to the funny things that can go wrong on a date.  On one particular date, my wedge cork shoe broke at the strap - I spent the date BAREFO...

🎁 Happy Relationships and a Merry Christmas Image credit @KatieAzi My gift to you this holiday season, is one of happier times with your loved ones. I have a giveaway for you; a booklet of Date Year Ideas for you to use at your leisure. Completely free, no strings attached, a giveaway of pure loving intention. The date ideas are fun and relaxed and can be used in any relationship you wish to deepen. Healthy relationships cover all aspects of our lives, so you can quite easily adapt my date ideas to your friendships, family relationships or partnerships.  Your style, your way.   I have included a page for each month of the year with some ideas for you to think about. But, this is YOUR date year, YOUR way. You can change them up, add your own or include anything that gets you closer to understanding the person you are with in that moment. Your free booklet is at the link below: Date Year Ideas Image credit @OlesiaHnatkevych Have fun and do share your own date ideas with me in t...

 5 Tips for a Loving Relationship https://unsplash.com/@k_yasser Here are my 5 tried and tested truth bombs that work! Listen with your eyes!             Making and maintaining eye contact - without staring like a stalker! - shows your genuine interest and makes the person who is talking to you, feel heard and acknowledged.   Make time for each other              And make it meaningful. Instead of just going on a picnic, out for dinner or for a walk or hike, do something special to mark the occasion. Perhaps a quiet dance at home before dinner, or a favourite pillow/cushion for the picnic - get creative! This shows the other person that you truly want to  be with them. Do something just for them            To make someone feel valued, do something that you might not enjoy but you know they do. It could be a movie of their choice but not particularly your taste, or mayb...

Turns Out You Don’t Need to Go Far At All Dating in the comfort of your own home is a thing! https://unsplash.com/@heftiba There are many reasons to stay home for a cozy date night in. Tired Lockdown Too cold Kids Couldn’t be bothered. That last one is a real doozy! If you can’t be bothered to make an effort, you need to ask yourself why. But that’s a post for another day. Date Night In The beauty is that it can be as glamorous or as casual as you want it to be. I've made some suggestions below, but of course, imagination is your only limit . https://unsplash.com/@joshstyle Dance night - thanks to my happily married cousin, this has become a hit in our household. I've curated a carefully selected range of songs for a quiet night in:  Date Night In Lounge floor picnic - rugs, cushions, classical music; who says picnics are for the outdoors only! DIY Day - revamp a dull corner of your home, and your relationship with a bit of titillating. As seen in the bright yellow image above ...

FIND YOUR UNIQUE SPARK Choose ways to ignite your relationship that make both of you happy Image credit @casey-horner via Unsplash ♥ Notice how I said ‘unique’?   There is no one size fits all to a relationship so don’t compare your relationship to anyone else’s.  Each one is a unique fit. I largely chose our dates myself for Date Year but I made sure to integrate James’ preferences as well. This is how our experiences became unique to us. I use words like ‘both’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ because marriage is exclusively about the two of you. Three’s a crowd, no doubt about it. We’re not talking about socializing, we’re talking about connecting. Your marriage needs to grow the two of you together so choose your date experiences wisely. ♥ Be consistent. Don’t let the inconvenience of everyday life get in the way of making a commitment to the happiness of your marriage.                     ...

  Follow your nose, it knows what to do Rocks of Knowledge Given the fire ravaged state our small town was in at the time, our intended 5km bike ride to the beach had to be re-planned. The poor air quality and visibility would have compromised our health and safety and besides, other people had suffered far greater loss than our intended bike ride. We hopped into our car instead and decided to ‘see where we would end up.’ Following the roads to cleaner air we found ourselves in Tuncurry and literally followed our noses to be led hand-in-hand to the Rocks of Knowledge. Firstly following our noses was both literal and figurative as we sought out clearer air to breath and quite frankly found ourselves   at the Rocks of Knowledge . If we had ridden our bikes, we certainly would have had a wonderful time, but on this occasion instead, we got to hold hands and amble into a profound wisdom to trust our instincts – this was a broader aspect of knowledge we hadn’t expected to acq...

How to fix dating shortfalls Image credit Tyler Nix via Unsplash The 3 Dating Tendencies Quite honestly, I think all relationships have a combination of Logan's 3 dating tendencies. The trick is to juggle each of them in equal measure. The Romanticizer: The reality is that there are no perfect relationships. Period. We have to accept that there are ups and downs in every single relationship on earth. Once we can accept that fact, it is easier to move towards improving the quality of our interactions without striving for perfection. The Maximizer: Whether it's you or your partner who has unrealistic expectations of the other, it's important to state your boundaries. That is the secret sauce to maintaining integrity in your relationships. Respectful boundaries deserve respect. The Hesitater: If your self-doubt is based on either of the above tendencies, you need to look at your 'why'. Once you appreciate your personality for its strengths you will have a deeper unders...

 “ We meet ourselves in a thousand disguises on the path of life .” Carl Jung This is the end screen of a video that I tried valiantly to upload. It’s an introduction to my first date with my husband to give you a little backstory about how we met. If you’d like to listen, it will be uploaded on my Instagram and Facebook accounts. Both are named Elora Canne.  Facebook Instagram I was 18 when I got a call from this husky voiced man who I was immediately drawn to. Mutual friends had introduced us as I was too shy to ask anyone to my Year 12 Formal. I thought this 22 year old man epitomized the height of maturity for calling me ahead of the Year 12 Formal for a pre-date instead. This was to ensure we’d hit it off and not ruin the Formal. How considerate! How mature! On our pre-date there were 6 of us out for dinner and we had a merry time with a few glasses of wine (it’s legal at 18 in South Africa). My date offered me another glass of wine and in my prim and proper 18 year old v...

