I love nights when Chris and I can get some much needed r&r.  Currently, we work opposite shifts and at least once a week we get a night where we can be together.  This week we went on an impromptu date out. If you know us, you know we like to be home with delivery from Doordash.  Mostly, it's because I'm a picky eater, but also because by six o'clock we are counting down the minutes until bedtime at eight thirty.  Hey, please don't judge we are in our forties but our schedules make us feel in our nineties. 

Chris and I still have mini squabbles about what we are going to eat for dinner. He claims he doesn't want to pick the wrong place because I'm picky and I just want to turn my brain off when I'm home.  I'm not a meal planner and our food tastes are so different.  He's a meat and potatoes with some seafood person and I'm a chicken, rice, and pasta person.  I have wine and he just wants water. All he needs to do is find a place that serves chicken, rice or pasta and I'll eat.

Well, this time he finally chose where to go. It's a local chain restaurant we both enjoy.

We decided just to do a few different appetizers instead of ordering meals, because my eyes are always bigger than my stomach. It brought me back to high school dates of sharing food with the person you were going steady with. It was quaint, quiet, and one of the most romantic things we have done in a while. 

We talked about everything and nothing and held hands the entire time. 

When our kids were little I used to have such guilt going out to dinner while the kids ate "home" food. I thought I was being selfish and a bad mom.  My mother in law gave me some sound advice to this dilemma of mine.  She told me that she always put her husband first. Kids need you when they are small, but they grow up and move forward in their journey of life.  If you don't take the time to know your spouse you won't make it once the house is empty.  Now that our children are grown and it's just us I am glad I heard her advice. I may not have heeded it the whole time my kids were younger,  but Chris and I are in the best place we have ever been. We continue to grow as a couple. Here's to more date nights.