Hey Opt, get a couple damn kayaks and go with her... Guarantee you will enjoy it!

Hey opt.

Have you heard back from the Harleys yet?

Hey Schtoop! I went with her once last year and enjoyed it much. We plan to try and do it more this year infact maybe this weekend. I could use the UB workout too!

BH, I haven't got an email but someone called from that area code yesterday (my folks still live in MN as well), so it could have been them. I couldn't answer and they didn't leave a message. I know they're so busy. I'll report in if I get anything definitive.

opt

Hey opt.

Have you heard back from the Harleys?

Brain, yes in fact I spoke with Joyce a couple days ago. She is so nice. The night before I called back on a message I had received on my phone and Dr. Harley himself answered.

It's wild to talk to someone who, through their writing and then through an informal radio show, and through the interpretation of so many here have had such a profound affect on my life. Absolutely wild.

It's humbling to know there are such kind and generous people in the world. I seem to be surrounded in my life by greed and corruption at times. Debuachery and drinking, sex on t.v.; maybe the infidelity and waywardness I was experiencing for so many years blinded me or desensitized me to what goes on in this world, or maybe being away from it has brought out a certain cynisism. These guys have assuredly made enough money that they could be sitting out on a yaght somewhere in the Carribean, no problem. But they choose to hang around and give away the store with free books, free information, free advice on the radio, spending time that they could use elsewhere...it's very inspiring.

We are set up to have a call on Monday am. I'm going to try to conference NatureGirl in on the call, but I'm not great at technology, so it might not work.

Here's something interesting: the letter itself was written by me. On my own time, without input from NG. Makes it Independent Behavior, doesn't it? (In fact NG took issue with a couple points and we wound up having quite a discussion about it...she didn't feel the same way about how she abandon her kayaking habit, as an example). Brings up a point I've been wondering about with all this dating and being engaged: how much IB is normal or acceptable? We don't even live together, there are principles that seem to apply much more appropriately to married couples; is this one of them?

Also, I have this sense that many of the rough spots we have in our relationship at this point (and in the past), have been related to the fact that we aren't married and don't live with each other. So, then I think that marriage shouldn't be an "out" for any problems, in other words, "if it aint workin' now, marriage isn't going to fix it?" KWIM?
For instance getting 20 (or 15) hours of UA is sometimes a struggle because we have to drive to each other's houses (that's up to 2 hours total per week right there). DS is hard because were supporting our OWN households individually -- same with FS.
So does this mean that I'm wanting to get married for the wrong reasons?

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts, if anyone made it to the end of my coffeeinduced ramble.
Otherwise, listen to me make a fool of myself on Monday.

opt.

Thanks opt for letting us know. I will be listening and I'm sure you'll do fine.

The Harleys are so easy to talk to, that don't even realize you're on the show.

Wow, this is great, opt. I will be looking forward to hearing you and hopefully NG. BrainHurts is right, Dr. Harley and Joyce are easy to talk to on the air, especially if you have been reading and listening to them for years.

Agree with BH and markos, Dr Harley and Joyce are super nice and easy to talk to. Can't say enough good things about them...

OK, the only thing I can say is if you are like me and have "stage fright", you might want to have some notes down of questions or points you definitely would like to make as you might forget once you get "on air".

Cannot wait to hear as well because I admire your path, and admire you for standing on the right ground. I believe many of your issues will be resolved in marriage because the key factor will be getting your UA time in without struggle. I don't find any thing about you marrying for the wrong reason.

I will be curious to hear Dr. Harley and how to manage EN's while engaged and not living together.

I think your path is spectacular, and I pray it will bring you amazing blessings for your future.

Great Call ...

Thanks PI.
Having 2 on speaker phone definitely isn't good for radio -- I can see why that is an uncommon practice. But it was fine for this purpose I suppose.

It was quite an experience. It was really helpful as Dr. Harley got into some territory that I didn't expect him to, but it was certainly pertinent. I was a little embarassed that I hadn't been familiar with the Recreational Enjoyment Inventory.

The whole thing has been good because it prompted a lot of deep discussions between myself and NG, in preparing for the call. We went through some of the questions in "I Promise You" and now we will start filling out some of the quesionnaires.

Hopefully Brainy will pop in and post the link to our segment.

opt

Hi, opt; I usually hear the shows the next day, so I'm looking forward to hearing yours!

I just went and checked, and the link isn't available yet.

I was going to post it, but I don't know if you guys have noticed that there's something wrong with the archives?

A few of us have noticed and I've emailed asking. I'm going through withdrawal.

I was looking so forward to it opt. I will post it as soon as they fix them.

Also you probably have it already, but here it is.
Recreational Enjoyment Inventory

Ok here it is.
Radio clip of opt's call
Segment #2
Segment #3

I think they talked about them a bit more after they hung up, BrainHurts. YOu might post the next segment as well.

Ok thanks. I added it.

Loved the call. So what do you think about the blended family point that Dr. H brought up?

Thanks Brain. We had a great time and got a lot out of the call. It was really inspiring to talk to the Harleys. We want to be just like them when we grow up.

We are quite concerned about the pressures of blending families, so were very interested in the specific words offered for our particular situation. Interesting to hear about his anticipation that my D10 might be the source of some trouble in a couple years as step daughters have a tendency to "game the system." We'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that.

I have some more thoughts but I'll get to them some other time. I can say that we filled out the Recreational Activity Index together the next day. Fortunately it was almost uncanny how similar our numbers were. I haven't analyzed it in detail but it was an interesting and fun exercise.

opt

I have to say a blended family is tough, but if you put the work in that it can work. If we didn't put the M first it wouldn't work.

Did you see I posted the links to the call?