of dinner dates and happy hours.
do you want to know the thing that surprises (quite a lot of) people the most about Mister Man and me?
it's not that we didn't live together before we got married. it's not that we're practicing catholics who go to church every sunday. it's not that we were only engaged for 7 months before making it official.
it's that we eat dinner together every night that we're home together.
i know! WHAT?! i had NO idea that so many couples ate dinner separately. now, this is not the first time that i've been incredibly naive about things that are common knowledge to most people (see: how i used to think airplanes took off). but because of both his and my upbringing, i just assumed that families ate dinners together when they were home. add that to the fact that he travels so often, and you get a pair of people who both value dinnertime with each other a ton. sometimes it's the only chance we get during the week to spend real time together, talking and catching up.
(monday night's dinner. except we ate the meat fully cooked.)
and we love preparing for dinners together too! MM is an amazing cook, and one of our favorite things is planning meals together. last night, for example, we made grilled cheese sandwiches with caramelized onions, green peppers, turkey and chipotle cheese, served with good old-fashioned tomato soup. gourmet all the way baby.
(not last night's meal either, but a delicious one nonetheless)
i know that it can be hard to make time to eat dinner together. i know this. someone wants to work out, while the other wants to finish a project around the house. someone has to work late, or the other has an after-work happy hour (or #happyhourhangout) to go to. but here's the thing. i believe that making the time to eat together is one of the most important things you can do as you start a family. it's an automatic time set aside to talk to each other, without having to make special dates to do it. it builds a habit that continues well into your lives together, when you have babies, then children, then grown children with grandchildren. it carries through all the way to the time in your lives when you're alone with eachother again.
eating dinner together helps you learn to "just be" with each other.
so that's my rant for the week. and you know what? i hope the next time i tell someone that Mister Man and i LOVE eating dinner together, they'll be like, "yea, us too!". and then i'll know that my job here is done. life lessons for everyone!
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and now, a note about my night last night.i was able to get on a google hangout with a bunch of lovely ladies to chat about life and blog business (as a note, i usually try to treat my blog like fight club....the first rule about my blog is that you don't talk about blogging on the blog, but i made an exception for this amazing event). the happy hour hangout was started by ashten and amber as a sponsorship, and a way to get a lot of bloggers in one place to pick each others' brains and drink booze together. mainly the drinking booze part.i had no idea what to expect from 10(!) ladies on an online video chat, but let me tell you, i was so pleasantly surprised at how fun it was! everyone was so honest and positive (and hilarious), that even some technical snags didn't take away from the girl-bonding that took place. i learned so much from each and every one of them, and i am newly inspired to continue with this little space of mine, however slowly it decides to grow.i will absolutely be a part of this in this future (although fyi, the november hangout is totally full...go click on ashten and amber's faces in my sidebar to get signed up in advance for the next one!). i've found some lovely new blog friends to spend my time with, and i think i may even get to meet a couple in person now! thank you to you all for a fabulous night of wine and chats, let's do it again!click on these links to see for yourself why i'm raving about these lady friends:
(and ladies, i'm sorry i had to leave early to eat dinner with the Mister. now you know why!)
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