(And All My) Work Be Praise

This month marked the climax of Date Night 2013 (though there are, of course, five months still to come): the Big Expensive Date. Summer is a busy, busy time for a youth pastor -- like, so busy we missed our June date entirely. If I am alone more evenings than most women I know, it's multiplied over the summer, with camping trips and mission trips and meetings for the mission trips and extended youth group hours and so on and so on. I'm not complaining: it's a season, and we'll have long leisurely days together in August when Isaac has a million (or so) hours of comp time to use up. I mean, as leisurely as anything with three toddlers ever is. I was, however, determined to plan a little getaway for the two of us in the midst of all the crazy. I knew we'd be heading up to my parents' house this month for a family reunion, so I grabbed the opportunity for free overnight babysitting and booked us a stay at a bed-and-breakfast not far from where my parents live. ...

Six or so years ago, not long at all after we met, Isaac and I went to a dinner party hosted by some friends. Conversation around the table quickly settled into a sort of game: we went around the table, one person at a time, and everyone else at the table got to ask the person of the moment any question (with some veto power allotted to the person in the hot seat, of course). When it was my turn to answer, one of the guys there asked what my favorite thing about Isaac was. I had no hesitation whatsoever: "he washes my dishes." When I met Isaac, I had 50+ piano students, driving 500+ miles each week to teach in their homes. I was out of my apartment a lot. I ate a lot  of fast food. When I did eat at home, it could easily be days before I washed dishes. I grew up with a dishwasher, I've never had to wash dishes, I hate doing it. Almost from the very beginning, Isaac took over the job. He'd come over in the evenings, after my lessons, and pop straight into the kitch...

Before Isaac and I had kids, we occasionally pulled out the bed in our sleeper-sofa and slept in the living room. We don't have a TV in our room, and very, very rarely stay in hotels, so to me it feels like the ultimate luxury to be able to watch a movie while lying in bed. I knew May would be busy, and that our primary babysitter (Isaac's mom) would be out of town for half the month, and therefore getting in an out-of-the-house date night would be tricky. So, I invited Isaac to sleepover in our living room ! (The linked idea is from the Dating Divas , but I merely used the printable invitation and did not do the other things she did.) I included a $10 Kroger gift card in the envelope (leftover from a previous P&G diaper study ) so that we could stock up on snacks without hurting the grocery budget. On Friday afternoon, we stopped by Kroger on our way to a graduation party and picked out our snacks. Back at home, I set up the sleeper couch while he put the boys to bed. ...

Since my birthday is this month, I planned April's date night with myself in mind. Is that a horrible thing to admit? I just couldn't be sure that we'd be able to get TWO nights out in the same month, one for a date and one for my birthday, and not overuse the in-laws' babysitting or crowd our evenings so full they weren't fun anymore. My husband wasn't entirely thrilled with my plan; since the date nights were his birthday present in the first place, he essentially just re-gifted his own birthday present from me, to me. At least for the "dinner out" portion of my birthday. I assume there's more to come on my actual birthday. (Right?) Anyway, the date: a progressive dinner with an "around the world" theme . 100% snatched from the Dating Divas , except that we went to three restaurants instead of other couples' houses. I even printed the somewhat-cute (but maybe just cheesy?) cards (bearing such lines as Come away with me to Ital...

Our official monthly dates have officially begun! I planned February as a stay-at-home date, to avoid the need for a babysitter or going out on a potentially cold and dreary evening. As it turns out, the big boys spent several days at my parents' house, so we didn't even have to eat our date dinner at 8pm. February's envelope contained a short questionnaire for Isaac to fill out, based on this idea from the Dating Divas . It read something like this: Choose one option from each of the following: hot/cold fast/slow circle/square up/down/in-between He was instructed (and then reminded several times) to return the questionnaire to me one week prior to our scheduled date night (so that I would have time to do the appropriate grocery shopping). He didn't know it at the time, but he was, in effect, planning our dinner-and-activity date! According to his chosen answers, we: --shared an appetizer of roasted red pepper hummus and sliced veggies when he arrived h...

Inspired by this blog post , found through a pin on pinterest , I gave my husband twelve dates for his birthday this year. I'm sure this is true for all of us, but we've struggled to find time to spend one-on-one time together, particularly since the birth of our third child. And when we do have some time miraculously appear, we can never decide what to do! So I researched and investigated and used old Christmas cash that never got deposited so that I wouldn't leave a credit card trail . . . and put together eleven date-night (or day) envelopes. (We already have a date scheduled for January, so I didn't make an extra one for the first month. Don't want to overuse the free babysitting from in-laws, you know.) Many of my ideas came from The Dating Divas ; some are local attractions we haven't visited yet. Around the beginning of every month (or the end of the previous month), we'll sit down with the calendar, consult the appropriate envelope, and ...

Today is my (our) fourth wedding anniversary!  It's not all that many years, in the grand scheme of things, but they've certainly been full years. I have to admit that my wedding day was not all I'd hoped and dreamed.  I was working some 50 hours a week (with no time to plan a wedding), my fiance was living in another state, my best friends were scattered across the country, I came down with a ridiculous sinus infection the week before the wedding, and all in all I simply couldn't get everything done by myself.  When I'm not careful, I look back on that day and see: the wedding dress that wouldn't stay in place despite the $250 I spent to have it "perfectly" altered a fellowship hall nearly to dark to see in, because I never got the needed extension cords for the Christmas lights we (or, rather, my tall friend Ryan) so painstakingly strung up the day before, and it didn't occur to me to simply flip a light switch my dear friend running from t...

Sounds like causing strife, doesn't it?  Let me give you the whole verse: let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. It's what struck me as I was doing my Bible reading this morning, in Hebrews 10 (verse 24).  It's a little hard for me to concentrate on reading in the mornings.  Levi and I do it together at the kitchen table after breakfast: he looks at the pictures in his Jesus Storybook Bible  and listens (make that "listens") to a story, and I do a page in a devotional , in Hebrews right now.  There's nothing special about this particular Bible study book, and in fact I can't even say it's all that good.  But since I can barely concentrate anyway, I'm just trying to write down one thought every morning that catches my attention. As the devotional suggested, I took the verse quoted above as a command: consider how to stir up someone to love and good works.  My husband was the first person who popped into mind [that...