Don’t let the romance disappear because your pockets and wallet don’t run deep. Here’s five ways you can still have a wonderful time together without the hassle of long lines and spending a fortune. So, grab your honey and have your own little escape.

Five Romantic Ways to Spend Time With Your Love That Won’t Cost You a Bundle

1. Romanic movie marathon

My top ten picks:

1. Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)

2. Dirty Dancing (1987)

3. When Harry Met Sally (1989)

4. Pretty Woman (1990)

5. City of Angels (1998)

6. Sweet November (2001)

7. Kate and Leopold (2001)

8. Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

9. The Notebook (2004)

10. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

2. Your Own Fondue! Prepare your very own chocolate covered fruit desert and feed each other deliciousness!

First, buy some of your favorite fruits. Choose from either or all fruits, like cherries, fresh strawberries, pineapple, blueberries or apples.

If you are your snuggle buddy aren’t fruit fanatics, or simply want to try something new, you can get walnuts, almonds, and pecans and dip away!

Next, get some dark, milk, and or white melting chocolate. If you are going to use the pineapple and apples, cut them up into edible slices. Place all your fruit pieces or nuts into a large bowl and start dipping into the chocolate delight! Whatever the fruit or nut may be, chocolate makes it much tastier!

3. Picnic for two. Have a picnic in the park or even in your backyard if you have a lawn with privacy. Leave all electronic devices at home, or if you must, leave them in the car. If you’re driving there, leave the car parked, and take a stroll through the park first. Then come back for your meal. This is your time together. There is nowhere to rush to so enjoy each moment together. If you’re feeling adventurous, bring along two bikes and you can both ride together. If you happen to live near New York City, take a walk through Central Park, where you can find your own cozy spot just for the two of you. Or, if you are up for the walk, cross over the Brooklyn Bridge. There are breathtaking view of New York and perfect spots of photos.

4. Sale Sale Sale! Look through the local paper for listings of garage sales, flea markets, farmer’s markets or even an arts and crafts show. You don’t have to buy anything, but just can spend the morning or afternoon looking at antiques and other peoples treasures. Who knows what you may find!

5. Touchy Feely Time. Massages these days can cost a fortune. Why pay the money, when you can have your own, free of charge at home-by yours truly? Take turns giving each other a massage, slowly, showing your partner you care about their needs. Both of you have had a hard week at work, and need the down time to rest and unwind. You can use lotion or oil, depending on what your partner prefers.

 Remember, being romantic doesn’t mean you have to spend your whole paycheck in one night. Take the time to talk to one another and understand what each of you needs and wants. Romance doesn’t have a price tag. Spending time together, making each other laugh, and listening to one another’s thoughts and feelings is as intimate as you can get. Go ahead, and enjoy!

Getting Warmed Up

Jane: Of all the genres out there to write about, what drives you to write about erotic romantic suspense?

Lisa Marie Rice: In erotica, the point of the novel, its core mission, is sex. A depiction of sex. Many erotica books are beautifully written, evocative, wonderful studies in the psychology of sex, often lush journeys into a rich inner world. That’s their core mission—to evoke sex.

The core mission of a romance is to bring a man and a woman together, show their burgeoning love, how they overcome the obstacles. Romantic suspense is the love story where the hero and heroine also have to overcome danger. Erotic romantic suspense is the same, only there’s a more complete description of the physical bond.

I simply cannot imagine a more exciting genre to write. Falling in love is the quintessential human act and without love everything falls apart. It is the sine qua non of being human. I’m lucky in that publishing now accepts the full description of what happens between two people falling in love, something that wouldn’t have been possible in the romance community twenty years ago. So you can follow what’s happening in their bodies and not just their hearts and minds. Also, I get to layer danger over the excitement of the love affair. It’s a very dangerous world out there. The hero and heroine have to prevail over tremendous odds.

It’s a very hopeful genre, too. I love it.

Jane: Some people do not understand the value words have to us. As opposed to romance on a screen, what kind of power does erotic romance have through words for you?

Lisa Marie Rice: There’s not too much romance on a screen. Erotic romance wouldn’t really work too well in cinema because an erotic romance novel takes you deep into the heart of the couple, shows the emotional bonds as they are forming, while also showing in detail the physical relationship. This is the gift of novels, it is not the gift of cinema. Cinema’s strengths lie elsewhere.

