Just Heather :: Love Him

Sep 24, 2009 | Filed Under: Alphabet Dating, Love It, Mixed Feelings, Tried It

Spencer and I have lived in the Indianapolis area for more than 10 years now (though never actually in Indy) so we’ve spent our fair share of time in the Circle City. Mostly, though, our trips downtown are centered around some sort of event so our activities are very specific and pre-planned. I always see the horse-drawn carriages, pass by the canal to watch the boats go by and drool over landmark, fine dining experiences we usually can’t afford. For our 4th alphabet date, we decided we were really Doing Downtown.

Our anniversary weekend provided the perfect opportunity, especially after my parents volunteered to take the girls. With the girls off to Camp Grandma’s and an entire weekend before us, we were anticipating such wonders as childfree grocery shopping, grown-up movies and sleeping in! We did all of that—and a whole lot more. After an indulgent sleep-filled morning, we headed down to Indianapolis. (I love how we always say that like it’s so! far! away! It’s, maybe, 30 minutes, but I hate traffic so it’s not something I do often.)

It did occur to us that since we’d never done any of the things on our list before, we should call ahead and see how it works. Does St. Elmo’s require a reservation? Yup! We got a 5pm. How late is the pedal boat rental place open? 8pm—we should have plenty of time for our dinner first. What else do we want to do? We decided to play the rest by year. Clearly, we don’t get out much.

Dinner at St. Elmo’s was decent. For the price we paid, I’d love to say dinner was fabulous or even a trite “you pay for the atmosphere” but, really, it’s just overpriced steak. The hubby really liked their world famous shrimp cocktail, though, so all was not lost. I’ve had much better steaks and I wasn’t super impressed with the atmosphere anyway. I mean, it’s cool the waiters were all in tuxes and all, but we have tablecloths and cloth napkins at home (yeah, we’re fancy like that) so for a $125 meal, I’m expecting to be fawned over.

The cosmo was super strong (points for that one, bartender!) and the food was decent. Still, we got to visit an official Indianapolis landmark. Now that it’s crossed off the list, I’m all good. If you ever want to say you went, I recommend stopping by just for appetizers and drinks—the shrimp cocktail is their signature dish anyway and, quite possibly, the best thing on the menu (this from someone who eats nothing from the sea). It’s a great way to have the experience without the full price tag.

After dinner, we wandered over to the canal. We had never actually been down to the canal (just watched it from the street), much less in it. We rented a pedal boat and enjoyed a good hour floating along. It really is quite beautiful. We had a truly lovely evening for it. The only thing better would have been a canal float by moonlight, but we work with what we’ve got. Now that we know it’s out there, I’m sure we’ll find another opportunity for it. Maybe next time, we’ll take a gondola ride (who knew we even had them in Indiana?).

After returning our boat, we took a walk up the other side of the canal. And, landed straight in a jazz concert at White River Park. From there, we decided to head in the general direction of Monument Circle—Spencer wanted some shots of the monument itself and I wanted dessert at South Bend Chocolate Cafe. We both got our wish, even though the circle was overrun by motorcycles. There was apparently a large event that day as parts of downtown were blocked to cars so heading home after our night was another experience altogether.

This was definitely not our most inexpensive date night, but it was well worth it! We spent a wonderful, relaxing day together, our marriage was in a very good place and it was great to share some things I’ve always wanted to do. Exploring the city tourist-style was a little grandiose for one day, and we didn’t get to everything. We’ve decided to use I for Indianapolis for the rest of it—slated for December to enjoy the holiday lights. Maybe next time we’ll remember to take some pictures of ourselves.

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Yum!

Sep 16, 2009 | Filed Under: Love Him

I love a guy in a fedora, but my guy in a fedora leaves me speechless. Happy Wordless Wednesday!

I don’t think he gets it.

36. Watch a meteor shower.

Sep 09, 2009 | Filed Under: 40x40, Love Him

Alternate Title: How a meteor saved my marriage.

Okay, so this Perseid thing comes along every August. I am 32 years old and had never seen it. That’s why it went on 40×40“>the official list. I hadn’t made a specific plan to watch it this year, although having it on my list did put it on my radar. I was paying attention to the dates and the optimal viewing time was middle of the night the evening before Blog Indiana. I didn’t think that was wise.

Then, instead of going to bed early so I’d be well rested for my conference, I stayed up late fighting with my husband. I’ve made no secret of our ongoing struggles. They’ve come to a head in huge blowups a couple of times in the last few years, and this one was bad. As in packing my suitcase bad. Then, I read this and cried. Buckets. But it wasn’t enough to make me go back into the house. Pride, probably. Fear, a lot.

