12 Months of Pre-Planned Dates

I have been dying to share this!! Just dying! 12 months of pre-planned and pre-paid dates was my main Christmas gift to Kit in 2013. Our first date kinda flopped because there was some idiotic things I couldn’t control. However, we are back on schedule.

I found this idea of 12 Pre-Planned Dates on Pinterest. There are tons of them all over the internet. The blogger I linked had some great tips but the blog was a touch sparse when it came to actual ideas. I believe that was on purpose. The original blogger didn’t want you to do an exact copy because she wanted her readers to get creative and make it their very own. I am will toats share all of mine, never fear. I do stand behind her in saying: Make this your own! Don’t just copy the dates, sit down and put some serious thought into things that the two of you would like to do together.

For example, some couples may hate to cook together, but that is a great togetherness time that my husband and I have. I also wanted to keep these 12 dates on a very serious low budget. I think all together I spent less than $50. Those are some legit dates if you ask me.

What is this all about?

Come up with 12 date ideas. Write 12 letters, grab and label 12 envelopes and make sure to include anything needed to complete the date. Especially items like, printed off directions, brochures of destination, recipe cards, gift cards, or other specific things (like food coloring to go with a cookie recipe).

About a week before the new month open the envelope and pick a day to have your pre-planned date! So you would open the February date envelope sometime during the last week of January.

January

My plan for January was to get a $5 gift card for this local theatre that mostly does live performances. They promised to have several $2 movies they would show during January and the schedule of shows would be available–to include in my envelope–by mid December. Sadly, the show schedule didn’t come out until January and the shows are all scheduled for February.
To make matters worse the gift card to the theatre got lost in the mail somewhere. It might be in my PO box…silly mail. We hope to hold three dates in February, the Jan-date, Feb-date and something special for Valentine’s Date. March will feel uneventful after our crazy February ends.

February

I want each month to have its own blog post after we have the date, but since Kit has opened the February envelope I can summarize it here. February’s envelope includes: A bandana, a small tub of Wilton’s rose pink coloring, a recipe for super pink chocolate chip cookies, and a letter with instructions. The instructions essentially say that our challenge is to make chocolate chip cookies will taking turns being blindfolded.
I suppose if you wanted to analyze what this does for the relationship it can be noted that this is a trust building exercise. The blindfolded person must depend on the unimpaired partner to help make measurements.
My mom has asked about 15 times already….So yes, if you’re wondering it will probably be a naked cooking date. We’re adults and we can be naked. Hahaha, it also may be more amusing this way.
One of the best parts, in addition to nudity, is that we will have awesome super bright pink cookies to nosh when we finish the date. Milk and cookies is what’s up!

March

This one is a surprise! You’ll have to wait a month!! But I promise to continually add to this list so you know what we’re up to throughout the year.

Happy Dating!

~Kat~

Bibs for Baby K

Recently, I found and got inspired by some plain baby bibs and have begun putting some simple embroidery designs on them.

Each bib will have one item on them, I feel that too much fancy takes say from the wearable napkin purpose of it.

A blue anchor on the blue bib, ‘Hungry’ on the green, ‘Feed Me’ on the yellow, and the baby’s name on the orange.

My little cousin is coming soon! I had better get crackin’! I can’t wait to meet the little sucker!

Kat’s V-Day 2013

This Valentine’s Day went pretty well. I was very pleased that Kit and I decided to stay at home. I hate the stress of going out for a fancy dinner only to find every restaurant over-packed with other noisy people. Besides our food was better. First, we got semi-dressed up and were witnesses at a friend’s wedding. We had lunch with the happy couple and then went trudging to do the V-day shopping we should have done days before.
I was surprised how many men were snatching flowers with a desperate look in their eyes and how many folk there were in the grocery store.

This is a hugely popular DIY gift on Pinterest. The project is called 52 Things I Love About You. On each card I wrote something that I love about Kit. I copied some from another crafter, but I found that the ones that meant more were the personal ones. My Kit rarely wears pants. He is a shorts-man. Because of that fact I wanted him to wear shorts for our wedding. The phrase “Two Wild Banshees” is one of those things I catch him saying all the time.

When Kit looked through the cards on Vday, he was chuckling and smiling all the way through. Because I wrote on the face of the cards, they can still be played with normally.

Supper started the only way it could; with wine. I bought a bottle of the same wine we had for our wedding (a peach chardonnay) and threw some frozen peaches into it. Perfecto.

Honestly, the first thing I did was begin marinating the shrimp and steak. The shrimp was medium, fully-cooked and frozen. I used a lemon ginger marinade that I should have started the night before, but the hours run away from me. The marinade for 1 pound of shrimp is:

• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3/8 onion, chopped
• 5/8 clove garlic, peeled
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger root
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro leaves (I used cubed bouillon style cilantro)
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika (dash)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt (dash)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper (dash)

I cubed up a steak and threw it into a gallon bag and tried to follow this steak marinade recipe: (I didn’t have W-sauce, oops!)

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 onion diced
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• dash of pepper

As you can see in the photo above, I skewered quartered small sweet onions, whole mushrooms (baby portabellas were on sale), whole grape tomatoes, and fat slices of red and green bell peppers. I baked these kabobs on a cookie sheet (I recommend putting aluminum foil on the trays to help with cleanup). Bake them for 10-12 minutes at 450F, flip them over and bake an additional 7-8 minutes. Thanks for the oven kabobs recipe, Sarra!

I made coca-cola cake for dessert. I failed to check my stock of butter and only had enough to make the cake and not the glaze that went on top. What makes coca-cola cake special or different from a regular chocolate cake? I honestly have no clue. Google is not helping a sister out either. It was a good recipe that I have to try again when I can do the glaze as well. I honestly love my mom’s recipe for crazy cake. This was more moist…almost like a light brownie.

The rest of the evening was spent enjoying our present that we gave to each other. Our Roku is so much better than jewelry I may never wear. Tons of Netflix TV shows at our fingertips. In one month, the Roku has already paid for itself several times over because we were frequent users of Redbox.

Day 259: Moooor Cookies!!

This is simply an extension of the blog Coupling Cookies in which I shared the recipe of Nutella cookies. In the the interest of money I went the route of cute Christmas paper plates with plastic wrap on top. Functional.

I really wished I has some green or peppermint cookies to strewn in to add more Christmas color. In hindsight, some green peppermint hard candies throw in between the cookies would have been perfect.

Some of the cookie dough had to be mixed by hand. I personally enjoy mixing most ingredients by hand. My all-time favorite to mix by hand may be the sugar, butter and apples for pie. Lovely grainy texture.

Nutella and red velvet cookies were cooling. The nutella cookies are a deep brown but not quite as dark as this crappy pictures shows.

Did you make any sweet Xmas cookies this past season?

Day 257: Music Mug

My Sister in Law and I play this game where when we go shopping we are on constant scout for presents for each other.

Except it is more like window shopping for each other. We neither one of us rich. So this is where we employ the saying “It’s the thought that counts.”

This is me thinking of my dear SiL. This music mug was a sweet find that I stumbled on at TJ Maxx. This is where I got several of Kit’s Christmas presents.