Alphabetical Dates: Inspired by the Letter F

I know! We are so out of order on our alphabetical dates! We did E before D and G before F. Like I said before, it's good we're not trying to teach the alphabet through this project!

I think perhaps the best words to describe the date weekend inspired by the letter F include: fluid, fluctuating, frustrating, and fickle.

Pretty much the whole date went nothing as I planned it, and while it was still overall good and definitely memorable, it was also flabbergasting.

The original plan for this date was a fondue night at home. But when I realized how much all the cheese and dipping items were going to cost, I decided we would make our date fit into some of the plans we already had for the weekend. Cheaper!! (Or should I say frugal?)


So our date started Friday night with our Friday night fellowship fete to mark the end of our Bible study we've been doing with Ryan's co-workers! We had a pitch-in dinner with burgers and brats and all sorts of snacks. Ryan built a deviled egg burger he was pretty proud of.

I didn't get many pictures that night (fail!!!) and one of the other girls said she'd send me hers, but I don't have them yet. Even so, it was a really fun evening. I love a good party.

We continued the date on Saturday, and that was the day that ended up making us crazy! I shared this picture on my Facebook page and said something about dates not going as planned, because I don't want everyone to think that everything is always perfect here in Shafferland. We have a good life and a great marriage and we really do have a lot of fun together, but don't have some sort of Midas touch that makes everything void of imperfections. I want to be honest about that, because I don't ever want to give off false impressions that we have everything automatically easy!

We've got some GREAT stories about this day that I'll save for the podcast tomorrow because they are even better told than written, I think.

We started the day with an appointment for our car (recreating our first date, apparently), and after that, we were kind of hungry, but not very, so we found this little donut shop and got a donut. We had to eat in our car because there were way too many people for the table space in that little shop!

We went shopping for fun finds at some of our favorite stores while we were out of town. Found some good deals for our new patio space!

I had a pretty raging headache by this point, so I asked if we could go through Starbucks for some iced fresh brew to try to temper the thing, and while we sat in the line, a lady from the car behind us came up to our car, told us she'd paid for our order, and handed us a little card to explain her random act of kindness. WHAT?!?!?!?!?! A freebie? This has never happened to us! We've heard of such things, but they've never happened to us!

The card tells about little baby Josie, who lived just 18 days, and her family started this initiative called Josie's Impact, to spread the word about her life and encourage people to do random acts of kindness in her honor and memory. (And yes, we will be paying this forward!) If you want to see some of the things people have done, just search #josiesimpact.

We tried to shop at the Goodwill, but it was the first Saturday of the month and everything was 50% off, so the place was a madhouse. I found an amazing reference book I wanted, but I couldn't justify standing in line for over an hour for one book. We came back at the end of the day, and it was gone. Great sadness. (And par for the day.)

We went to Red Robin for lunch, and Ryan scored his free food, because it's his birthday month, so he earned a free meal! YAY!!!

Then we went to see a flick: Beauty and the Beast! I'd been itching to see it, but I wanted to wait until the crowds died down, and it paid off! Our theater was pretty empty!

I thought it was incredible in music and cinematography! They did add a few songs that were not in the original movie, and they changed a handful of lyrics to existing songs, but they left in enough of the amazing stuff that it was okay. I thought I would cry multiple times, but I only cried once! (And that was when she walked into the library. Not even kidding. All those books just made me straight up cry!)

Also - I would like to have these seats. They rocked! Literally!

We had a couple more stores to hit, and LOOK WHAT WE SAW ON THE WAY?????

Oh, be still my heart!

So see? Despite the many frustrations of the day, it was still a good 2-day date, and we piled up a good number of blessings!!!

Now! Back on track! Letter H is next!