Jane: How does writing erotic romance keep you young?

Lisa Marie Rice: When I write, I write in what is technically known as ‘deep third’—i.e., from the point of view of the character. I go so deeply inside the character’s head, it is if the scene were written by the character him or herself. Using the words they’d choose, feeling their emotions as they would. It’s a wonderful process for a writer putting herself in someone else’s head (almost as wonderful as reading a good novel and being in a characters’ head). I’m not young anymore but I can easily put myself back into the head of someone young. Someone facing life and love and danger boldly, with courage. Because it takes a lot of courage to fall in love. A writer leads two entirely separate lives. One as a sedate professional with all the bourgeois accoutrements, sitting alone in a study typing away. The other is the Wild Woman inside, living life to the full, falling madly in love, facing deathly danger. Over and over again. It’s great.

Jane: What do you love most about writing an erotic romance scene and the freedom you have when it comes to the language you can use?

Lisa Marie Rice: I shouldn’t say this, but oh man, I have the best time writing my books. I have a lot of fun with the men. My men are tough and they are not politically correct, in any way. They don’t dance around things, trying to be polite. They are also quite profane in their head when describing anything to do with sex.

Falling in love completely blindsides them. They stutter, they lose their cool, they don’t have any kind of grasp of what is happening to them because it is new, intense and at first not even welcome. It upsets their equilibrium. And there is always a moment when they realize, inside their heads, that they are no longer having sex. They are making love.

But boy do I have fun with their language and do I have fun watching them stumble and fall.

Click below to keep reading…

Into The Crossfire

Jane: Is there a specific individual(s) in your life that influenced your dedicated, protective, loving, strong willed and minded characters for Sam Reston and his two brothers (best friends)?

Lisa Marie Rice: Yes, several men I admire tremendously. But all you have to do is look around you. We tend to bad mouth men but there are so many courageous and dedicated men, who protect their families and have a strong moral core. Men like Sam Reston and Harry Bolt (look for his story in April 2011, Hotter than Wildfire) and Mike Keillor are the true pillars of society. Not because they are respectable but because they will not bend.

Jane: Your character Nicole Pearce, is not only a stunningly beautiful woman, but is committed to taking care of her ill father, intelligent and passionate about her work and about Sam. What did you love most about creating her as a character?

Lisa Marie Rice: I fell in love with Nicole. What I admire most about her is her centeredness. Her absolute sense of right and wrong. She had a great life with a great job and when she heard her father was sick, she had no hesitation in giving everything up and turning her life around to care for him. She has her priorities straight. And that’s what she recognizes in Sam (when she recovers from the sex). He, too, has a strong moral center and his priorities are hers. Family first. Protect the weak. Be loyal to your friends. Never compromise your values.

Jane: Each and every one of us deserves to be protected and loved whole-heartedly. What qualities about a man who protects and keeps women and children safe do you find to be the most sexy and sensual?

Lisa Marie Rice: When I hear of a man simply walking away from a wife and children because he’s bored or because there’s a new woman who’s more exciting than the old one, I want to scream. Love and family are such precious things. What I adore about my men is that they understand this, absolutely and thoroughly. They do not take for granted, in any way, the love in their lives. They will never get bored, they will never stray. They are committed for life, and that’s exactly the way they want it.

This is, believe it or not, incredibly sexy. To have a desirable and strong man focused on you and committed to you…well, swoon.

Jane: Would you recommend reading your new novel, Into The Crossfire as a couple for those looking to strengthen their relationship with one another? If so, why?

Lisa Marie Rice: Since I’m a strong believer in family and my books are all about overcoming difficulties, I can’t imagine a couple going wrong reading Into the Crossfire together. If nothing else, it will reinforce what they probably feel. What we have together is worth protecting.

Jane: For those aspiring to write erotic romance, what is the best piece of advice you can give them if they are struggling?

Lisa Marie Rice: If you want to write erotic romance, just…go over the top. Let your fantasy roam. Think of the most outrageously romantic situations you can, then go further. Then take the hero and heroine to bed. Follow them in their heads as they learn to intertwine their lives and hearts and bodies. Make it romantic, make it sexy. You can’t go wrong.

