Kyle took me on the first DATE we've been on in a while last week and we had a lovely time. I got to get all dressed up and wore only pearls for jewelry for the first time since we got married. Its a little thing and they were fake pearls but still I felt very elegant. We saw a Riverdance-like show and were out late. I told Kyle I felt like we were dating again because we were both kind of trying to impress the other with how we dressed and both felt very carefree and happy. Which was a little sad after we thought about what kind of reflection that cast on our day-to-day life, but I guess that's why you have to keep going on dates after you're married: to put perspective on things!
Wednesday night kids have been abnormally human and behaved in my department, which is good because the Youth group has gone a little ape-crazy and I've had to step in and help out on a few things which I don't mind... but its nice to not have things hit you on EVERY front sometimes!
The youth minister asked Kyle and I to babysit his kids overnight the other day so he and his wife could have a date night. We've done it before so its no biggie. The kids enjoy us and we enjoy them and their parents enjoy them and each other again after the break. Plus its great training for my single-child husband who has never been with an infant overnight before the youth minister & his wife had a baby and started asking us to babysit for them. In addition to that the superstitious part of me is hoping that we're somehow securing the same kind of treatment from some unknown person in the future once we start having kids and need overnight breaks ourselves...
We had a great time as usual. Kyle's dad came over and he and Kyle took turns playing dress-up with the five year old and I kept the 8 month old entertained. In the morning Kyle went to work and I had a tea party for breakfast with said 5 year old who was overjoyed that we were having REAL tea just like the tea parties at church! I didn't realize that the tea parties I'd hosted at church made such a big impact on her but apparently they did!
Later on in the day her mom texted and asked if I wanted to go shopping at half priced books and a new yarn store that just opened up. I said YES and we spent the day browsing isles - sometimes together and sometimes apart. When we rejoined each other after the apart times we would both commiserate about how large our pile of wares had grown in our arms and would help talk each other out of overspending. We'd help the other think through if we spent so much at the bookstore we'd have less to spend at the yarn store; and then once we got to the yarn store if we spent less at the yarn store we'd have more to spend at the grocery store later this week! Or we'd play devils advocate and use the 'just whip out the credit card!" excuse with a knowing twinkle in our eye. Then the other would laugh and put the desired item back on the shelf where it sat lonely and overpriced.
Its been hard to figure out who to shop with. I didn't grow up 'going shopping' with friends. I never had the money to do so and mom thought it would teach me unhealthy materialism to drive me to the mall and drop me off to just window shop. I didn't have credit cards and knew better than to call mom and dad up for extra money when I had overspent myself or run out of spending money. I never really thought about it at the time or all the 'experience' I was missing it was just how things were. I didn't quite value what Mom had done either until the last year or so when I was, for the first time in my life, able to go SHOPPING with friends. I had done it a few times in college and proactively stopped when I realized that I would very quickly run out of funds I desperately needed for school fees and class books. I didn't realize when one agreed to go shopping with friends one was making a COMMITMENT to purchase something with said friends, or else they would feel bad that they had bought when you hadn't. I didn't want to make anyone feel bad, but I also didn't want to fail classes because I couldn't afford fees or books! (and yes I do realize I could have borrowed books from friends or libraries and did so for most of my classes. However some books needed to be THOROUGHLY studied, which meant they went everywhere with me and I didn't want to run the risk of ruining a library or friend's book).
Now that I'm married and have a husband and a budget, I've begun venturing back into the world of shopping. But I've realized that I still have to be careful. Its odd how we women feel obligated to talk each other into overbuying. We KNOW there are groceries to be bought, bills to pay, husbands to be reckoned with. And yet we still do it.
So all that to say that my fun relaxing shopping trips are limited to only 2 or 3 friends. I'll do other things with my other friends, just not shop with them. Its not worth quoting Dave Ramsey loudly in the mall and by explaining my current financial worldview accidentally shedding light on how abysmal their financial logic is -and causing mass embarrassment and sour feelings.
But I had a lot of fun this shopping trip. And I've only gone shopping with the youth minister's wife once or twice, so I think we've agreed to be shopping buddies again.
In other news, I got everything in the picture below for $30. Yay halfpriced books and new yarn stores!!! Beats mall-shopping anytime! Which I STILL don't like doing...