I was standing outside thinking about how many times we’ve had the same fight. Wondering how we could co-parent separately if we couldn’t even co-parent together. Trying to figure out how to make it on my own. Contemplating how you can love someone so very much and still not be able to find a way to live together. Something in the sky caught my eye, but as I’ve never seen a meteor shower I didn’t really know what it would look like or what to expect.

As I was looking up, a huge meteor, as in movie effects huge, streaked across the sky. I was doing it—I was crossing off another one! That’s when the tears started. I wanted to tell someone that I had just moved another step closer to 40×40 and he wasn’t there. I didn’t stop to think; I just tore back into the house with tears streaming down my face to tell him I was watching it and he should go watch it too.

He joined me in the front yard to see the meteor shower, but then he grabbed my hand and tugged me to the backyard for the better view. And never let go. We quietly enjoyed the show for a bit, until Spencer went back into the house for a blanket so we could lie down. We watched for a couple hours, actually, and started talking. I realized our life, our marriage is kind of like that meteor shower.

It has its darkness. It has bright beauty. And just when you think it’s over, something spectacular happens. And, just like Perseid, we’ll be celebrating every August. Our latest Alphabet Dating adventure occurred just a few weeks ago for our 12th anniversary. We’re in this together, for life; we just have a few things to figure out along the way.

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C Is For No Kids Allowed

Jul 07, 2009 | Filed Under: Alphabet Dating, Love It

For Christmas last year, we received a membership to the Children’s Museum. I was very excited as we had actually never taken the children. I am such a horrible mother. Indianapolis is actually home to the number one children’s museum in the country. We have been several times now that we are members, and we will never be without a membership again.

Their current feature is The Power of Children. We’ve been through the exhibit twice and I hadn’t even seen a third of it. It looked incredibly fascinating and powerful (thus, the name). However, it’s not so much for children. My girls just couldn’t care at all. I joked that I wanted to visit the museum one day without them so we could finally spend some time with the things we enjoy. Our next date, C=Children’s Museum, was born.

We dropped the kidlets with MFJ and headed downtown. With the construction they still have going on at the museum, we ended up in the basement to start. We bypassed the dinosaurs—been there, done that. On our way up to The Power of Children, we stumbled on the 2nd reason for our no kids allowed trip, The Clone Wars exhibit. I’m sure Lorelai will love it, but she wouldn’t be as interested in the details and we would have missed a lot chasing her down in a dash towards the train exhibit.

The Power of Children exhibit was definitely worth the trip. We sat through all 3 presentations and while I’m not sure Spencer was all that into it, I thoroughly enjoyed them all. The Diary of Anne Frank is the only assigned book from junior high that I actually read cover to cover. Clearly, we learned no lessons as the hatred and racism continued in our country. The story of Ruby Bridges fascinates me. I just can’t get over how recently it was. I would love to think we’re beyond that, but 50 years later I still see it regularly. Ryan White’s story was familiar. I was young so I think I remember the movie about his story more than the actual news. I grew up here in Indiana, though, so it was a pretty big deal.

Our next stop was for the geeks in us (okay, mostly him). The games through the years exhibit is fun even with the whole family, but we never get to play when the girls are around. Someone is always taking over my joystick and losing my last life. It was a bit crowded so I still haven’t had the opportunity to play Giant Connect 4, but beating Spencer at Pac-Man was worth it. Since we were already there, I insisted that we ride the carousel. Without children to wrangle, I was able to read all the cute tidbits on the history of the carousel. It’s amazing how educational even the fun & games exhibit can be, but we really had a lot of fun being kids.

We capped off our date with a few minutes of relaxation in the basement. Of course, remember we’re at the children’s museum so that isn’t even remotely dirty! They have this rotating couch-like thing that looks up at the bottom of the Fireworks of Glass sculpture pictured above, which, by the way, was apparently created by a pirate. See? Educational.

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Hubby’s Free iPhone

Jun 11, 2009 | Filed Under: Being Green, Living Inexpensively, Love Him, Part-Time Geek

Hubby got an iPhone last fall and I, of course, have wanted one ever since. I don’t usually require much in a cell phone. I need it to call, text and survive the occasional fall. That means the iPhone was out for me, until I heard about the hard-shelled cases people use to take their iPhone mountain biking. Perhaps, with a hard-shelled case, an iPhone could survive even me.

