Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

There's Always a Solution I said this to a friend the other day who was struggling with tech stuff. She was so grateful for the boost that  she persevered for an entire week , but she did it!  So let’s just expand on the notion here, that ' there's always a solution.' Elora Canne - Memoir Writer I'm delighted to share my conversation with you, from the Living Big Mindfully podcast where host, Kate Champion, and I discussed many later-in-life relationship topics.  But I'm particularly interested in sharing with you, the notion that there is indeed always a solution .  Not only in everyday life situations, as told above, but also in those deeper, more difficult to navigate situations as you'll discover on the podcast. There is always a way around a hurdle,  even if you can't jump over it. To listen in on our conversation, insights and solutions, tap this link:  Living Big Mindfully Podcast Book News: 🫂 Allow me to focus, just for a minute, on those solut...

And Healthy Relationship Tips If you’re wondering what the secret to lasting love is, there isn’t one. You have to take the long way round. And the good news is, I’ve got 3 tips that will get you there. How do I know? Because this year marks the 40th year my partner and I will have been together. Not married, that’ll be 37 years, but together - not yet mind you, that’ll be later on in the year. Our relationship comes with lots of experience, so healthy relationship tips are kind of my fortè. Here are my 3 tips for you: • Regular dates inject new interest into your relationship. They don’t have to be expensive outings, in fact they don’t even have to be outings, but they do have to be something out of the ordinary. • My second healthy relationship tip is to have the awkward conversation. Repeatedly, until the issue is fully resolved. This may take months, intermittently and you will continue to have issues needing discussion, just keep at it. Preferably on neutral ground during a walk o...

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? This photo really annoyed me!  But I'll tell you more about that in a minute.  It was taken as we ascended our way out of the depths  of Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon. As you might know, my memoir, En Route , takes us on a trip around the world. Within those travels, comes the unraveling of our relationship and a stealthy dose of personal growth, inspiration and life lessons thrown in. But this is not a review. The purpose of today's blog post is to invite the reader behind the eyes of the author. To see the unraveling take place and to understand her motivation for writing her life on the pages of a book for all to read. Below, are a few questions you might find helpful in feeling the emotions behind the decisions that the author has made. • What is the significance of the title? En Route suggests moving towards a destination, and the subtitle, The Best Is Yet To Be, indicates that better things are to come. It is a line from the po...

 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...

How Do They Shape Our Identity? https://unsplash.com/@sagefriedman I’ve been thinking long and hard about this question over the years. I mean, change is inevitable, but how much of that change is influenced by our partners? How much of our core self remains untouched? Do you know? Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? 20 Years ago? No, of course you aren’t, because growth changes our perspective of everything. https://unsplash.com/@anthonytori So how do you maintain the you whom you have crafted so hard to forge, while evolving with adaptations to reality? There are 6 questions below that will help you find the answer. Examining your morals and ethics goes a long way to observing the person within that you want to portray to the world. To help keep your identity intact within the framework of a relationship, I’ve created a fun, anonymous survey that’ll help you define your beliefs. No email required! caleb-george-VL9ugqp_mko-unsplash It’s a blend of thoughtful, deep questions...

Grow Into Love As I see it, a relationship should evolve with experience and maturity just as our preferences in foods and beverages do. Elora Canne: En Route memoir To explain the quote above, we'll start with loving ice cream and later, with a more health conscious awareness, we turn to frozen yoghurt as a delicious alternative.  As age creeps up and with it a broader perspective, green smoothies become the next best thing to improve our health and meet our flavour needs.  Then time wears on and we try an even healthier option – say kombucha – as our bodies begin the journey into our wisdom years. Let's Thrive on our Relationship Journey By and by we realize there really is no magic elixir to prevent life and relationship mishaps, but most importantly of all, the realization hits that all of these beverages we’ve enjoyed along our relationship journey have one thing in common – they have been primarily mixed with water. Bland, tasteless, colorless water. And that is exactly ...

