Sinatra and Celebrating Three Months

Brian and I have been married for three months as of last Sunday!

Frank Sinatra

The weekend started with our date Friday night. Once again, our differing expectations threatened to ruin our date. I was thinking something romantic would be fun, like a walk by a lake at sunset, a picnic, maybe a bike ride, and I was planning to try making pizza. But Brian had other plans. He wanted to go to In and Out drive-through for burgers, then go to Fry’s Electronics store, and Half Price Books, and come home and watch a movie.

Honestly, I didn’t have a very good attitude at first. I love In and Out burgers, seriously, double double animal style can’t be beat. But I didn’t feel like fast food, and I really hate that we hardly ever eat at restaurants: we go through the drive through, or if we go inside, we still take the food home to eat it. But Brian gave me such a sad face when I said I’d rather make pizza, I acquiesced. We waited in a long line for the drive through, and then after we got our food, we parked in the parking lot and ate it in the car. I’m not quite sure I understand that yet, but I found that it was nice to not fix dinner, and like I said, their burgers can’t be beat.

I didn’t want to go to an electronics store. Not on a date, at least. Brian explained that he wanted to get something to keep his computer cool and get more RAM or something for my computer. I wasn’t too excited when he spent the first ten minutes on the phone, either. But I had to admit, it was a really cool store. Once Brian was off the phone, I found that I actually enjoyed exploring the store, drooling over the fancy cappuccino machines and Mac computers, and browsing the music and DVDs.

I love bookstores, and I’d been wanting to go to Half Price Books for awhile, so it was easy to be excited about that part of our date. There were so many books I wanted at such ridiculously low prices, but I finally picked out a Frank Sinatra CD. I hadn’t listened to much of him until this last summer, and I instantly got hooked on 1940’s and 50’s music. This CD was definitely worth the $7 for the 22 love songs.

Several weeks ago, we were looking for something “Classic” to watch after eating at Bucca Di Beppo, where the decor is very 1940’s-50’s. We were trying to come up with black and white movies, and I mentioned one that I’d seen years ago. All I could remember was the plot and that Clark Gable was in it. With that information, somehow Brian found it on netflix: “It Happened One Night.” How sweet is that?!

It Happened One Night

After reflecting on it, I came to the conclusion that I really needed to alter my expectation that dates have to fit  a certain definition. The whole point of a date is to enjoy being together, after all. So whether we are running errands or enjoying a candlelit dinner, with the right attitude, it could be a great date!

Sunday, during the service my mind was wandering a little. I thought of how I missed the cool crisp weather in Iowa, and I figured it would be fun to take the advice so many people have given us and go to the mountains where you actually can experience changing seasons, like Sedona or Flagstaff. But, Brian said it would be too far of a drive and we didn’t have time to go there and back before the “Love and Respect” class at 5pm. So, I said I’d like to go to the Fashion Square in Scottsdale instead, just to look around. Brian planned a quick trip up to North of Scottsdale and a slow drive back down through the middle.

“We can go to the Porsche and Rolls-Royce dealerships! We’ll go right by on the way through Scottsdale!” he told me gleefully.
“Great. What about the Fashion Square?”
“Oh, we’ll go by lots of malls.”
Sigh. “Ok. That’s fine. I guess I should change into better walking shoes.”
“You don’t need to, we won’t be doing much walking.”
I stopped and stared at him. “I thought we were going to a mall!”
“We’re going for a drive through Scottsdale. I don’t think we’ll have time to stop at a mall.”

Right about then, I got really frustrated. I had said I wanted to go to The Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale, not just Scottsdale. I knew deep down that driving around sight seeing could be fun, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I almost threw up my hands and said “But I don’t want to go for a drive, I want to window shop at a mall!” But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. I just didn’t change my shoes and packed some sandwiches and granola bars, and off we went. Brian knew I wasn’t happy, but I really don’t think he had any idea why. I knew that if I told him I’d rather just go to the mall close by so that we could actually spend some time there, he would scrap his plan for me, but he would be disappointed.

And once again, I had fun. I got to listen to my new Frank Sinatra CD the whole way! It was really hot in the car, even with the AC at full blast, but we drove around in some residential neighborhoods and admired the fancy houses that all have grass, while I kept an eye on their trash cans for discarded chandeliers or the like. We drove past the Rolls-Royce and Porsche dealerships without stopping, which surprised me. “If you want to stop anywhere, just say so.” Brian told me. By the time we got to The Fashion Square, I think we were both ready to stop and get out of the sun. It just so happened that we parked right next to a beautiful black 911 Porsche, and inside the mall, several different Jaguars were on display. So, it ended up that Brian got to see his cars, and I got to window shop after all!

I realized that I am really blessed to have a husband who likes to plan our dates. I’m glad that he doesn’t expect me to plan something every week, and then complain about it if he doesn’t like it. I know he does try to take both of our interests into consideration too. And, I’m glad he’s a homebody and is content to cuddle and watch movies at home for our dates.  I do think we could use some balance, however. I hope that in the next three months, I’ll get to plan a few of our dates, and that we will get out of the house  at least for part of them, since by the weekend I’m almost going crazy from being home all week. I hope that I will learn to be unselfish and have a more positive attitude about our dates too, whatever we do together!

June 19th, 2010

Brian and I both agree that it doesn’t feel like we’ve been married for three months, it feels like we’ve been married forever! But it doesn’t seem that long ago that I wrote about our one month anniversary. It seems ages ago that we moved from Iowa, but it hasn’t been that long. I’m planning to write a post soon about the goals I made before we moved, and add some new ones.

Before that, you’ll see some new things happing here, TBA. For now, I’m just enjoying listening to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and watching obscure Frank Capra films.