Of course, we don’t have an extra $200 to get another one. Enter the new iPhone 3GS with the resulting price drop in the plain, old model that’s good enough for me. We have one contract up for renewal now and another in October, but still lack the funds to pay even the reduced price. Then I saw a Tweet from Planet Green about recycling your old phone if you plan to get a the new iPhone. My savings-oriented, scheming brain kicked into over drive.

I headed to my favorite gadget recycling site and checked the value on the current iPhone. $249—more than enough to buy the new one when it is released later this month. By the time I convinced hubby that being without his precious iPhone for 2 weeks would be worthwhile if it means he gets the updated model for nothing, the value had dropped to $229. That is still more than enough to pay for the updated model with our contract-renewal discount.

We thought he’d be using my seriously jank phone until June 19th, but it looks like the buy offer is good through 7/9 so he’ll be keeping the iPhone until his free Father’s Day present arrives. It means the purchase goes on a credit card, but it will be paid off as soon as our inexpensively” target=”top”>Gazelle check arrives. If you have an AT&T plan up for renewal and a current iPhone, I’d try it out before the values drop even more.

As for my phone, I’ll still have to wait. I’m such a good wife.

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If I Only Had a Name

May 29, 2009 | Filed Under: Lovable Critters, Love Him, Waxing Nostalgic

Baby, my hometown cat

I have had cats for most of my life. It started when I was 4 and my dad told me absolutely, never ever are we getting that cat. Then I cried. Her name was Sweetheart and she went on to have 5 kittens, most of whom we kept. Her last kitten lived until I was in high school. About a year after she passed, I started in on wanting another cat. My dad said no way, absolutely not. We are never getting another cat. Then, I may or may not have cried. His name is Baby and he still lives with my parents.

Tommy the Cat, 1997-2008

When Spencer and I were getting married, we already had a dog. Indy was almost one and tons of fun, but I still wanted a cat. He said no, but finally relented (even without the tears!) and got me a kitten as a wedding gift. Tommy was the greatest cat ever, even if Spencer never quite saw it that way. He was sweet, playful and never, ever cross with the kids (though each went through their toddler stage of torturing him constantly).

When he passed away, I always knew I’d eventually get a cat but it takes some time to heal. Apparently, for me, that time is always about one year. I’ve been making noises for a month or so about getting another cat. In April, Brenia’s Girl Scout troop visited PetSmart, and their on location pet rescue. I, of course, wanted to take them all home with me. He said no, but announced on Mother’s Day that my present was getting a cat. I had my heart set on a kitten, but I also felt tugged to rescue one of the cats.

Captain Nemo

Earlier this week, my friend let me know that PetSmart’s rescue shelter had new kittens. We stopped by “just to look” and came home with two. We picked out one of the baby kittens, but Captain Nemo’s soulful eyes kept calling to us so we had to bring him home. Both cats are affectionate, playful (a little too playful for my tastes at 4am) and good with the kids. The youngest is not quite sure about Indy, but Nemo seems to have made his peace. He does hide from Lorelai, but that’s just common sense.

"We named the dog Indiana."

When we adopt a pet, we would ordinarily change his name. Indy was once Snoop, but he didn’t really seem to know it. That happens when a dog spends 22 hours a day in a crate. Nemo seems to have stuck, though. Partly, because Finding Nemo is Spencer’s very favorite children’s movie, partly because it was rather funny to be looking for Nemo all evening when he hid and partly because he seems to come when you call. Bogey, however, is not our baby kitten’s name.

8-bit

The problem is, we weren’t sure what was. We kicked around quite a few names but nothing really seemed to fit him yet. The girls suggested cliches like Shadow and Midnight, but I’m not really into that sort of thing. We’ve named most of our animals from movies or television shows (kids too!) so we kicked around Cat Kirk for awhile. The girls hated it and even though I loved the idea it just didn’t feel right. I liked Pixel, suggested by Spencer, but it was a blatant ripoff from some Twitter guy’s bunny. Somewhat related to Pixel, I suggested 8-bit. I think it stuck.

: Buds already

: Nemo

: 8-bit

: Hiding from Indy

: “We named the dog Indiana.”

: Not a fan of dogs

: Spencer loves these kittens!

: Animals on the couch?

: Apparently we’re ok with it.

