Bal Simon’s “Heart-Fires”

Coming Soon! Pics from my first Formal Ballroom Dance

Good evening,

A few weekends ago, Donna and I went to a Medal Ball put on by the Seattle chapters of Arthur Murray Dance Studios. What a blast.

Come back soon because I’m going to be posting photos from the dance, where you’ll see me and my beloved.

And I’m going to have another pleasantry for you to. When you see it, you may wonder why I’m including it. The answer is simply this: “How can you say you’ve appreciated life if you’ve never danced?”

Anticipate the fun and informative here at ExtraordinaryInOneWay.com.

- Bal

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Subscribe to “Heart-Fires”. 2 Ways! Do Both.

Good evening…

You can subscribe to my blog via email and through RSS.

The email is easy – there’s a form near the top right of this blog and just enter your first name and email.

You can also get this blog via RSS. See the little icon near at the top right of your browser’s address bar? Looks something like this:

Just click it and you’ll see choices that let you subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed.

The main advantage of subscribing to the announcement email list is that I make special offers and provide special content that you can only find out about that way. It’s a way of rewarding your willingness to walk with me a ways.

Over time, the advantage will become obvious. But you can be one of the early adopters by getting in on the ground floor now.

Welcome aboard!

- Bal

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Opening to new interests

One of the principles I lay out in my book is that it is very important to do things together. (I explain why in my book.)

One of the key ways to do this is to find new things to do. And it is not important that you begin only if the two of you are interested from the get go.

Sometimes one of you will be the initiator and the other the observer. And if the interest blossoms, the observer may well “want in,” which can be beautiful when it happens.

And if not, at least you’re doing something to keep yourself enthused with life, and that brings newness to your marriage, too.

Donna and I are already learning ballroom dancing through Arthur Murray Studios. Other areas I’m starting to explore:

• gardening
• local travel (what with the high cost of fuel – it needs to be local)
• billiards and pool
• collecting – not sure what yet – I’m already a packrat – do I really need more stuff? Well – yes I do.

The point isn’t to list every possibility. The point is to show possibility.

Good marriages are, at least in part, about possibilities; about exploring new things together.

I bid you, good morning.

- Bal

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A Lake to Remember

Good evening,

One of the things I do that helps with the heart-fires is recalling things I recently did with Donna. I don’t do this in order to obtain a specific “heart-fires” result. That would just get in the way. I’m just noticing that it’s something I do, which does produce the result. (And it might produce similar results for you – if you don’t shoot for the result, but just “do it and hope.”

Case in point.

During our weekend get-away, we drove on a day trip that took us past Lake Crescent. We liked it so much that we booked a room for sometime this fall. Looking back on this very recent memory, I mentally connect it to pleasant anticipations of time spent with my wife. How can that not warm the soul?

I noticed something else as I recalled this vacation.

It seems to me that lakes and rivers can set moods. Crater Lake, for example, feels majestic. It sets a very stately, imposing and forbidding mood. It’s a place to look at, but from a distance, and with the respect owed to an aristocrat.

Lake Crescent is different. It’s beauty is also wondrous, but the mood it sets is one of welcome, set a spell, relax and enjoy life. It invites you to come and have a beer or coffee, and walk along its shores, skipping stones if that strikes your fancy. It struck mine, and I had an enjoyable time skipping stones for 10 or 15 minutes.

I recommend visiting this lake when you’re visiting the Olympic Peninsula.

- Bal

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Doing things together

Good afternoon,

And a glorious afternoon you’ll find it here in the greater Seattle area, where it’s cloudy, and a ghost’s whisker shy of 60°.

My wife, Donna, and I just got back from a weekend vacation in Sequim at a delightful bed and breakfast called the Lost Mountain Lodge. We liked it so much that we reserved the same room for some time in August.

This journal zigs and zags in and around the theme of happy marriage. We’ll look at principles, sure; but more, I’ll tell you about some of the things Donna and I do (when we do them) that results in keeping the heart-fires going.

I want you to look at how I wrote the italicized phrase in the above paragraph. I chose my words very carefully, and you should understand why I said it the way I did.

I specifically did not say that we did these things in order to keep the heart-fires going. We didn’t go on vacation because we have this *deep* project (organ music please) of warming the heart-fires.

NO!

We simply enjoy doing things together and we do so more or less effortlessly. But the results are part of the robustness that imbues any good marriage.

- Bal

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