Valentine’s Day Memories

Today, as I look forward to the plans my husband and I have made for this coming Valentine’s weekend, I also find myself looking back, recalling various Valentine’s Days from my past.  From those first pink and red heart-covered shoeboxes filled with little valentines from my elementary school classmates, to the preschool performance of my own son at age three, dressed in a tiny black tux with a red satin bow tie and cummerbund as he pointed directly at me while singing the words, “Valentine, valentine, I love you!”; from the year I was four months pregnant and had pneumonia with a two-year-old who also had pneumonia, to the year I received a phone call that my brother had taken his own life; and from the time I published an article promoting unique local Valentine gifts in my weekly newspaper column, to the time I went with my teenage daughter to a Valentine’s Day performance of the Vagina Monologues, a play which raises money to end violence against women and girls around the world; to say I have experienced many different types of Valentine’s Days is certainly an understatement.

Of course, many of my Valentine’s Day memories are of a more romantic nature.  Some have been hits.  Some have been misses.  Just like everything else in life.  There have been gifts, and poems, and special dinners, but as I sit here reminiscing, there is one Valentine’s Day that stands out for me as being the most romantic.

Vintage valentine I found on a recent outing to an antique store

The surprises of the day began early, as I opened my car door to head off to work.  My husband had covered every surface of the interior of my car with valentines.  Assorted cards that come in a boxed set, the kind that kids exchange at school, were taped to my seats, sun visor, windshield, even the steering wheel.  After admiring them for a few minutes, I carefully removed the cards and placed them in the passenger seat.  That was when I noticed a piece of paper that had a large number “1” printed on it.  Not completely sure what it meant, I put the piece of paper with the cards and drove to work.

The first half of my workday was uneventful, and I was glad when lunchtime arrived.  I joined my co-workers in the conference room where we ate together every day.  After I finished my sandwich, I returned to my office to get started on the pile of paperwork I knew was waiting for me.  I was completely surprised when I opened the door and discovered my office had been completely transformed.  Rose petals were strewn across my desk and chair, there was a large heart-shaped balloon, and, again, there were valentine cards everywhere, including all over the ceiling!  How my husband managed to get them way up there was a mystery, as was his ability to get into my office, especially since the doors to enter the building were always kept locked during our lunch period.  A few minutes later, the office manager appeared in my doorway and told me how he helped my husband sneak in while I was eating.  Everyone in the office had heard about what happened and came to get a peek.  Once the excitement died down, I opened the gigantic card that was propped up on a chair to see the number “2” written inside.  This was starting to get fun and it made me wonder if there would be any more surprises.

I worked for the remainder of the afternoon and had an uneventful dinner with my husband and children.  After the kids were in bed, I went out on my back deck for a few minutes.  When I turned to open the door, I could see there was a trail of rose petals on the carpet inside the house.  I was amazed at how stealthy my husband had become, wondering how I didn’t see him or hear him even though I was just on the other side of the glass door.  I looked for him, once I was inside the house, but couldn’t find him.  I followed the rose petal trail from the family room addition, through the kitchen, down the hallway, and into the bedroom where my husband stood. The petals continued up onto the bed where they ended with a bouquet of one dozen red roses, chocolates, a very poetic and romantic card and a piece of paper with a large number “3” printed on it, along with the words “Third time’s a charm”.  And, yes, indeed it was.

Hope you find lots of fairy-tale romance in your real world marriage.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Please share your thoughts and “like” my posts here and at www.facebook.com/belleoftheballpoint . For great Valentine’s Day ideas, check out my boards at www.pinterest.com/nancyrose9 . You may also reach me at nancy.rose9@comcast.net

Return to a Place of Romance

There is such a sense of sadness that goes along with the end of romance.  This is true, not only in regard to the demise of a relationship, but also with the loss of the idea of love as it was once found in an image, a moment in time, or even entwined in the memory of a particular place. This week, I am grieving the death of romance as it existed in a setting and an era that have passed.

I am sure some of my readers are familiar with the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.  Some of you may also remember two well known honeymoon destinations located there, Penn Hills Resort and the Mount Airy Lodge.

Penn Hills Resort, which started out in the 1940’s and expanded in the 60’s with the addition of a golf course and ski resort, was known for romance and passion.  Many of us recall the resort’s advertisements and jingle, “For lovers only.  If you’re in love, you’ll love Penn Hills!” Romantic dining, dancing, private heart-shaped Jacuzzi bathtubs, and an outdoor swimming pool in the shape of a wedding bell helped set the stage for many romantic getaways.

