Date Night 2

I mentioned a few weeks ago that my husband and I had decided to try having more regular "date nights".

Since I forgot to report back on how our first one went, I'll just do that now. We ended up staying in, and waiting until Sly was in bed. Then we went down to the kitchen and whipped up some chocolate malts in the blender. Tom put on some records, and we pulled out the silver candelabra and several silver candlesticks. We sat down at the kitchen table, and created a "wall" of candles on either side of us, and in the middle, we set the boardgame we had chosen: Labyrinth Junior! (I found it at a flea market for a buck. It's less challenging than the adult version, but still a lot of fun.). It was a very pleasant evening, and best of all, FREE!

Last night, we had a more traditional type of date, though we still managed to do it on the cheap. We got my mom to watch Sly for the evening, and we went out to dinner. There's a great little Chinese joint we know. For $16, we each got: hot tea, soup, egg roll, entree+rice, AND dessert! How can you beat that?! We had wanted to go to the dollar theater for a movie afterwards, but the selection of movies was pretty disappointing. So instead, we bummed around town for a little while, and I dragged Tom into a couple stores as part of my recently mind-consuming search for curtains (our new house has FIFTEEN empty windows!!). Then we stopped in a dark and cozy little bar right along the railroad tracks and had a couple beers. I am not really a beer drinker, but when October comes, I can't resist the pumpkin-flavored ones!!

I have to say, I actually liked the first date better. When you have such a casual and intimate set-up, it naturally leads to pleasant conversation and good company. I found that last night, when we actually got out of the house, we felt a lot of pressure to "make the most of it." Since the movie didn't pan out, there was a lot of "I don't know, what do you want to do?" business after dinner. We felt like we had to go somewhere and do something "date-like." And I know Tom was not thrilled about the little shopping excursion.

So far, I think one of the best things about planning out dates this way is the anticipation of them. Even when you've decided on something very casual and ordinary, the fact that you know it's a "date" coming up makes you start to look forward to that time. In the days leading up to these two official dates we've had, I've noticed our relationship has been much smoother and, well, loving. So even if the dates themselves don't always turn out to be fantastic, I think that in itself is a definite positive.