I Have Good News for You So far, you have followed mine and James' progress into blissful mid-life marriage. You've read of our ups and downs through our relationship success, and now I'm overjoyed to share that I've created an ebook for you from our Date Year experiences! https://unsplash.com/@valentinantonucci It's the sequel to my memoir, out later this year, but gives the backstory to our tumultuous young beginnings and into keeping the spark alive through three and a half decades together. It has the same title as the blog, Creating Sparks that Last by Elora Canne. It's available for preorder today, at the link below. I want in!   Here's a Cheeky Joke to Make You Smile It's an old joke that people tell: Women need a  reason  to have sex, men just need a  place . - From Tonja Vallin in her article The Surprising Benefits of Holding Hands - Including Better Sex Here's the full article if you're interested   It's an informative look at the ...

What aspect of relationships would you like to discuss in our new series? Image credit Priscilla du Preez via Unsplash Hi blogger fam, I'm dropping into your inbox on a Monday instead of Friday today - SURPRISE! New Blog Series I'm starting a fresh conversation here on the blog and I'd appreciate your input. But more on that in a minute. The reason for today's post is to let you know that I'll be sending out an email to all my blog fam later in the week. The topic is the same, but I needed to give you a heads-up. The reason for the heads-up is because I'll be sending the email via Mailerlite through my gmail address. If you don't already have me in your inbox, it might mark it as suspicious. It even marked it as suspicious for me when I sent myself a tester email haha. Image credit Harli Marten via Unsplash Navigating relationships can be tricky Tell me I'm not the only one who feels like this, right? And so, I'm excited to launch a brand new series ...

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.                     ...

Goals to Make Your Relationship Zing! Image credit @unsplash by @jonathansborba When James and I completed our Date Year Experiment, we came away with solid ideas of what we wanted our relationship to look like. We set goals to ensure that we got the very best outcome. I'll outline some of them here, along with additional ideas from practicalintimacy.com https://pin.it/1N7Qi1l 🔥 Know your boundaries and limitations:          ❣   As well as knowing your own boundaries and letting your partner figure out theirs, you also   need to know your limitations: own your faults, your shortcomings and areas of   required improvement. Don't try to dictate your partners' limitations to them, this is about you taking ownership of your own stuff. 🔥 Validate your own feelings and emotions:         ❣   Maintaining the status quo to keep the peace is not an option. Name your feelings, name your emotions without having t...

Tentative First Date Our first Date Event was to try to recreate lost memories. Trying to recall what it was I felt for James and how that felt on the inside. I opted for a lunch on our cultural cuisine. It was my hope that the tastes and flavours of our heritage might evoke the excitement of our younger dating days. As we had emigrated from our beloved South Africa 15 years ago, there were many occasions long lost to our past. Whilst I am a firm believer in not living in the past, I am also a firm believer in the fact that blood is thicker than water. The vast stretch of water that we had crossed to get to where we are today was not enough to erase the density of culture flowing through our veins.  The lunch that I chose to rebuild our hopes and dreams on is called Vetkoek. Not as in an animal doctor! The letter ‘V’ is pronounced with an ‘F’ sound. It is an engorged ball of dough deep fried and filled to bursting with savoury mince. Yes, we used to savour them dripping with melted...

 Let me introduce myself as well as my work I felt the need to shake things up in my marriage. My husband and I have been together for over 30 years; that's a Very Long Time to spend with the same person 24/7. Obviously, it can't stay deliriously happy all the time, those feelings wear down after a while, so it's important to find new ways of being. Well, that's what we did and I'm about to divulge our discoveries with you that I have written of each of our date events and what we learnt from each one. I anticipate that you will have lots of ideas of your own to share with us and look forward to reading them in the comments. Creating Sparks That Last - A Mid-Life Date Year Creating Sparks that Last - From Stone Age to Modern Age  Flint is one of the primary materials used to define the Stone Age. Access to flint was so important for survival that people would travel to obtain it. When struck against steel, flint will produce enough sparks to ignite. Flint is hampere...