Saturday!

When we first got married, we lived a fairly busy life. Two professional jobs, one with a good bit of travel, and the other with many, many overnights at the hospital. Some weeks, we passed in the night. My mom had gotten remarried, oh, about 4 years earlier, and she really encouraged us to have a date night. What??!?? I remember thinking she was nuts. Every night was date night, you know? We didn't have any distractions. No kids, no dogs. Nothing really to get in the way of doing whatever we wanted.

But she was right.

What we didn't have was a lifetime of shared memories. Years of knowing that once a week, no matter what, we'd make time to share an evening, just the two of us. We'd laugh and giggle through most of them, and every once in a while, we'd hash out serious decisions on date night. Some of our serious decisions don't look so good come the morning light a few years later, but we can always bring about laughs just by talking about when and where we made those decisions. As we smoked our crack pipes.

For the first few years of our marriage, I was the planner. I made sure that Friday or Saturday night was open, I told Mike what we were doing, that sort of thing. But, somewhere along the line, he started liking our date nights, too.

Babies came, the budget got tight, and we started having most of our nights at home. It's still fun, still exciting, and I still love talking to him for hours. But, sometimes, you know? It's nice to know that he's still interested, too.

So, when, right before the boys' bedtime on Saturday, Mike announced, "we're going on a road trip", we were all intrigued. "Where are we going, Daddy????" And, I couldn't help but smile as he told the boys that we were headed out to get Mama some good supper for our date night. Take out is always the way to my heart. That man is smart.

Remember I was a bit bored by my drinks? I've been reading all around, and this week, I found a recipe for a cranberry lime tonic. Tonic isn't something I use frequently, but it works really well in this drink. Sweet, but that hint of bitter from the tonic works well. It doesn't taste like punch from a wedding shower, you know? I'll make this one again.

Another Saturday, come and gone. And it's still my favorite night.