Jane: Also, for those readers and writers who may want to reach out to you, what is the best way to get in contact with you?

Lisa Marie Rice: I love to hear from readers. I get some of the most amazing email. So write me at lisamarierice@hotmail.com

And I have a minisite on the Avon Red website.

Get in touch! I’d love to hear from you!

           Take a deep breath and prepare to immerse your mind and body to fall in love with the ferocious passion, devotion and powerful compassion two individuals can have for one another, in Lisa Marie Rice’s premier in her Protector series romance, Into The Crossfire. Rice tastefully weaves danger intertwined with a love so strong that it drives a former Navy SEAL, Sam Reston to take all his prior training and do everything in his power and beyond to save Nicole Pearce, the woman that sends his body, mind, and heart into shock.

            Reston, founder of Reston Security with the help of his two best friends, also known as his brothers, and also ex-Special Forces agents, is nothing less of extraordinary. Although at first glance, his demeanor may seem intimidating and his strong willed physique sends the wrong message to Pearce, a stunning woman, both physically and in her dedication to care for her ill father and keep afloat of her brand new company. Reston had a harsh childhood growing up, with two negligent mother’s and made a promise to himself to protect women and children from harm. Now, his life revolves around protecting battered women and children and keeping them safe from violent creatures, who are beneath what a genuine man is. While Reston is on an undercover job, he manages to avert his attention to the alluring beauty across the hall from him, and makes it his duty to make her his- no matter what the consequences.

          Although Reston has had his fair share of beautiful women, none of them even dare to compare to the breath taking gorgeous woman that walks past his office every morning. His desire for her is burning inside him and consumes his thoughts and his sexual yearning. Pearce, a well traveled and educated, intelligent and politely mannered woman sees nothing but a dingy, unshaven and in a desperate need for a head to toe grooming, huge bulk of a man. When Sam comes to her rescue after she leaves her office key at home, her payment to him comes in the form of a dinner that leads to a ground shaking and skin pulsating relationship.

Click below to continue reading…

       Underneath all of Sam’s undercover grime, Nicole finds a handsome, honest and honorable man. They both plunge head first into the unknown that leaves them gasping for more of each other.

Excerpt:

           It was unthinkable that there be anything separating them. It was as if they both came to that conclusion together, at the very same instant. She reached up, swept his jacket off those broad shoulders. Her shaking fingers tugged at his tie and before it floated to the ground, she was at this shirt buttons, freeing the round bits of plastic from the eyeholes, pulling the tails out from his pants. She couldn’t take off his shirt because his hands were on her bottom, holding her up, so the shirt fell off his shoulders just enough for her to feel the curly chest hairs and hard muscles of his chest against her. It was maddening that she still had the barriers of her dress and bra between them. She ached to feel him, hard to soft. Absorb some of that strength and heat through her skin.

          Nicole, whose whole body is utterly rattled in the most profound way, tries desperately to comprehend what Sam means to her. Despite being preoccupied with tending to her father and building up her company, nothing can keep her away from Sam. The fierce bond Reston and Pearce share is beyond sexual intimacy and is tested in the final seconds he must protect her. Sam’s animal instinct hunger for Nicole may have been physical at first, but his whole world becomes blurred with only her in focus, when danger quietly slips into her business door, threatening her life and the innocent lives in New York. With the help of his brothers, Reston must step head on into the crossfire, to save the life of the woman his body and intellect aches for, her dying father, and New York.

Purchase your copy here.

Also, be on the look out for an exclusive interview with the author, Lisa Marie Rice! 

But that does not mean that I don’t think about the concept of marriage. A lot. When the initial thinking started my original opinion was:  Meet boy, fall in love, get married before it’s too late. That was my thought process at 19. (I know,  scary.) It’s what my mother silently taught me; it’s what society taught me. (Not to marry young, that dating in general is accompanied with these expectations of an evident something.)

And no, I am not trying to combat the fundamentals of marriage. I think marriage is a beautiful thing. But I do think a large number of persons are getting married because it’s “time,” because if you don’t take that next step, then it’s time to break up. And that is where the problem lies. If you’re getting married because you don’t want to break up, all that means is that you’re afraid of change. It’s the same thing as eating a hot-dog every day for lunch since it’s what you’re accustomed to, but instead, you’re marrying that hot-dog.

