Well, for those of you who read Meg and Aaron's blog, apparently Geno and I are "super creative and super schmoopie!" What exactly does that mean, anyway? I think that the only time I have ever heard "schmoopie" is on Seinfeld, right? I appreciate the compliment (at least I think it was a compliment!), but I have to say that Meg really doesn't know Geno if she is including him in "super creative!" If our date nights had been left up to Geno it would have been some action or sci-fi movie and dinner. Not that a movie and dinner isn't fun every once in a while, but if it had to be planned without spending money it wasn't happening! (Geno said it was mean that I said he wasn't creative. In his defense, he did send a Barbershop Quartet to sing to me at the Wal-Mart Home Office for Valentine's Day one year. The women were all in tears and saying that their husbands had better do something really good for them that night and the men were all mad that Geno had set such a high standard!!)
As you know, Geno and I married when I had four sons ages 3, 5, 8, and 10. Geno didn't like to leave them with a babysitter, so we did our creative dating at home. Also, they did have visitation with my ex, so we had summers, spring break, etc. that we could make up for that time. The sad thing is that we would plan these dates when the kids were gone and make it through dinner and go back home because we were too tired to make it through a movie! It didn't even register with me how little money we had during that time until Geno ordered some paperwork in preparation for going into the Secret Service. He can "buy" back military time for that retirement based on how much money he made. Well, he made a whole $52, 000 in those 4 years! It was really a good thing that I was creative!
I don't know that we really had that many different ideas, but we enjoyed time together-which is the whole idea, right? We would often feed the boys and put them to bed and then have a candlelight dinner. I LOVED that idea because it was VERY ROMANTIC and way cheaper than going to a restaurant. We sometimes even managed to make it through a movie afterwards, since we didn't have to wait for it to start, and we didn't have to drive anywhere. It doesn't even have to be anything fancy. Almost anything tastes better when you are eating it by candlelight. (If you aren't a very good cook, you can always use whatever you are wearing to distract them anyway!!)
One thing that I would do was to plan the evening before Geno even got home. I would tape a note to the banister so that he would see it when he walked in. It would send him into the bathroom to wash up and there would be a new pair of boxers and a note sending him to the refrigerator where there would be a bottle of champagne (pre-member, but sparkling cider will do) with another note sending him downstairs where I would have candles lit all over the room and dinner waiting. Rose petals sprinkled on the bed are very romantic, they smell really good, and it is a great way to use them when they are about to all fall off anyway. Note: Red ones stain sheets. Sometimes instead of notes, there would just be a trail of rose petals (or Hershey's kisses would be good, too) leading to wherever I was.
We met in Colorado Springs, so there was a never-ending supply of beautiful parks and waterfalls in the mountains where we could take a picnic basket with dinner and just sit outside until dark when the stars came out.
We are SUPER competitive with one another, so sometimes we would play board games and the winner got to choose what we did. No need to ask what Geno would choose!
I have an awesome "He Said. She Said." mini scrapbook by Lisa Bearnson that is perfect for a beginning to several date nights until it is completed. It has several categories with a part for him to write his answers and you to write yours. It makes an awesome keepsake.
We have spent several dates just going grocery shopping when our lives were so busy with working full-time and having all four boys in sports. We have done Barnes & Noble. We have done the music at the Bentonville Square. We have chosen a project around the house that needed to be done. We have helped someone else complete their project. It isn't just about "going out" on a date, but just about spending time with each other doing something that you BOTH enjoy. (I wanted to clarify so that Geno doesn't try to take me to a Star Trek movie and use the excuse that we are spending time together!!)
Also, we knew several younger couples who rotated babysitting. There were 4 families in each group and they rotated watching the kids one Friday while the other 3 went out and bowled or went to a movie together. Geno and I have also volunteered to babysit for others when they wanted to go out, but then no one would take us up on it so we stopped advertising. If you are in the market for a Friday night sitter, we are almost always free. Here or there-whatever you would like!!
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