One of the most important aspects in a good marriage is communication. When two people are coming from different backgrounds, different lifestyles, and different traditions, it takes a lot of communication and hard work to come together as one flesh.
Ideally, some matters are discussed and settled before marriage: where to live, go to work, go to school, go to church, spend holidays, maybe the number of children that you will have or not have. Then life happens. Reality starts to set in and all the difficulties that go along with it. Plans change, goals are reset, and dreams die and come back alive in other forms. Sometimes couples start drifting away from where they started until they get to a point that they don’t even know the person that’s sitting across the breakfast table from them.
Most husbands and wives live in separate worlds. The Farmer and I certainly do. He has always gone off to a world that I hear about often and see occasionally. He works 40 minutes away from home and after a 40-hour week of hard, physical labor, he comes home to work on the farm, or fix a vehicle, or fix some other physical or mental difficulty that occasionally raises its ugly head.
Although there was a time when I would pack the kids up and go off to a job, fortunately, I stay at home and keep the home fires burning (sometimes at a ferocious roar). My world is filled with home school, child rearing, and housekeeping. Occasionally I am the farmhand or the riding boss.
Like most couples, there are very few and precious moments that we get to spend together, so years ago The Farmer and I set aside a sacred day and time apart for just the two of us. It is at this time that we come together and reclaim the time that is so needed in order to maintain a oneness between us. His world and mine come together. Sometimes it causes a tornado, but more often it brings unity. We adjust our goals, or reset our family’s GPS, or simply recover our sanity.
Saturday night is our official date night. We hold it as a sacred time. Most activities get pushed aside for this evening. And if something happens and we can’t make a Saturday date night, we do it on Friday or Sunday night. We haven’t always had this, but we realized early that it was a much needed ritual to keep us on the same track. Having a large family often makes it difficult to find babysitters, so we didn’t go out often in the early years, but as soon as our kids were able to stay at home by themselves, we made date night a priority.
So what is a date night with The Farmer like? Well, I’m glad you asked. Last Saturday when we went out, we recorded a moment by moment timeline of our date. In case you haven’t been paying attention to my blog, we are a farming family who have raised nine kids on one income (well almost, three of them are still teens). So our date nights are usually pretty cheap. We do have the occasional anniversary or birthday celebration, but most of the time we are very frugal. It has always been our decision to go frugal and often, as opposed to splurging and not being able to go out every week.
We usually eat in the truck, so our first stop is McD’s to get a 32 oz. soda for $1.00
If we do go into a restaurant, we drink water because soda is crazy expensive in restaurants!
On this particular Saturday, we decided to eat at Jack's house
I did blow my diet, but was rewarded with a coupon for a free taco on my next visit. :)
Often we go up town to eat. We love to sit and watch traffic pass.
We often discuss the history of the town, or imagine how it was back then.
Of course we have to drive past the MFA and...
The cannon in the town's square "Cool Hand Luke"
Then we drive around looking at other people's fields...
Other people's farms...
And other people's cows.
Of course, coming home is truly our favorite part of the date.
Now that it's nice outside, we are able to spend the rest of the evening together on the front porch.
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