And as for having  ”cold feet” at the altar…fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. There are times when “cold feet,” is spot on. Sometimes the body is telling you things that the brain already knows, but you don’t listen because everyone is so busy with writing it off as “cold feet.”

And u-turning back to my previous assumptions of dating, I had that super wrong. I think it takes a very long time for everyone to mature, to be able to understand one’s self, and to have realistic expectations from romantic partners. I get that none of us are getting any younger, but I don’t think rushing the process pays off in the long run.

A person should get married when the epiphany befalls upon her (or him) that whomever she’s with brings out the best in her. When that person makes you want to do small things simply for the sake of his/her happiness. The words “love” and “appreciation” tend to be interchangeable to me. What’s love when you can’t show it? It’s a meaningless word without the supporting proof.

What I just wrote, those are the only reasons why anyone should get married. Oh, and it helps if you can stand the person.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 a cup of Affection

A pinch of cuddles

3 tablespoons of pure sweetness

A great big kiss

2 Hearts Full of Love

2 Heaping Cups of Kindness

2 Armfuls of Gentleness

2 Cups of Friendship

2 Cups of Joy

1 Lifetime of Togetherness

2 Minds Full of Tenderness

DIRECTIONS:

Stir daily with Happiness, Humor and Patience.

Serve with Warmth and Compassion, Respect and Loyalty.

Keep beauty in your marriage

BY Dorris Ellis

Love is a beautifier. Your marriage should grow more beautiful each year if you never loose sight of the thing that brought  you together—you’re attraction for each other.

If your husband thinks you are a good cook, that’s wonderful. If he thinks you are a good housekeeper, that’s wonderful, too. But, if he continues to think you are the nicest person to be with, that’s the most wonderful thought of all.

When you are single your beauty habits are unusually locked in the privacy of your own room. Once you marry, you acquire a roommate. Unless you learn to adjust your beauty routine to this new life, your husband will think he’s a one-man audience who wandered backstage. A little thoughtfulness on your part will help to preserve the illusion of your glamour. Here are some suggestions that may help:

Let’s talk about getting ready for sleep. Never be too busy or too tired to neglect your evening bath. This is the time to apply a mild deodorant and follow it with a soothing rubdown with your favorite cologne.

To read more tips, click below.

Choose a fresh, attractive nightgown. If you prefer pajamas make sure they are cut on feminine lines. Mannish-looking pajamas are fine for a single girl to wear. But you are married now, and a husband would rather see his wife wearing something dainty and feminine. When you are through in the bathroom, give it a thorough inspection to make sure everything is in spic-and-span order before your husband takes over. That’s a subtle way to encourage him to be just  as neat and considerate  as you are.

If you have to set your hair every night, it might be disillusioning to your husband to see you with a headful of hardware. Use a lightweight hairnet over your pins (it was much better to look like you are about to start flipping burgers apparently) , curlers or clips to keep them in place; then keep them out of sight with either of these cover-ups.  1.) A piece of pastel tulle would around your head and tied in a frivolous, frothy bow. Like a closely knit turban or a quaint lacy sleep cap tied with satin ribbon chin straps.

How do you look without makeup? Unless you are so devoid of natural color that you look frightening, don’t be overly vain and feel that you must wear makeup whenever you are with your husband. If you have an excessively sallow complexion and colorless lips and feel self-conscious about your appearance in the morning, the author actually suggests  putting makeup on before going to bed!

She recommends: outline your lips with a special formula pink lipstick that will not smear, so as to add a blush of color and won’t come off on he bed linen.

The wife of an unfaithful husband must recognize that she may be partly to blame. But she shouldn’t take *all* the guilt on her own shoulders. Dr. Margaret Mead, noted sociologist, states that it is every wife’s obligation to make herself continually desirable to her husband. But it is also every husband’s obligation not to put himself in positions where other women may become desirable to him.

“This means never going out in mixed company without his wife,” Dr. Mead warns. “Where there is freedom to divorce, there is freedom for either casual relationships, or passionate extra-marital love of any sort.”

The best remedy of all for infidelity is prevention.

The best person in the home prevent it is you. The best person outside the home to prevent it is your husband. THE END