Photo I took in 1986 of the heart-shaped tub in my suite at Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos.

Mount Airy Lodge was even better.  For more than fifty years, couples flocked to this resort, which not only had its own bright red heart-shaped tubs, but, in their Palace suites (where I stayed in 1986), there were private swimming pools and fireplaces in the room!  During its heyday, Mount Airy’s Crystal Room, a 2,000 seat showplace, hosted entertainers like Milton Berle and Bob Hope.  Over the years, guests enjoyed skiing, ice-skating, horseback riding, hiking, archery, golf, and lots of other activities in addition to the passion stoked by roaring fires and plush, round beds.

My stay at Mount Airy Lodge was a surprise birthday trip/ romantic weekend that I arranged for my husband.  The mountains were beautiful with their autumn foliage, the food and champagne and dancing were good, and the getaway was very romantic.  In fact, I had such a wonderful time; I fully intended to go back there for a longer vacation.

Unfortunately, that day never came and now, sadly, it never will.  I assumed the Mount Airy Lodge, which had been around for more than a half-century, would continue to attract couples looking for romance.  But, as time went on, people started going other places, the headliners left for Atlantic City, the huge mortgage became overwhelming, and the place became run-down.  In an article I just happened to accidentally run across only a few days ago, I read how the owner took his own life the day before the foreclosure hearing, and the Mount Airy Lodge shut its doors for good in 2001.  Penn Hills had a similar fate, several years later, also falling into disrepair.  I saw horrible photos of it, stripped and crumbling, with plants and mold growing all over various parts of the old resort.  It really broke my heart.

I’m not sure why it took me so long to discover the fate of these former destinations of love and romance.  I guess I was just busy with other things.  I wish it hadn’t happened.  I wish I could go back.  Why do we take so many things for granted?

It’s just like all of the sights I meant to see whenever I lived in various places throughout the country.  I would learn of an attraction, a museum, or some natural wonder nearby and think to myself, “I’ll have to go there one of these days”.  And, although I did make it to some of those places, there were others I missed because I figured I lived there and had plenty of time to get to them.

How about you? Are there places you have been meaning to visit?  Why not make plans with your spouse to go.  Even better, are there any places that represent romance to you?  How about where you met your spouse, the site of your first date, the place you were when your spouse first kissed you.  Maybe the two of you went on a special weekend away from home?  Or the site where you or your spouse proposed?

Take a moment to think about the settings where your romantic memories came to life.  Consider visiting one or more of those locations with your spouse as soon as possible.  If they are far away and it is not possible to travel to your special spots, at least plan to relive the memories with each other by looking at photos of the places or at least reminiscing together about what those places mean to you.  Relive the romance and the love of your shared past, using those feelings to bring you and your spouse closer together in the present.  If you do, you will be taking one more step toward putting some fairy-tale romance back into your real world marriage.

Please leave a comment about the place you would most like to return to with your spouse.

Also remember to scroll down until you find the “Follow” button, enter your email, and reply to the confirmation email, so that you can receive one new post each week via email from Belle of the Ballpoint.  It’s free and offers tips on ways you can find more romance in your relationship.  Also please “like” my posts on www.facebook.com/belleoftheballpoint and check out my boards on www.pinterest.com/nancyrose9  You may also reach me at nancy.rose9@comcast.net

Date Ideas to Warm Your Heart

Staring out the window at trees wearing only half of their leaves, while sipping hot Darjeeling tea, I am almost fooled into believing it is cold outside.  While it is January and my friends further north have been dealing with freezing temperatures for a few weeks, it is a comfy 79 degrees where I live.  Although it is expected to get cooler on the weekend, it will still be a far cry from feeling like winter.  And yet, I yearn to do something different for fun, something that I wouldn’t do in the middle of summer.

Heart carved from ice I found at the attraction: ICE! featuring the Nutcracker at the Gaylord Palms Orlando

Whether you are someplace cold or in a tropical climate, your romantic life can grow stale, if you don’t try something new once in a while.  The following winter date ideas offer some suggestions of things you can do with your spouse during the colder months.  Although a few of these require snow, many of these suggestions can be carried out regardless of the climate in which you reside.

