Date Morning: Coffee and Thrifting

 

Sometimes our dates feel fancy and grand – like our visit to the palatial Monaco that I shared about yesterday. Other times our dates are small, simple, yet no less meaningful, like the one I will tell you about today.

                Our first date of 2025 was last Saturday morning – far earlier in the day than I would ever choose to be up on a Saturday. Lexi had a (much-needed!) haircut scheduled at 9:00 in the morning, and we had to travel a bit to get to the groomer. We dropped her off, and she skipped away to the spa room with hardly a backward glance.

                We skipped out the front door and out to a couple hours of freedom from responsibility! (To be fair, we did start at Walmart, but let’s gloss over that part and move onto the next section that’s more fun.)

                We went to the little coffee shop for lattes, and I was so excited to find that even though the place was busy (as it always is) the Friends-esque couch at the front was open! It sat opposite a tall, girthy, real Christmas tree that was void of its ornaments, but not void of its fir scent. Needles scattered on the floor, and it all made for a lovely atmosphere.

                Ryan found a basket of children’s books on the coffee table and read me Goodnight Moon, and while I don’t have that book memorized, I have to believe that the final page in the copy on the coffee table is probably not the actual final page of the book. I believe we may have had a compromised copy. Either that, or the book is a bit of a letdown in resolution.

                After story-time from a book, we talked over our dreams for things we would love to do for our home in the years to come. Dreaming together is one of our favorite things, so it was a fun conversation.

                Eventually we headed down the street to our favorite consignment shop to do a little thrifting together. Thrifting is an accidentally-discovered love of ours. We never did much of it (regularly anyway) until the last year, and now we absolutely adore it. We found more treasures than I think we’ve ever found before, including a few things for the house – and two of them were things on my running “watch-for-this” list.

                In Ryan’s bathroom, we have a nail in the wall where I hung a cute sign for autumn and a little snowman canvas for Christmas. Now those seasons are over, but we had nothing bathroom-appropriate to hang in that spot. I didn’t have anything specific in mind, but I wanted something that would work well in that space when we didn’t have a seasonally appropriate piece waiting. Ryan was the one to find it. The home décor room was overflowing with all kinds of items, and somehow he found this among the many pieces. I think it’s perfect. The size is perfect, the design is neutral, and the colors are fun for this very small room that can feel challenged on personality. I smile every time I see it.

                We wanted a small, ambient lamp to keep on in our bedroom – just over in a corner – so it isn’t so dark in there throughout the long, dark mornings and evenings. Ryan spotted this one too! It’s simple and perfect, and I fell in love with how made-for-this-spot it seemed the moment we brought it home.

                We don’t often do impulse buys, but we did one this day, and I haven’t regretted it for a second. We saw these little industrial-looking vase pieces that were unlike anything we’d ever seen before and kept pulling our attention back to them. I wasn’t even quite sure where they should live in our house (and to be honest, I’ll probably move them around from room to room) but we both felt strongly we should bring them home, so we did. Their first stop on the home tour is to be the completer piece to our dining room table centerpiece. I found a couple small sprigs in our box-of-faux-flowers, and we agree, this was a good decorative investment for the house.

                As we were checking out, the groomer called, Lexi was finished, and so was our date. But my goodness – what fun we had, drinking coffee, reading children’s books, and thrifting in our favorite store!