Homemade Dates

In effort to adapt to a student lifestyle (budget) again, Peter and I have decided to have stay-at-home dates every other Friday (after the kiddos are in bed). Coming up with activities that fit our criteria (try to spend less than $10, and stay at home) was kind of fun, so I'll post some of things I came up with. We take turns planning the date Monday evening for the following Friday. And if you have any more ideas, let me know!

Stay-At-Home Date-ish Activities:

Movies:

• Rent a movie (to make it extra special, splurge for a new-release)
• Have a "progressive" movie night. I was envisioning renting something like Cast-a-way and watching it on our portable DVD player, starting in the warm living room, then at the plane wreck scene moving to the bathroom into the running shower (with clothes on), and then on the island moving out to the balcony with some raw food (husking a coconut is in order), and then back inside for some gourmet food when Tom Hanks gets rescued. This also transfers nicely to go-out dates (like watching Jaws while floating in tubes in the ocean). My other idea was to watch Arachnophobia in our basement (a place many a spider calls home).

Cooking Dates:

• Try something new (we made hazelnut/coconut covered Chocolate Truffles a couple of weeks ago)
• Make something traditional (we always make orange rolls during the holiday season)
• Make something and Doorbell-Ditch someone with it
• Have a fancy dinner

Shopping Dates:

• Google Gifting (Find something online for each person for under $5)
• Google Charity Gifting (Find something online for someone else for $10)

Theater Dates:

• Learn a scene together from a play
• Learn funny monologues and present them to each other
• Do a poetry reading in character (if I were reading a poem by Poe I'd dress all in black and act drunk)
• Read a book out loud together (we've plowed through several book series this way)
• Speed Writing (spend one night starting and finishing a short story, then have a reading)

Games:

• Play a board game or a card game
• By 2 Extra Fancy Nice Pens and do a crossword together
• Play a board game in costume (e.g. play Mall Madness dressed as teenage girls, play Clue with a group in character and have a life-sized game board)

Dancing/ Music

• Learn to swing dance (that's what we're probably doing this Friday- I've got my library DVD "How to Swing Dance" on Reserve)
• Learn a duet on the piano
• Buy a new classical CD, buy a super fancy sound system from Bose (they happen to have a fabulous 30-day return policy) and dress up like we're at the symphony and listen to the new CD in our Conservatory

Projects:

• re-upholster your dining room chairs
• sew some fancy ribbons onto your shower curtain to make it match your theme
• paint a picture together
• Watch a movie while doing any project you have on your to-do list