Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Date Night: Almost On Purpose Style

As a stay-at-home mom with two boys and a plan to get out of debt, "date nights" seem to be a little too rare these days. This Saturday, hubby and I unexpectedly found ourselves without the boys. The boys wanted to play with their cousin, and we were shoo'ed out of the house for a couple of hours. Um... what are we supposed to do now?

At first, we wanted our impromptu date night to be filled with errands that we normally can't do with the boys. That didn't seem to work, since we've been working on taking the boys with us everywhere (in an attempt to make them act civilized in public). Next, we went into "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know. You decide" mode. Clearly, we were getting nowhere... FAST!!! You'd think that in striving to be organized, I'd at least keep a running list of all the places we'd want to go in town. Nope! I'm not nearly that prepared for life. So... the flip-flopping continued. We decided we'd at least start driving somewhere.

Where did we end up? None other than Starbucks. Ah, yes... when you run out of ideas, surely there is a Starbucks nearby. Hubby recently got his Starbucks Gold card and was eager to use it. OK, coffee in tow... what now? Since we didn't know what to do, we decided to take a leisurely stroll around the shopping center. Ah... that's more like it. We just needed a chance to walk without chasing down our boys or try to find them lurking in the garment racks. It was nice. to. relax.

Next, we headed over to a department store and dared each other to try on at least one outfit that we would not normally select for ourselves. We had a blast! I even got hubby to try on a purple pinstriped shirt. He looked AWESOME! He was surprised that it looked nice. I even ended up getting a cute shirt out of the deal... sweet! It did take some coaxing on hubby's part.

We stopped by a few more stores and gawked at the 80s clothes on the racks being touted as the "latest fashions," and then decided to find something for dinner. Hmmm.... what to eat? We decided on a little Greek restaurant we've been wanting to try because we wanted something different. It was great to have a conversation with my hubby that didn't revolve around dinosaurs and light sabers. We talked about our hopes and dreams. It was wonderful. I was smiling like we were on one of our first dates. When we were first dating, we always smiled so much that our cheeks hurt. Yes, we were that cheesy couple. I'll have to save our story for another post.

After dinner, we took our time getting back to pick up our youngest son. It was a beautiful evening, and it was all unplanned. For me, that was a feat in itself. We realized that we do need to carve out small moments of time to be with one another. Normally, we only see each other after we've put the boys to bed and have crashed on the couch in front of the TV — clearly not the best place for developing great conversations. No one said a marriage was easy, but it is so worth it! I'll take a date night any way I can get it... even if it wasn't at all on purpose.

1 comment:

  1. Date nights are awesome and much deserved for all parents. Glad you had a nice time.

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