Life Is Like A Box Of Experiments

Experiment for 2015, half way there!

Our corporate lives were hectic. You must be expecting me to say how wonderful it is to slow down as a medical student, eh? Ha! No sir. I hate it. I would take high productivity, being on the road, deadlines, multiple projects on the go, & long working hours any day. On the plus side though this slow life (and having to share a car) means John and I get to spend more time together than we could before! Now, that I adore.

You know, early on in our marriage we felt date nights were not really us. Of course we went to the cinema, theatre, concerts, museums, & shows together. For example, once we both wanted to see La Traviata. So we found a convenient time, booked tickets, grabbed a nice pre-show dinner, & enjoyed the performance. That wasn’t a date; we were spending time together. As best friends we knew each other very well. A date was meant for people trying to get to know one another. Yet suddenly, nearly 10 years into our marriage, this slow student life gave us the opportunity to make an unanticipated discovery. We both seem to be changing! Be it hurtling towards middle age, or coping with disastrous loses in 2013- something is undeniably changing us.

We needed a way to understand the people we are becoming & our evolving priorities. So at the beginning of this year we decided to experiment: date nights with a twist. 12 evenings filled with stuff that have come to mean a lot to us without spending a dime, & keeping phones on silent (I think I am now physiologically incapable of switching my phone off). We used Lauren Laker’s amazing pre-planned date night printables & away we went! The photo above is that of our little booklet.

Six months on & we have a new family tradition alongside Joy Jar! Edmund Spenser wrote in The Faerie Queene, “For there is nothing lost, that maybe found, if sought.” The sacrosanct nature of the evenings along with their specific restrictions have proved to be our way of searching, learning, growing, and finding a bit of magic in our new life.