Date Night

Flowers that Shannon bought me on Sunday. Unfortunately they didn't last very long!

Today I got a surprise. Shannon called me at about 3:00 this afternoon to let me know that he had made us dinner reservations. I was shocked. First of all, you have to understand that we just don't eat out. I mean, if we're traveling and on the road, then yes, we eat out. But we rarely go out to eat after church or any other time. I personally can't justify doing it very often because I can feed both of us for a week on what it costs us to eat out once at a nicer place (think...not Chili's or the like). So, anyways.

He brought me a change of clothes (I had marker on my shirt and water six inches up my pants legs) and then whisked me off to an undisclosed restaurant. About 20 minutes later I find myself at a little place called Cafe Tiramisu. It was positively wonderful. It's a small, family-owned Italian restaurant in Raleigh. The atmosphere was romantic and the service and food were excellent. Our dishes were reasonably priced, and the tiramisu was the best I've ever had. My eggplant parmigiana was so large that I'll be eating the remainder for lunch tomorrow. And Shannon loved the olive oil to dip his bread in and the cream sauce in which his spinach raviolis and shrimp were swimming. It was a good date and a great surprise.

After dinner we went to The Fresh Market. Now, I've heard a lot about it but had never actually been to one. I was pleasantly surprised. The prices were not exorbitant, their selection of flowers was magnificant, and overall, we had a good time just wandering around the store. We also bought some bulk coffee...they have it in bins so you can try before you buy a whole pound! Usually I just buy cheap coffee and we fix it up with flavored creamer, but we decided to be coffee snobs for a couple of days and go with spendy stuff. So, we bought some Decaf New Orleans French Roast and some Decaf Molten Chocolate. The French Roast was my choice and the Molten Chocolate was Shannon's. He's more of a chocoholic than I am! So...we'll try out the coffees and cast our vote. Perhaps it will become a regular thing until we've tried all the varieties.

Speaking of coffee, we are on a virtually caffeine-free diet. No caffeinated sodas, tea, or coffee will be found in our house (except for the box of tea I found at triples for $.14 and couldn't resist). But Shannon works with a guy who roasts his own coffee and gave Shannon three samples for us to try, so we've been drinking regular coffee for the past ten days or so. Today I didn't drink my usual morning cup because I felt dehydrated and opted instead for water. Well, as a result I had a killer headache all morning and into the afternoon. Stupid caffeine, messing me up! Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be back to normal, no headaches and perfectly satisfied with a good cup 'o Joe and curling up in the papasan to read a good book. Ok, maybe not a good book, but a book that I have to read for class.

Oh, so after we went to The Fresh Market, we headed to Old Navy because I needed to return something. While we were inside I noticed that a couple of things I'd bought last weekend were now on sale. So I asked if they gave refunds if something went on sale within a certain period of time, and they said yes! If an item goes on sale within two weeks, you can bring your receipt in and they will refund you the difference. I just happened to have my receipt with me, so I got back $12! I went in to return one thing, pocketed that money, and simply let them scan my receipt while I bought a couple of smaller things (which I also had a 40% off coupon for), so I left with two things and an extra $1.60 or so in cash. That was fun. I love saving money.


Shannon playing football with a new "friend" while I'm checking out at Old Navy.

This weekend will be spent doing homework and cleaning our apartment. We're having company for dinner on Monday, so the much-neglected housework will finally get done, and I have about 40 pages of reading and two quizzes to do for one of my classes and then as much reading as I can manage to do for my other class, plus menu prep and grocery shopping on Sunday. Oh, and going to REI's Garage Sale to hopefully buy new running shoes. The ones I like are a whopping $125 (or $135 after tax), so maybe, just maybe they'll have Asics' Gel Kayanos in my size for only $50 or so. Here's hoping...I really need new shoes!

Since this seems to be an extraordinarily long post, I think I'll quit before everyone is too bored to read any more. Maybe Tropical Storm Hannah will give me something interesting to write about, although hopefully not of the "my car got smashed by a tree branch" variety. Until then.