Saturday, January 15, 2011

Wanted: Date Night

My husband is working Friday nights now. Sure, we have Saturday through Monday's  together but somehow having a Friday taken away from adult company makes it feel like a very long weekend. I love game nights with kids, meeting their every need, driving them to here and there... no doubt about that. But....I miss my hot date. Even if we don't get to go anywhere on a Friday, he is there and I like that. I am sure you all know what I mean. 


I didn't take date nights for quite a stretch of time when kids were real little and attached to my body or I worked a bit during the week and didn't want to leave them. Then, I had kids old enough to babysit which seemed golden until they had a "life" and wanted to go out also. When you finally secure the sitter to stay home, you have  a teenager who brought all his friends home and you certainly don't want to leave 8 teenage boys home alone while you are out. If you do get to go out, sometimes after you have worked all day, fed the kids, got everyone to where they want to be, all you want to do is sit on the couch. But, I know that each couple needs that alone time. Marriages can go sour if you don't invest the time. Summary: dating takes effort.


I am trying really hard to make Saturday nights time for us. It may mean just a quick trip to get food. But, we get to sit and talk without interruption. Of course, we usually talk about the kids but at least we get to talk. It gives you time to remember why you love that guy so much. It gives you time to feel like a girlfriend and not a maid and a cook. It gives you time to reboot and WANT to be a mom again.


It is Saturday and I am longing for a date night. After I feed the missionaries and the neighbors, get the kids delivered , picked up, washed and settled; I am going out. I have no idea where but I really don't care. I am secretly dreaming of eating this at Kona grill:






Divine. It is a grilled veggie pizza on flatbread with a Balsamic/fig reduction glaze. I took out my camera to capture this beauty when I ate there last and they asked me if I was a food critic. Hmmmm. Should I have said yes and maybe had gotten a free meal? It would have been a fun game. How does one get that job anyways because I think I would be good at it. Doesn't it look mouth watering? Every bit. Maybe next week. 


Hope you are all getting a date night tonight. You deserve it. What have you done for a fun date night lately? I am taking suggestions. I need to think outside the box and date like a teenager. Well, like teenagers used to date. Now, they just "hang out". Whatever that is all about???!!!




Oh, and if you want to try a new restaurant for your date night, there is a great Groupon today for a hip pizza place in Tempe. It won best of Phoenix and serves pizza made with homemade cheese and toppings cooked up in their brick oven. Groupons are the best way to try out something new.


Try this one out. Maybe you will see me there: The Enlightened Homemaker food critic!


http://www.groupon.com/r/uu6393115

3 comments:

Lindsey said...

Can you give us the low down on what is in that pizza? (On, I guess) It looks amazing. And since I am doing Pizza night tonight, I would like to try to re-create it! I have never gotten that there!

Shari Goodman said...

It had a basil pesto sauce and was topped with mushrooms, roasted red peppers, yellow squash, asparagus, mozarella and a fig,balsamic reduction drizzled lightly over the top.

Tiffany said...

Hey Shari!!

That was one of my goals last year "To think outside the box...get out of my comfort zone" and we did a few fun things...not enough time to throw together tonight...because they are group dates...but maybe in the future...

We did an "iron chef" battle...give two ingredients and they can choose to use either ingredient and make either a main dish, appetizer, or dessert...fun to see people's creativity...then you judge them on plating, use of the ingredient, taste...whatever categories you want.

We also did an AMAZING RACE.... SO MUCH fun...we had things from kick a field goal (over at Brinhall) then run around a lap around the track then eat a sugar packet from a fun dip...we went to checuk e cheese and had three chances to t ry and score 30,000 points on skee ball, went to borders at the mall and had to find a book with the words amazing and race in it...had to go to wendy's and eat 2 things off the dollar menu...anyway--you get the idea...I can email it to you if you want to try it....it was by far one of our funnest dates...( we neded at nielsens and all got a concrete :))
Also planned a scavenger hunt for Valentine's day with 2 other couples from my ward...us girls went to tia Rosas and waited for our husbands to find their way there...we had supplies in their cars where they had to make us a valentine card...then go to Walgreens and pick out our favorite treat...then go to Barnes and Noble and find a book we would like to read, Claire s at the mall and pick out one item of jewelry etc.--all with clever little clues...this way we got little presents too! :) and they had fun doing it together...at the end they would each show the book and us wives had to guess which one was ours...etc.

anyway-- hope that helps! THanks again for all your time and energy on your blog!! I love to get uplifted (sometimes overwhelmed :)) by it! :)