Date nights 1 and 2

After a series of meltdowns, arguments, and major stress between us lately over Greg's job, trying to plan Thanksgiving, and everything else that goes wrong all the time, this week we decided to make the most of Greg's evenings off by having some "date nights". If we don't set up these plans ahead of time, I usually come home from work and put on pajamas within 5 minutes of walking through the door and don't want to do anything but harvest my Farmville Farm and watch stupid TV. Greg usually spends the entire evening glued to his laptop trying to predict the state of the aviation industry based on online airline forums. Therefore it's crucial that we decide ahead of time that TONIGHT WE ARE GOING OUT. Our date nights usually involve an errand or two along with dinner somewhere in the proximity of an errand. Hey, we're just really practical people, ok? Oh yeah, and we're like the least romantic couple on the planet. Have I mentioned that Greg proposed to me during a fight? Or that we slept in the same bed the night before our wedding (gasp) and saw each other for pictures before the ceremony? Yeah, I could go on and on about the lack of romance we have going...lol.
Anyway, one of our favorite past times is going to Costco and cruising the aisles for an hour or so. Especially when we get those Costco coupon books in the mail. We usually go with a list of stuff we want from the coupon book and then tool around checking everything else out. Greg usually spends an abnormal amount of time in the electronics section checking out laptops, cameras, TVs, and other manly electronic items, while I like to peruse the clothing aisles trying to decide if I need a 100-pack of underwear or a down parka meant for some person living in a tundra and not in Charlotte (why do they even sell those down here???). Wednesday night that's what we did. We didn't get too out of control on this trip- mostly stuck to our list. I've still yet to get in and out of Costco without spending less than $100 though. I don't think it's humanly possible. I returned my Adidas running shoes I got on the previous trip and got the right size (yay- so glad they still had them left in an 8!). After Costco we went to Chili's for dinner as we had a gift card to use. I know Chili's is also not romantic, but I tell you, this in itself was a victory, because usually if we go to Costco anywhere the proximity of a meal, the $1.50 hotdog/soda combo becomes our "romantic dinner". We got one of those $20 for two people three-course dinners. We had cheese fries, sliders, chicken quesadillas (Dang quesa-dillllllla), and white chocolate berry molten cake. Healthy!!! That was way more food than either of us could consume, so most of my quesadilla, black beans, and rice came home with us.
Last night was a similar night to Wednesday night. We headed out to Walmart in pursuit of a air ionizer thingie Greg wanted. We were both disappointed that we didn't find any candidates for www.peopleofwalmart.com. I was however, happy to find Christmas bags for 25 cents a piece that I can use for my annual gift to friends and co-workers of mass amounts of my oh-so-delicious Christmas cookies. Excellent find.
After completing this errand, we headed to Olive Garden to use yet another gift card we had stockpiled. When Greg got furloughed and people asked us what we wanted for holidays and other gift giving occasions, we usually told them we'd like gift cards for shopping or restaurants since these were luxuries we were trying to cut back spending our own money on. Therefore we have like 5 different chain restaurant gift cards. At Olive Garden we had the obligatory salad and bread sticks (always a crowd-pleaser). I had Pork Milanese, which is breaded pork chops with cheese tortellini in a garlic sauce with spinach. Good stuff and a departure from my usual Tour of Italy. Half of it is now sitting in the fridge with my quesadilla. Hopefully Greg will be eating some of that before he goes to work today. Greg had portabella ravioli that apparently upset the gods that live in his stomach. I think he'd still do it over though if given the choice. He does love portabella anything.
We got home just in time for Flash Forward (which is my new Lost), Grey's, and for Greg to continue pouring through the online pilot forums (because the 8 hours he had already spent while I was at work yesterday was HARDLY sufficient). I do love my nerd, but his propensity to spend hours and hours doing this and NOTHING ELSE REMOTELY PRODUCTIVE may actually kill me.


Just for fun, this is what our rabbit Cinnimon (affectionately known as "Mini") would look like if she had on this crazy get-up. I immediately emailed Greg this picture upon finding it this morning.