Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

It’s Not Funny Treating our mental health well like we should our physical health is a necessity. To this end, James and I indulged ourselves with a Gold Class movie night out. We went the whole hog as they say – pre-ordering snacks to be delivered to us periodically through the movie. Lounging back in our recliner chairs sipping on tannin rich merlot, the aroma swirling around my nostrils, I was basking in the sheer opulence.    These are important moments to take for ourselves, and each other.  The movie we chose was Joker. In light of a recent emotional meltdown I had had regarding my career, this was a particularly sensitive story for us to follow. It was a dark storyline with uncomfortable truths to follow, but oh so necessary for us as individuals and for the greater community as a universal whole. Doing something out of the ordinary, watching a movie out of the ordinary nudges us towards growth. Understanding of others. Tolerance towards others. Compassion towards our own state

 “ 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 voice I re

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 square

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'. 

What Is Love? 'Writer seeks 'wife' for a year on a tropical island.' The other day I asked for you, the reader, to define love in one word. I got some thoughtful answers which I'll list below. But before I do that, I want you to ask yourself what love means to you, firstly as an individual and secondly in a partnership. Years ago, when my marriage was still young, I read an autobiography by Lucy Irvine called Castaway (NOT the Tom Hanks movie). This was an intentional project to live on Tuin Island, an uninhabited island off the northernmost coast of Australia, for a year. It began with a male writer advertising for a female to live with him and test their mettle of survival on Tuin Island.   The catch, by Australian Officials standards, was that they had to be married in order to stay on the island. This did not please Lucy as G (as she calls him) expected more than just survival tactics from her. This caused deep introspection on both their parts, making for a del