1. Enjoy a coffee tasting. Go on a search for the perfect cup, either by going to different coffee shops and sampling the different types or buying several flavors and brewing them at home. The same thing works just as well with tea. A few years ago, my husband and I signed up for a tea seminar and tasting. Not only did we learn about all of the different kinds of tea, we had fun finding out which ones we both liked and joking about the ones that were awful!
2. Take a drive to the nearest city and search out a little culture by going to a concert, museum, play, or art gallery.
3. Go ice skating, sledding, have a snowball fight, build a snowman, or make snow angels followed by hot chocolate.
4. Rent movies with a winter theme like, Trans-Siberian, North Face, Grumpy Old Men, Fargo, Into the White, Whiteout, Love Actually, Frozen, or Doctor Zhivago, and snuggle up under a blanket with your spouse.
5. Go to a comedy club.
6. Warm up in some hot springs or a hot tub.
7. Go to a hockey game.
8. Head to a ski resort for the afternoon and take snowboarding lessons or go snowshoeing.
9. Go antiquing or visit thrift stores or used bookstores in search of special treasures.
10. Take a cooking class together. If none are offered in your area, there are several really good courses available on DVD that you can order online. Just pop in the DVD, have some fun preparing the food with each other, light some candles, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

This week, give one of these ideas a try or come up with your own favorite winter date.  I’d love to hear how it goes.  Please leave a comment or email me at nancy.rose9@comcast.net

Intentions of the Heart

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.   -Peter Drucker

One of the most difficult parts of writing a blog is typing that all-important first sentence, each and every week.  For many writers, it is a task even more daunting than coming up with topics to write about.  For me, I believe some of the pressure comes from knowing that, not only does the first thing I jot down influence the direction of everything I write after, but it also determines whether my audience will be interested enough to keep reading.  Finding the right words, an engaging topic, a good title, and even taking an eye-catching photo (with a heart in it), for every post is a lot of work, not to mention getting all of that loaded onto the site of my blog and following through with the behind-the-scenes labor, such as promoting my work on Facebook, and Pinterest, and Twitter, as well as within writing groups, classes, and with people in general.

While I would expect most people wouldn’t consider everything that goes into writing a blog, there is one thing I am very glad my readers realize.  I am thankful they notice when I haven’t written.  Many of you contacted me during the past few weeks, checking to see why you weren’t receiving your weekly email with my newest post, asking if there was a problem with your email, or my blog, or with me.  First of all, I would like to thank those who took the time to contact me.  I cannot begin to express what it meant to me to hear that you enjoy my blog and that you missed reading it.

Ornament photo submitted by a reader for the spouse ornament challenge in the December 5th post. Love the heart!

After posting for 36 straight weeks, I would like to say it was the holidays that got me off track.  While it is true that finding and wrapping the perfect gifts, decorating, baking, cooking, and attending special events did take their toll on my time, and I did choose to spend as much of my days as I could with my loved ones, I probably still could have fit in some writing if I really tried.  I wanted to write.  I thought about it several times.  I guess part of me was tired and didn’t want to work that hard.  Maybe I was being lazy.  Maybe I just needed a break.  And, now, maybe the brand new year is an opportunity for me to get off to a fresh start, one that is full of more than good intentions.

How many of us could say exactly the same thing about romance in our marriage?  Many of us have ideas about the things we would like to do, ideas of having regular date nights, communicating more with our spouse, surprising them with romantic gestures, and going off together on little getaways.  For some reason, our good intentions get derailed and we don’t follow through.  We allow other obligations to get in the way.  We’re too tired.  We don’t want to put in all of that effort.  Maybe we just don’t get around to it.  And, before we know it, we have drifted further away from our plans to improve our marriage and, perhaps, even further away from our spouse.

The best thing about a new year is it can be a time of new beginnings.  I challenge you to make a commitment along with me.  While I come up with the first sentence for every new blog post, you come up with that one all-important action you will take each week to add some romance to your marriage and then DO IT! Why?  Because, just like the first sentence in my writing, a romantic gesture directed toward your spouse can set the tone of everything that comes after and can determine if you hold your spouse’s interest until the end of your love story.

No first effort is too small.  If you need help, you can search the suggestions offered in my blog (read back through a few of my past 36 posts for ideas) or from many other great sources that are out there.  The important part is to do more than just think about it.  It may be hard work at first, but it will get easier as you go along.  If you miss a week or even a few, don’t give up.  Simply start over again, taking one action per week.  It is my hope and my prayer for you, dear readers, that you will be able to turn the good intentions of your heart into behaviors, filling your real world marriage with fairy-tale romance throughout 2015.  Happy New Year and wishing you lots of love in the year ahead!

Mementos of Love

Sometimes the littlest actions can make the most impact, especially when it comes to creating traditions that will help you and your spouse bond.  This week, I would like to share one of my favorites.  Not only is this tradition easy to keep up, since you only have to do something once a year, but it is never too late to start, regardless of how long the two of you have been together.

