September 14, 2018

Date Night Idea Jar

Me: What do you want to do tonight?

Hubbs: Ummm…whatever you want to do.

Me: I don’t know; that’s why I asked you.

Hubbs: Well now I’m asking you.

Me: I asked you first 😛

Hubbs: Well I don’t know so whatever you want to do…

…and then we more than likely end up doing some version of dinner and a movie lol.

Has this ever happened to you and your significant other? If it hasn’t then I’d feel preeeeetty safe saying you’re in the minority.

Here’s the thing, my husband and I aren’t boring people; we aren’t an “old married couple.” We love AND like each other, we enjoy each other’s company and we have great conversation. If we had a quality time complaint it would be that we always want more. We just suffer from simultaneous brain freeze when we get that rare free time to actually have a date.

So, never being one to come to the table with a problem and no solution, I went on the hunt and started my “The T8s” board on Pinterest so I could save all kinds of amazing date ideas and put some variety in our dating life.

And what happened? Nothing lol. Oh, I found some wonderful posts with all kinds of things that I never would have thought of. More variety than you could ever ask for. And when the time came, we still had trouble choosing and planning. Then one day, at the bottom of a pin, I saw a couple of pictures – one with popsicle sticks with ideas written on them and another with a jar full of sticks.

And that’s how our date night jar was born.

Since then I’ve seen several iterations of the concept, each offering their own take. Some, in my opinion, doing way too much in the way of design. We’re busy people and I’m usually looking for a way to streamline our lives, not complicate them further. So here’s how I created our cute (imo) and effective Date Night Idea Jar.

You’ll Need:

A Mason Jar (having pasta soon? Grab a jar of your favorite Classico and wash it after you make dinner…reduce, reuse, recycle!)
Multi-Colored Craft Sticks (available at Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, Joann Fabrics, Amazon, etc. )
Sharpie
Construction Paper (optional)
Scissors (optional)
Tape (optional)

My System:

Green and Blue: Free – inexpensive
Yellow: Mid-range cost/some planning required
Red: High cost/lot of time/advance planning required
Purple: Family fun!

What You’ll Do:

Make a list of eeeevery date idea you can think of. Include your favorites and the things you’ve been “planning” to do for years. I also put the names of restaurants we keep saying we want to try on a stick in their respective price range. Now, everybody has to define what inexpensive, mid-range and high cost means to their individual budgets, but in our house, green is free – <$20, yellow is $20-60 and Red is anything over $60.

(If you need some date night ideas, you can get our exact list, by price category here.)

Putting it in Action:

I’d love to say we use our jar every week (getting back to weekly date nights is a work in progress…we’ll get there really soon), the reality is we do not. However, when we have a date coming up (yes, I put them on the calendar when I see mutual free time), we decide what the budget range is and then get to pulling. I’m sure in theory you’re supposed to pull one and that’s it, but we don’t work like that lol. If we pull something on the first go that we don’t feel like doing, we don’t do it. We’re not about forced “fun.” But we do limit the number of draws. Lately we’ve been doing you pull one, I pull one and we either pick one or do both. We have also done 2 sticks per person and we pick one or two.

The rule is that there are no rules. This is a fun way to keep the spark in YOUR relationship so you have to decide what works for you. Just remember to enjoy each other and have fun. It’s easier to keep the spark than to have to re-start the fire.

Live and love well, my friends 🙂