Do you have regular ‘date nights’? I’m really envious of those people who seem to manage to plan (and stick to) regular date nights. And, by ‘date nights’ I don’t mean just watching TV together, we can do that easy!
As well as seizing every opportunity to talk honestly about parenthood and faith, I’m really passionate about talking about relationships and marriage. It takes a lot of hard work to communicate well. It also takes work to be really intentional about caring for someone else emotionally. I think it’s great to be honest about that and learn from each other. So, this series is the start of a slightly more lighthearted look at marriage but I am also going to start sharing some of what I’ve been learning and reading about when it comes to relationships too.
My husband and I go through phases of being really good about intentionally carving out ‘date’ time. We’ve had periods where we get the diary out at the start of each fortnight and pick which nights are ‘ours’, but inevitably a month or two will pass and we’ll suddenly realise life carried on and we forgot to check our diaries to plan time. We’ve been doing a free four-part marriage course over the last few weeks and found we’ve really relished setting aside quality time each week to focus on us again so we’ve now designated Tuesday nights as our ‘date nights’.
A to Z of date nights
Do you remember, a few years back, when it was suddenly really popular to do the A to Z of dating? You planned date nights and worked your way through the alphabet, e.g. A for go to an Aquarium, or do Aerobics (not my idea of a date) on 26 different dates. Well, as per most crazes, we missed it when it was cool and we thought we’d try it now. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law have both attempted the A to Z of dates, my parents getting to C and my bro and sis-in law to D. So, our aim is at least to get to E!
I love any kind of inspiration for intentional quality time together so I thought I’d share our dates with you just in case they are at all inspiring.
Here’s what we have so far:
Beers, Burgers and Bourne – B Date
Courting with Chinese cooking – C Date
Fish ‘n’ Chips & Film – F date
Indian Takeaway / Night In – I Date
K… any ideas anyone?
3 Comments
starsinclayjars · January 12, 2017 at 1:09 pm
If it makes you feel any better I’ve never even heard of the A to Z of dating!! Ideas tho… We’ve never exactly had much money, so pre-kids we used to take it in turns to cook on date night. The rule was it had to be three courses, and it had to be something we had never cooked before. Meant we actually used all the cookbooks we’d been hoarding too 😉 X
Annie · January 12, 2017 at 1:17 pm
I love that! That’s the same for us, as much as we’d love to, we just don’t have much spare money to do dates that cost much. I rediscovered my Wagamama’s cookbook the other day and made a few new recipes. So tasty! x
The Date Night Challenge – starsinclayjars · September 30, 2018 at 8:41 pm
[…] In a bid to avoid falling asleep to iPlayer every Friday night and calling it ‘quality time’, we have taken a virtual leaf out of Mama Wilmot’s blog, (in which she writes about parenting, faith and, often-entertainingly, marriage); and began… wait for it… the A to Z of Dating Challenge! […]