Jar Date #1

My husband drew our first date out of a jar, and it turned out to be the one we both wanted to do the most… walk around downtown Flagstaff and eat sushi.
It must here be mentioned that neither of us likes sushi, but we both like eating it. Because it’s different and fun. But if we’re starving… we’re more likely to land ourselves in the land rife with hot wings. Downtown Flagstaff is full of history. There’s historical plaques mounted to almost every building and lists of famous guests that have stayed/dined at said buildings.
Zane Grey wrote a novel in the same hotel where Franklin Roosevelt AND Randolph Hearst stayed.


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There’s a haunted hotel that offers tours around Halloween time.


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There’s a seemingly endless bounty of little shops: candle shops, spa shops, outdoorsy shops, boutiques, bead shops, restaurants.
We always have to stop by the used book store. The back room at “Starlight Books” is filled with hundreds of paperbacks from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. We love these books. We never BUY them, but we have as much fun with these books as normal people do in a card section at the store.
“Read this one!”
“Check this one out!”

They’re all smut! smut! smut!

And we get the biggest kick out of the covers and book descriptions. We huddle in the back room at the store and giggle like a couple of 4 year olds who just made up their own nonsensical knock-knock jokes.

As we were walking out, my husband picked up a book because the cover was so… grabbing.

It turned out to be a blank notebook. Isn’t that the greatest thing you’ve ever seen?! Best notebook cover ever. We even thought briefly about buying it. As we left the store and walked toward a courtyard to sit down, I confessed something to my husband.
I’m ASHAMED of this confession, so it wasn’t easy for me.
“You remember how I told you words were important to me?” I asked, “How if you want to show me you love me you should write it down or say it to my face in a meaningful way?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“Welllll, it’s changed a little. I mean, it still means the world to get notes from you. THAT hasn’t changed. But… It would really mean a lot to me (*at this point I was choking on my words because they went against everything I thought I was as a human being*) if you would buy me things.”
“The truth comes out!” My husband was mockingly shocked.
“Not BIG things. I’m not talking about diamonds or anything like that… just if you’re in a store or passing by and you see something and think of me and it’s not too expensive, snag it up and bring it home. It’s the idea that you’re thinking of me while you’re away.”
“Okay, you got it.” He said, and that was it.
I hate admitting that. I had even gone so far as to admit to him a few years ago that I wasn’t into THAT… I wasn’t into getting gifts as a form of love. My love could not be bought!
Well… now it can.
It’s humbling to be so honest.

We sat on a bench and watched an EXTREMELY fit young man give a workshop for children. He was using a fancy tambourine and using Spanish terms and doing donkey kicks so high that his six pack would reveal itself under his loose-fitting shirt. My husband would sort of scoff… the way I sort off scoff when the Phoenix Suns cheerleaders prance on the court during time outs.

When our feet had recovered from walking enough to soldier on, we headed toward our lunch destination, stopping on the way to take a couple of pictures. My husband is really good looking (this we know), and I pretty much feel like an ugly duckling following him around.

Anyone who watches “Friends” will get this. I couldn’t resist… it wasn’t on purpose. I just happened to snap a picture when he was making this face, and I laugh every time I look at it.

He snapped two of me, and all I could think of when I looked at them was the line in “Julie & Julia” where Julie is complaining (what’s new?) about the article her friend wrote and the picture that went with it.
“I look fat,” Julie says.
“Just your face,” her friend says, trying to make her feel better.
Too bad the picture WAS just her face.

Pregnancy swelling, may you burn in Hades.
Lunch wasn’t the tastiest, but it was the most fun.
His:

Hers:

After sushi we were going to share a discount (read: they messed up making) caramel apple, but we forgot. By the time I remembered, we were half way to our car and my husband was ready to head for home.
I’m still sad.
We hit up Sam’s for shopping. I don’t remember the last time I went to Sam’s with just my husband and no kids. It was SO easy! We were done in no time at all!
The kids were happy to see us when we got home, and we had a great time. Sunday night we drew a new date out: spend an evening working in the garden.
My husband is thrilled, mostly because we had to use all of our babysitting money on our Downtown Date.

Yesterday we had to go back into Flagstaff for doctor visits, and the drive over was nice. We spent time together and talked… and then we went to my appointment. While in the waiting room, my husband told me that, he’s very sorry, but we won’t be going to the BIG city to find out the gender of our baby. Our finances dictate we wait for our “regular” ultrasound. I was surprised at how disappointed I was… and then I went into my appointment and my OB asked me if I had any questions.
Of course I did.
This is the weirdest pregnancy I’ve ever had, but every time I throw a weird symptom at her she tells me, “that can be common…” and I relax. When I listed my latest Weird Pregnancy Thing (my heart sometimes tightens up and when I take deep breaths, it gets really painful), she got really serious and said, “next time that happens go straight to the ER.”
Oh, boy.
I was a bundle of worry the entire drive home. I was worried and cranky and impatient and suddenly everything around me was inconvenient.
The minute I walked through my own front door, I went straight to bed to take a nap. Surely a nap would snap me out of it.
But it didn’t because I couldn’t fall asleep.
Hours later, my husband texted me asking how I was feeling. And I sent him this text:
“I know I need to sleep, but I can’t. I’m tired and cranky and hungry and all I want in Fruit Loops and bananas.”
I sent it and then read it over.
I was being SUCH a whiny baby! A literal BABY! BABIES need Fruit Loops and bananas and naps when they’re cranky.
I called him later on and apologized for my behavior, to which he replied, “I understand that you’re stressed about the heart thing. It’s no big deal.”
That evening, we walked through the door with a frozen pizza, frozen jalapeno poppers, two GIGANTIC bags of the store brand of Fruit Loops (my favorite) and a bunch of bananas.
I cried with joy.
No really: I cried with joy.
“I just thought you’d appreciate me buying something when I was thinking of you.”
Oh, he’s darling.

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