Stepping out of your comfort zone creates a new one Churchill Street Trail, Hobart Tasmania This was one of those date events that I initially really didn’t want to go on. Now before you cast me aside, hear me out. James wanted me to go away with him. Not being ungrateful here but there is always a lot to organize if I were to join James on our trip away. Okay I came to my senses and off we went to Hobart in Tasmania. Because we had time on our hands we chose to dedicate one entire day to our Date Event. Saturday morning began atop Mt Nelson. We felt like we had lost all hope of ever getting home. The mountain was crisp with the chill winter air. The mist surrounding us felt isolating. Wild. Churchill Street trail plumped up all of our senses and set them to vibrating with life. We slipped and slid down shiny slimy rocks and thick chocolatey mud, we trundled over sodden winter leaves trampled into the ground and trod with care over bridges decayed with age. Talk about stepping out of o...

The Way to a Man’s Heart Image credit to Unsplash by Raissa Lara Lütolf Armed with a glass of velvety smooth Merlot and James with an ice cold beer we joined the hustle of talking, laughing guests standing around bar tables with our behinds perched on wire barstools. While it was fun to blend in with the loud and raucous customers around us, James and I longed for a space to sit comfortably where we could talk to each other instead of shouting at each other, albeit kindly. “Should we find somewhere else to have dinner?” James yelled at me. “Sure,” I screamed back into his ear. So much fun. Leaving the warmth of those cozy blankets behind, James and I headed for a restaurant with a water view on Darling Harbour. One of our favourites is Bungalow 8 and to our delight, they had revamped their eatery into private booth spaces.  Ours was particularly intimate with a sign that implored, “Please, no sledding.” Let me emphasize that the courtyard in question was no more than a two metre sq...

The Three Dating Tendencies https://unsplash.com/@heftiba Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project , and researcher of human behavior, habits and happiness, interviews Logan Ury, author of How Not To Die Alone: The surprising science that will help you find love.  Logan says, "While love may be a natural instinct, dating isn't." Read on to find out why and what you can do about it. Gretchen :  You've done fascinating research. What has surprised or intrigued you – or your readers – most?   Logan :  The Three Dating Tendencies:  As a dating coach, I discovered that while all of my clients are unique, many of them suffer from dating blind spots—patterns of behavior that hold them back from finding love, but which they can't identify on their own. https://unsplash.com/@timmossholder Inspired by Gretchen (who was inspired by Freud!), I've categorized the most common blind spots into a framework called The Three Dating Tendencies. Each group struggles with u...

 Welcome and enjoy finding a whole new you. Image credit to Toa Heftiba at Unsplash It is so wonderful to have you in our reading room. We are delighted to share with you, our discovery of intricate connections that we made on our year-long dating project. Though we have been married for A Very Long Time, there is always something new to learn about each other and ourselves. This is the secret sauce to keeping your relationship alive - moving with the changing environment that we constantly find ourselves in as we progress along our daily lives.  Our daily lives become our years together. I do hope you enjoy reading about our fun and quirky dates. You'll find it  at this link.  I'd love to hear date ideas of your own, as well as your feedback once you've read 'Creating Sparks That Last'. 

Communication? Sometimes Non-Communication? On this particular date, James and I were grumpy with each other. We were away on holiday together in Bath, UK and started our day by parting ways for individual sightseeing. Neither of us felt like talking to the other and that is a huge sign of respecting each others' boundaries. If feelings are too heated, it often pays to walk away temporarily, before hurtful things are said and tempers flare beyond control. By the time we met up again, later in the day, our feelings had diluted with retrospection and deep thought - so vital in understanding ourselves and others in an attempt to be respectful and not lose our temper. The following is an excerpt from my travel journal: Our melancholy overflowed into our tiny dorm room at the YMCA. We very seriously considered cancelling the rest of our trip, and we were only 3 months in! After a thoroughly heated discussion about the pros and cons of packing up and going home, we acknowledged that thi...

Breakfast With a View The point of this outing was to breakfast with a view. It began with a side of misunderstanding. A view we had, from a vantage point up in the clouds of the office block where James worked, what I hadn’t realized was that James had asked whether I’d like a bacon bun from a local cafe or a wrap from the office canteen. I opted for a bacon bun from the local cafe which meant extra time out of his work day, unbeknownst to me. Not only that, he carved time out of his frenetic working day to have lunch we me as well from a different vantage point overlooking the southern view from of his office block. He made time for me! I’m supposed to be making time for us. Which I am, but James proved to be more than willing to go the extra mile in making our dates superb!  I made my own way home after lunch, traversing the 40-odd kilometre’s via train, Metro and car once more. James took the sedate bus ride home later that evening with a demure driver happy to deliver his pass...

Enjoy Our Date Year Experiment With Us I would love to share the unexpected secrets of our date events with you. You will discover a whole side of your relationship that you never even knew existed. As did we. This will undoubtedly help you to uncover hidden treasures in your relationships too. From feeling resentful to feeling appreciated you will delight in these new-found feelings for each other.