Date Night

Liz and I have recently realized that we are blessed.  I know, it seems a rather simplistic and absolute idea, but it's true, and we feeling it again and again.  This time around we're coming to understand our financial blessings.  The Lord has carried us through many strange things, and while we haven't done it without some big mistakes and some angst-filled nights, we are nonetheless blessed for reasons we cannot understand.  We have made several plans to pay off our debt, and it seems that each time we get close, other things steal our money away, and our greatest plans fall through.

We were tired of this cycle, so we decided to crack down and do whatever is necessary to make some headway in this process.  We slimmed down our monthly budget (again!) by carefully planning our grocery shopping, bulking up our savings, and slimming down wherever possible.  One of those slimming spots was our date nights.  Now, we are the only people we know who have a mandatory, consistent Friday night date, and we were not about to give that up.  Unfortunately, we also removed our babysitter and date money from the budget so that we could follow another, more debt-related commandment.  So then we went to work.  Liz traded babysitting with her visiting teaching companion, and after we shipped the kids off for the evening, we settled in for a nice meal at home together.  That's what I did while she was dropping off the kids (and for an hour beforehand.)  I had the option of boiling or steaming the artichokes, and I chose steam.  Good choice, although I let the water all boil out and my garlic and bay leaf burned to the bottom of the pan.  It happens.

It wasn't too shabby, methinks: roasted pork and potatoes, a white pear-infused balsamic apple slaw on top, and steamed artichokes.  Yummy.

Neither of us have ever had plain old steamed artichokes, but we were both pleasantly surprised.  It involves a lot of tooth scraping, and then a bunch of fluff that you're not expecting at all, but they're great, and the hearts are, of course, worth the wait.  If you're interested, I can let you in on how to prepare them.  They're amazingly simple, and surprisingly pleasant.  After dinner we left the dishes on the table for our server to clean up, and changed to go play tennis.  Because the boys weren't with us we could go to our favorite courts and we had a wonderful couple of games (6-3, 6-2 for James!) and sweat enough to burn off the butter into which we dipped our artichokes.  I decided a pre-game photo was best, since we were all wet and slimy and sticky after the game!

We returned home, found that the server had not cleared away our dishes, took back the tip we had left (what lame service,) showered up, and prepared for our real treat: frozen custard.  We had some debate about where to do our dessert, and had I been more prepared, we would have enjoyed it at home.  Alas, I wasn't, so we jostled about a few ideas, and I finally conned Liz into making a decision that landed us at Culver's.  We haven't been to Culver's in a while, and I was ready for it.  Liz enjoyed the chocolate custard with peanut butter and cookie dough, and I went all out for the pumpkin pecan Concrete.  It was easily 20 points, but it was worth every bite.  I almost tossed it out about half way through, but it wasn't worth it.  I wanted it.  Next time I'll just make a pumpkin shake at home for 4 points, but this one time it was awesome.  We chatted, enjoyed a little political conversation, looked around and expressed gratitude for our current health (Look at the people at Culver's—wow!)  It was then, unfortunately, time to go pick up the boys.  They were not happy at our arrival, but they managed, and went straight to bed when we got home around 9.

Then came the best part of the date.  We sat down on the couch, cuddled up, and promptly fell asleep with the TV on.  I woke up, turned off the TV, and went back to sleep.  Just before 11 we mustered enough strength to pull ourselves off the couch and head to bed.  Free date.  Awesome time.  So now the new question: Who's going to watch the kids next week?