(I’m listening to “Chrysalis” by S. Carey)

The wife and I have been married for going on 9 years.  We have two amazing girls, a warm home, great jobs, flexible schedules, and everything we need.  We set aside time to go over our schedules every week, have budget “pow wows”, and spend time with the kids.  We both have hobbies and we give each other time to do them.  We go on vacations. Our life is really awesome.  All of that said, sometimes we accidentally forget to take the time to be in love.

We don’t do it on purpose.  It’s just that between all of the “things” we have going on, our relationship can sometimes take a back seat.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s great that our relationship is strong enough to support us, but even the most reliable things need some maintenance every once in a while.  So, we gave our relationship some maintenance today and it will be the first time of many.

Friday mornings don’t fall under the stereotypical workday for us.  The wife is self-employed, so if she busts her butt Monday through Thursday, sometimes she can take things easy on Fridays.  I usually work late on Friday’s, so I don’t have to go to work until the afternoon.  That leaves the morning for us.

Today, we hired a babysitter so the wife and I could go on a day date.  The kids love our babysitter.  She’s a girl who lives up the street.  Littles gets so excited when we tell her the babysitter is coming.  She often refers to the babysitter as her best friend and she’s great with our kids.

After telling our oldest what we were doing and getting some goodbye hugs, our first stop was yoga.  The wife loves yoga.  Before kids, we used to go together, but I think I’ve gone once since.  It’s just hard to get us both out of the house at the same time without the kids.  We don’t live near family so we can’t just drop them off at grandma’s and go out.  We have to plan ahead and be intentional about it, which makes it all the more special when we get to do something like this.  We have to really take advantage of this time together.

Yoga was a heated C2 class.  That means they jack up the heat while you’re twisting and stretching yourself.  I hadn’t been to yoga in a while so I was a bit nervous because of a previous experience with a heated C2.  A heated C2, reminds me of our trip to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon.  Our honeymoon happened three years after we were married due to the fact we were broke (I’m laughing while I say that).  We had just paid for a wedding, we had student loans, and car payments.  Instead of putting a trip on a credit card and thinking about it the whole time, we decided to do Dave Ramsey’s plan and get out of debt.  Then, we saved the money for our honeymoon.  It took us three years to do all of that, but it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

Anyway, the night before we left for Puerto Rico, we wanted to get relaxed, so we went to a heated C2 yoga class.  I thought I was going to die.  I was sweating from places I didn’t even know I could sweat from.  I think my tongue was even sweating.  When we were done, I was drenched, like I had just come out of a shower.  I was worked.  It was hard, but I felt great.  That’s kind of how yoga is for me.  I never really want to go to yoga, but when I’m done, I’m always glad I went.  With that said, I don’t remember “the glad” as much as I do “the bad;” so with that memory of complete exhaustion in my mind, I was thinking this class was going to be torture.  I must have exaggerated that memory in my head because this class was excellent!  Afterwards, I felt like a million bucks and was ready for the next part of our date…breakfast!

The wife and I love going to breakfast together, and it’s great having an awesome breakfast place near our house.  It’s called The Bagel Deli.  It’s a Jewish deli and it was featured on the show “Diners, Drive-In’s, and Dives.”  It has been there for 50 years and I doubt much has changed since it opened.

We both had the “Eggs Bagel-Dict” with corned beef, and it was amazing.

The food is great, but it’s really the time spent together that makes The Bagel Deli so special to me, and us.  It’s a time to talk, a time to connect, and a time to maintain our relationship.  Like I said, it’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day “operations” of our family and before I can blink, a few weeks go by, and we’re like, “I feel like we haven’t spent any time together!” or “I feel like we’re far apart.”   The wife’s love languages, (if you don’t know what love languages are, I suggest the book, “The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts” by Gary Chapman) are “acts of service” and “quality time.”  What that means is, sure, the wife loves it when I do the dishes and the laundry, but she also loves to spend time with me!  Those things fill her love tank, and as her husband, I like to keep that tank full; in fact, I vowed to keep that tank full.

It’s so important to spend dedicated time together, with just us.  We started this family with us because we love each other and wanted to be together; and, no matter what responsibilities we have, it’s important to remember the greatest responsibility is to each other.  That’s why we have days like today and why we will have more in the future; because it’s important to take the time to be in love.

I had a great time, honey.  Would you like to go out again…say, next Friday?  Great.  I’ll pick you up at 9…AM.