Doodle Acres » Romance

Repost: In Honor of Valentine’s Day: Now That’s Romantic

Len — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:02:25 +0000

(Originally posted Feb. 2007)

After reading Mary Ellen’s post on romance and after receiving an encouraging email from Margaret, I have decided to chime in on the topic of romance. It has taken me many years to shed my teenage ideas about romance developed largely by movies I can’t believe my parents ever let me watch. We actually experienced a few years of marital difficulties in those first few years of marriage due in large part to my inability to let go of those unrealistic romantic notions. If my life is a movie then it certainly isn’t a romantic comedy but praise God it’s not a tragedy either.

Mary Ellen mentioned in her post about when she knew that she had married the right man. My “aha” moment came shortly after the death of our daughter Mary in 2003. She was delivered stillborn at 36 1/2 weeks gestation. As you can imagine, this was a very difficult time for my husband and I (not to mention our three children). In the weeks and months that followed I spent many days in tears for the baby that I would never know here on earth. On one particularly difficult morning as I was crying in the shower, my husband entered our bathroom. As I got out of the shower, I commented to my husband that I wished I was coping better. He turned to me and said, “You got out of bed this morning and you took a shower. Everything else is just icing on the cake.” I knew at that moment that I had married the man of my dreams – romantic and otherwise. This was a man who understood that I was giving my best effort and loved me unconditionally. Now that’s romantic!!!

This is the same man who waited to hold our sweet baby Peter (born 15 months later) so that I could be the first to hold him after the c-section. Now that’s romantic!!!

This is the same man who devotedly goes to a stressful job day after day to support his family and to enable his wife to home teach their children. Now that’s romantic!!!

This is the same man who took his wife on a romantic NYC getaway for her 40th birthday. Now that’s romantic!!!

And finally, this is the same man who loves his wife enough to find special moments together even if it’s only a trip to the supermarket together, a movie, or holding hands at Home Depot. Now that’s romantic!!!

True romance comes through a life of service and devotion to one’s spouse. Now that’s romantic!!!

Isn’t He Sweet?

Heather — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:52:56 +0000

This morning I followed my usual routine of devotions, breakfast, and a walk. Not to be deterred by the possibility of rain, I headed out for my walk inspite of the threatening skies. I hadn’t walked for long before I started to see the rain making its presence known on my glass. I decided to persist and had made it through about 20 minutes of my walk on my usual route when the thunder and lightening commenced. About 5 minutes later, my hero pulled up in his truck to bring his well watered sweetie home safely. My sweet husband was truly my knight in shining armor saving me (the damsel in distress) from the thunderstorm dragon. Isn’t he sweet? I AM truly blessed!!!

Picture courteousy of Nightfire Graphics and Alan Ayers

Our First Experience With Restaurant.com

Heather — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:35:27 +0000

I happened upon Restaurant.com as I was browsing the internet just before Christmas. The site offers gift certificates for local restaurants at significantly reduced prices. As my husband and I usually go out to dinner once a week for “date night”, I decided to give it a try. I bought a $25 gift certificate for $10 to a local burger joint (like an Applebees or TGIFridays). In order to use the gift certificate, we were required to spend $35. Our usual bill at this type of restaurant is usually about $35 plus tax and tip; so I figured that this would be a bargain ($10 for the gift certificate and $10 for the difference between the $35 tab and the $25 g.c. plus tax and tip).

It worked out even better than expected. The prices at this restaurant were a bit lower than Applebees so we even bought an order of 10 Buffalo wings to go (which the children enjoyed for lunch the next day in addition to the 1/2 of a hamburger I couldn’t finish and a bit of leftover pasta) to bring our tab up to $35. The service wasn’t quite as fast as Applebees but this actually suited us just fine as the main purpose of our “date night” is to reconnect through uninterrupted conversation; but the food was just as tasty!!!

Note to all my frugal friends: We pay cash from our weekly allowance for our date night dinners. We usually each pull $20ish dollars from our wallets to split the bill – very romantic, isn’t it? But those ugly credit card charges would definitely be very unromantic!!!