: Captain Nemo

: Baby, my hometown cat

: Tommy the Cat, 1997-2008

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B Is For Dinner Theater

May 22, 2009 | Filed Under: Alphabet Dating, Love Him, Mixed Feelings

I love food. I love musicals. I love pirates, a fact which everyone in hubby’s family now knows (thank you, Jagermeister). All of this adds up to the Beef and Boards production of Treasure Island being tailor made for me. It was always our intention to visit this local dinner theater as part of our Alphabet Dating journey, even before I discovered they were featuring pirates through the spring.

We had plenty of letter choices—dinner theater, play, musical—but when I won tickets last month it was obvious we would be using the alliteration for our B date. I was very excited. Him? Probably not so much. Musicals aren’t really his thing, especially when he has to dress for the event. I, personally, couldn’t wait to get dressed up, have dinner with my husband and catch a show. About pirates.

Then the weekend arrived and brought one of our biggest fights yet. The night was rocky, the next day tough and I didn’t think we’d last to the evening much less feel up to a date. We hashed through a lot over the course of the day and finally got to a pretty good spot. It’s been one step forward, two steps back since we began the rehabilitation journey. We’ve been on our current path for a month now so this time I’m convinced we’ve made lasting progress.

Anyway, the evening arrive and we were still married; I got all decked out (he told me I was beautiful—bonus points), he suited up (yum!), the babysitters arrived (Thanks, Mimi & Papaw!) and we set sail (ha—get it?) for our musical adventure. I knew very little of what to expect, though I’ve been wanting to visit the place for years. My parents and extended family all love Beef and Boards but that was the extent of my knowledge. I didn’t even have real tickets, just an email telling me the show was at 8pm and the hostess had our reservation.

We arrived at 7:30 feeling pretty good about our promptness only to discover that the show starts at 8, yes, but the dinner buffet is 6-7:30. Oops. They were gracious to us and the waiter brought us each a plate anyway. I couldn’t eat most of mine, due to my gluten intolerance, but I picked through what I could (off both plates, of course). Turns out, the food wasn’t worth an extra hour of our time anyway. We did enjoy our intermission sundae but even that seemed to be nothing more than ice cream from a bucket with Hershey’s syrup.

The show, however, was well worth the price of admission even if it hadn’t been free. The production was fun. The all male cast was a hoot. The songs were lively and fun. I loved that the stage direction kept putting pieces of the show right in front our table. My one disappointment was that the gift shop was closed after the show. I wanted a pirate flag, but it’s probably just as well that I didn’t add to our junk collection. I’ll scrapbook the playbill instead along with the single, slightly blurry picture above.

The “rules” of Alphabet Dating specifically exclude movies because the point is to create experiences and reconnect. That really requires something other than sitting next to one another in the dark. It’s my game, though, so I make things up as we go. Still, the lighting and seating arrangement made the play acceptable for our purposes, I think. We were able to cozy up together to enjoy the show and each another.

Here’s to 24 more letters (plus a lifetime) of enjoying one another.

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A Is For Basketball

May 19, 2009 | Filed Under: Alphabet Dating, Living Inexpensively, Love It

The original Alphabet Dating project fizzled out last fall. After a phenomenally rough holiday season, Spencer and I decided to give it another try. When my brother and his wife gave us Pacer tickets for Christmas, coupled with an evening of free babysitting, we had the perfect opportunity to start again. Armed with Restaurant.com certificates for Blue Crew, we were prepared for an evening of athletics. A sports themed date is perfect for us. I love basketball; he loves the Colts.

View from Our Baseline Seats

It was a decent game, and I really enjoyed the baseline seats. We’ve been to several games over the years, but this was my first opportunity to have noisemakers behind the goal. I was stupidly excited about it! After the game, we headed out for appetizers at the Blue Crew. When we arrived at 10:05pm, though, we were told the kitchen closed at 10. Having missed dinner, we were hungry but I was determined to keep with the A-themed evening.

Majors Sports Cafe

The next thing to pop in my mind was a sports cafe run by a friend of mine. Majors Sports Cafe has 47 television screens around the restaurant and a unique, eclectic menu including buffalo meatloaf! We enjoyed our dinner and conversation while we I kept an eye on hockey, soccer, a Peyton Manning documentary and an XBox competition—definitely more sports than even I was anticipating.

Game 2: Club Level

We actually had the opportunity to revisit the Pacers (for free, I might add) before we got around to the next letter in our dating journey. That was a serendipitous evening with an even more serendipitous meeting. We bumped into our high school best friends as we were walking to the club level. Clearly the beginning of our new Alphabet Dating experience was steak sauce. Because that also starts with an A.

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