In our case, the custom began before we were even married.  Every single year, since our very first Christmas together (while we were still dating), my husband and I have presented each other with an ornament on Christmas Eve.  It is important to note that these have not been just any old decoration or trinket, but something special that was deliberately selected because it either conveyed our feelings or helped us to recall the memories of good times we had together.

The first ornament my husband gave me was a snowman family standing together.  There were four snow people: a man, a woman, a little boy, and a little girl.  At the time, I was a divorced mother with, you guessed it, a young son and a daughter.  Although my husband did not propose to me for a few more months, it was his way of telling me he hoped we would become a family.

Ornament I gave my husband on our first Christmas as a married couple in 1999

Many of our ornaments over the years have been like this one, a simple expression of how we felt about one another.  They have included a serious pewter heart adorned with double wedding rings and the words “Our First Christmas” which I had engraved with the message “I Love You Greg!” and gave to my husband on the first holiday after our wedding, and a silly ornament from another year with the cartoon skunk, Pepé Le Pew, chasing the girl cat toward a big coffee mug that says “I Love You a Latte”.

There’s a little yellow smiley face couple kissing, drawn together by magnets that are located inside, and another ornament that is a cup of hot cocoa with a male and female marshmallow that plays a recording of a sexy male voice asking if she’s hot.

Some of our other ornaments reflect our specific interests and our spouse’s acknowledgement that these are things we like.  When I owned a bookstore, my husband gave me an ornament that had a stack of classic books on it.  Another time, he gave me one that looked like a box of my favorite chocolates and another that was made by Thomas Kinkade.  I gave him two of his favorite team, the Redskins, an ESPN Sports Center Santa, and one with the Grinch, a cartoon character he really likes.

We have ornaments that make us both smile, like the one that is a miniature replica of the house from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and plays the “Hallelujah Chorus” when the little Christmas lights come on, or the beautifully crafted glass donkey I gave my husband one year because he was being so stubborn.

Some of the best ornaments of all are the ones that represent some place we went or an activity we enjoyed together.  There’s the little jeweled teapot that reminds us of the tea seminar and tasting we attended, and the one of Moses that makes us laugh every year when my husband yells, “Let my people go!” as he hangs it on the tree, a shared memory of something he did to capture the attention of a bunch of sixth graders when he and I taught Sunday School together.

Since we are both Disney freaks, we have more than our share of Mickey ornaments, including ones from various Walt Disney World Resorts where we have stayed, one with a photo of our family in costume when we attended the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and one of Mickey Mouse’s house that lights up and plays music.

We even have an ornament that represents our move from Virginia to our present town, a pretty green ball with our current town’s logo on it.  Looking at that ornament reminds us of the difficulties we overcame to get here and how we achieved a goal together.

And that is the best part of this tradition.  Each year, as we unwrap the ornaments and place each one on the tree, we share a memory, a laugh, and an appreciation of all of the Christmases, the years, and the experiences we have made it through with each other.

I challenge each of my readers to start this custom.  This year, buy an ornament for your spouse that represents something you have done together, or that has been important to the two of you.  It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it has meaning to you.  Please take a photo of the ornament before you wrap it and send it to me at nancy.rose9@comcast.net before December 21^st. One or more photos will be selected to be published in my Christmas Day post.

If you enjoyed this post, please “like” or leave a comment.  Remember to hit “follow” and enter your email address.  After responding to the confirmation email, you will receive one email per week with a new post.  Thanks again and I hope you find more fairy-tale romance in your real world marriage.

Growing an Entwined Life

Today is my husband’s birthday.  Next week is Thanksgiving.  Before I know it, Christmas will be here.  So many occasions in such a short period of time, with each of them requiring some kind of special effort involving food, and gifts, and decorations, and other preparations to help us celebrate.  Of course, the endless duties of regular life don’t disappear just because of a holiday.  And even though I always manage to get everything done, sometimes I find myself wondering if it is all more trouble than it’s worth.

This year, I thought about simply going out to eat at a restaurant for Thanksgiving.  It seemed very appealing at first, especially when considering it would mean no cleaning the house, no figuring out every detail and ingredient of the menu, no baking, no cooking, no dragging out the good china and crystal to set a beautiful table, and no dishes for my husband to wash (yes, he does do the dishes, bless his heart).  Hubby and I could rest and take it easy, our only task consisting of opening a menu and placing our orders or making our way up to the buffet.  Then, after sufficiently stuffing ourselves, we could go home and take a nice, long nap.

