Date Night

I guess it was more of a late afternoon date...

Last Wednesday afternoon I headed into Manhattan for a doctor's appointment. I got out of that early, and had some time to kill, so I headed back down to the Lion Brand Yarn store near Union Square, since it wasn't open the last time I was there. They still had the same window display up, so I took a few more pictures. Isn't it just so cool! I love that they've "yarnbombed" the door handles.

I loved the monkey and parrots included in the display...and the little frog. Can you see him?

    

The back view from inside the store is just as cool. I had fun wandering around the store, and found way too many yarns that I want to buy. I found the set of needles that I was looking for--size 6 dpns so I can try my hand at knitting some hats. I spent a lot of time here, browsing and looking and wishing.  

It was 5:00 when I left the yarn store, so I called Brian and he was just finishing up some work for the day. We planned to meet at Madison Square Park, a couple blocks south of his office building. I walked up from Union Square, enjoying the window displays and city sights as I went.

I got to the park first, and spent some time looking at the current art installations. They always have some weird art at this park, sometimes it's cool, but mostly it's just bizarre. In the past they've had a giant head sculpture and a giant "knitted" wall made out of colored rope. This time, they had these weird glass balls full of glittery, crystalline-like material. The balls were sitting on pedestals, which were anchored in the sand. They spheres would have been pretty, except included in each one, among the crystals, were bits of wire, metal gears, electronic chips, light bulbs, and batteries. Really weird.

I liked the other art installation better. A nearby metal pergola stood over a portion of one of the park's pathways. Suspended from the pergola's beams were these round, golden, reflective metal sheets with puzzle-like cutout's. The sheets were overlapped to create a reflective canopy that showed glimpses of the sky above. Again, kind of weird, but pretty and cool at the same time.

     

I sat on a bench underneath the pergola and waited for Brian to come. I didn't have to wait long, when I saw him walking through the park. I waved him over and we sat on the bench for a bit, catching each other up on our days.

We hadn't planned on getting dinner in the city, but decided that we would stop at a nearby place to get something to eat. Sometimes, you just need to be spontaneous! I'm so glad that we did. Do you find sometimes that life just gets to be too much--too overwhelming or too predictable or whatever--and that you just need time away from it all? We were both feeling that way when we met up at the park, and just needed to step aside for a bit and recenter ourselves. It's so easy to just get caught up in the mundane of life and just plod along, day after day without really stopping to enjoy what you're doing and who you're with. Maybe it's just because we've had a long, cold winter, and we've been busy trying to catch up on a few things and get others organized. I'm not saying that's bad, it just seems that for us lately, we've forgotten to stop and smell the roses so to speak. We've been so goal focused and responsibility driven lately, that we've neglected to take time for us and to enjoy life. So, it was really nice to just stop, and take some time for us to hang out together outside of our normal schedule.

Just around the corner from the park is a burger place called Schnippers. Brian has been here a few times for lunch with friends, and said it was good. We placed our order, and found a seat right next to the window.

The food was really good, and the company even better. You'd think that since it's just the two of us, that we'd get sick of each other, but we haven't yet. He is my favorite person, and we have a lot of fun together, whether we are out on a date or just at home. He is constantly making me laugh (and I've heard a lot of his jokes a lot of times), and we've reached the point where we notice the same things that we think are funny and will sometimes even start to make the same joke at the same time. 

I'm about to get sappy...marriage is such a wonderful thing. It was fun at first, to continue to discover each other (and we still are doing that to some degree) but now I feel like we know each other so well and we can read each other's minds. To those of you who think this is boring, to have the mystery gone, etc. it's not. It has added a depth to our relationship that is such a beautiful thing. Eight and a half years in, we know all about the each others strengths and weaknesses, and it hasn't disillusioned us, but made our relationship stronger. I love him even more for all of that. His strengths and weaknesses make up who he is, and I wouldn't want him any other way. We've learned to lean on each other, and where I fall short, he is there to pick me up and help me through, and vice versa. I thought it wasn't possible to love him anymore than I did on our wedding day, but I do. All that we've been through together, the joy and sorrow that we've experienced, has knit us more tightly together than we could have ever imagined. And I realize that eight and a half years is not very long, so I'm excited what the next eight and a half will bring, and the next eight and a half after that. 

Sorry about the tangent there. Basically, we had a really fun night together and it was just the break we needed from life to rejuvenate ourselves. We're not always the best about going out on dates, partly because we keep to a pretty tight budget, partly because of time constraints, and partly because it's just to two of us and we get a lot of time together at home. Our dates usually consist of going and doing something fun in the city on a Saturday, but like I said before, it's been so cold that we haven't done much of that. Now that spring is here, hopefully we will better about getting out together. Like we re-discovered on Wednesday night, dating makes life more fun!