Take a Date

In our marriage small group we are using "20 Surprisingly Simple Rules and Tools for a Great Marriage". Each couple has chosen chapters to lead. Thursday night Alex and I led the chapter 'Take a Date'.

The background for us and dating as a married couple, is that for many years I saw dating as an entertainment venue and not an investment in our marriage. I had felt that many times the money we spent for the evening could have go to much better things. When I changed my perspective, I began to really enjoy my outings with Alex.

Most of our dates occur on Saturday morning. We go out to breakfast together. We do other things too, but Saturday morning is our weekly scheduled date.

Last Saturday Alex took me to the County Landfill....You may laugh, but it was fun and sentimental for me. The landfill is only open from 8am to noon on Saturdays and we had a bunch of concrete in our back yard that needed to be hauled away. Alex did the first load without me and then I joined him for the second load. We threw the concrete into the back of the truck and drove the 13+ miles to the landfill. On our way we stopped for breakfast at The Coffee Cup. We had our usual good time of conversation and food. When we got to the landfill we unloaded all the concrete and joked about what a romantic date we were having. Alex had a camera in the car, so he snapped a picture of us and one of me on the tailgate of the truck viewing the lovely landfill. It was really quite fun.

Now why would going to the dump be sentimental? It's because my parents used to do the same thing. My mom would joke that dad was taking her on a romantic date to the dump. I don't know if they had breakfast before or afterwards, but I do know my sister and I were never invited...

Today we were back at our "regular place" The Court Street Diner. Breakfast was good, but not quite as much fun as last week. However, there's a bunch of tree branches in the back yard that need to be hauled away....