It sounded like the perfect holiday to me.  For some reason, our grown children did not agree.  Our son, who recently started a new job, was unable to provide us with his work schedule, making it impossible to come up with the specific time necessary to make dining reservations at restaurants that book up early, particularly on a day like Thanksgiving.  Our daughter not only wanted what she refers to as “home food”, but also requested that we continue a new tradition we started last year, when we spent Thanksgiving weekend in a small cabin in the middle of a pine and cypress forest.

Bamboo plant I found in a shop. I love how it forms a heart and is growing together!

So, you guessed it, next week my husband and I will not only be doing everything we normally do for the holiday, but we will also be packing up our clothes, as well as all of the pots and pans, measuring cups and spoons, cutlery, aluminum foil, serving pieces, and, of course, the turkey and all of the ingredients to make our Thanksgiving meal in a tiny kitchen in a little cabin in the woods.

As I try to remember what else we took last year, I recall how we strung a few Christmas lights on the railing of the cabin’s deck.  We also took along some charcoal, a tablecloth for the outdoor picnic table, and the fixings to make S’mores and hot dogs on the grill, during our third evening in the cabin, after we had grown tired of eating turkey.

Now that I think about it, we did have fun last year.  Besides the cabins, there were people camping in RVs and some of them went all out in decorating their sites.  We took walks, went fishing, ate a big country breakfast, and looked at the stars.  And then there were the leftovers.  There’s nothing quite like a midnight snack of pumpkin pie and a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce.  We wouldn’t be able to get that if we went to a restaurant.

I’m glad my kids are holding me to our family traditions.  Even though some of our holiday customs have been in our family since the kids were little, some were added just last year, and we may include something new this year and in the years ahead, the important thing is that we are having experiences together that are helping us bond, make memories, and find a way of doing things to form and grow our identity as a family.

I have decided I would like it to be the same way within my marriage.  We already do have a few traditions.  For example, every New Year’s Eve we toast each other with sparkling grape juice and make sure we give each other a kiss on the stroke of midnight.  President’s Day weekend has become a time when my husband and I go away alone together to a hotel for a mini romantic vacation.  We snuggle up together with a mug of hot cocoa on the first cold day of each year.  I know that my husband will bake brownies for me on every one of my birthdays and he will give me Godiva dark chocolate on Christmas and Valentine’s Day, just as he knows I will get him his favorite coffee ice cream cake on his birthday.  We each get to choose the restaurant we want for our own birthday dinner.  Every Thanksgiving morning, we can be found watching the Macy’s parade on television together before all of the cooking begins.  We have spent a part of many of our anniversaries watching our wedding video.  We always hold hands when we walk together and as we sit in church.  On the fourth of July, we can be found somewhere watching fireworks and on Easter, we go out to brunch after church.  We have also maintained collections over the years, including wine corks from special dinners and Disney pins that commemorate some special event, or a hotel, or restaurant, or other memory we enjoyed together at Walt Disney World.  Just looking through our collection of pins together brings back the memories and the good feelings associated with the fun times we had with each other.

There is something special about keeping the same practices.  And even though I want to keep every single one of ours, I think it is a good idea to add a few new customs once in awhile, just to keep things fresh and to keep us growing even more connected to each other.  This year, I added something new to make my husband’s birthday a little more special.  I sent him several emails throughout the day with images I found on the internet, some funny and some serious quotes wishing him a happy birthday.  I even found a romantic video on YouTube, complete with music, images of couples walking along a beach, and printed words that expressed how much I loved him.  I think he liked it because, not only did he send me an email telling me how romantic it was, but he told me how he thought about the emails all the way home from work.

Another addition I am considering involves making a romance journal in which we can keep pictures and record notes of romantic dinners, dates, and memories and then setting aside time to look through the scrapbook with each other.  My husband suggested that we take a picture as a couple each year on Valentine’s Day or our wedding anniversary and put them all in a photo album so that we can see ourselves growing old together.

Regardless of whether or not you currently have romantic traditions, it is never too late for you to add some.  The activities and the time spent with your spouse will help you become more entwined as a couple, growing roots made up of happy memories that will help keep your marriage strong and bring more joy into your life.

Please leave a comment about this post or share some of your favorite romantic traditions.  If you enjoyed this blog and would like to receive an email with a new post each week, please remember to sign up to follow Belle of the Ballpoint.  You may also reach me at nancy.rose9@comcast.net