So many times I see and hear of people who are just bored in their marriage. The excitement's gone. The passion hasn't been there for years. They don't look at each other like they used to, and they've become roommates instead of husband and wife. It's easy to see how this can happen. Even though we have more conveniences today than any time in history, we also seem to have less time than ever to stop for a moment and just breath and remember what it is that's important in our lives. Sometimes the busyness becomes the end rather than the means to an end. I don't claim to be immune to this virus that's afflicted our society. I'm as guilty as anyone in getting caught up in and even dependent on the need to be constantly working or planning on what I need to be working on. In fact, I would say that there have been times I've been consumed with working because I felt it validated me and fooled me into thinking I was doing something noble. I justified it by thinking it was better than laziness, but it's just as harmful as laziness or contentment or a host of other things that can be deadly to relationships/marriage if you let them. Repetition can perfect a lot of things, but relationships isn't one of them. I think this is the number one reason relationships fail; One or both of the partners just stops trying to make the other person feel special like they did when they were first dating. There's no more pursuing. At best, the relationship becomes predictable and stale. At worst... well, statistics speak for themselves. Wow, I got all Dr. Phil there for a moment. Sorry. Anyway, one of the things Kylie and I agreed to do to lay a foundation of making an intentional effort to focus on each other is to have one "official" date night per month. I'm not naive; this is easy for us now, because we've only been married for about 2 months and we're not busy with kids and everything is still pretty new and exciting to us as newlyweds, but I think the earlier we can start these kinda habits, the better off we'll be. Call it preventative maintenance. This is not the only night of the month we go out on date, but it's making sure we are at least making each other a priority where we can try something relatively new and different to keep the relationship fresh or just to make time to talk about things we need/want to discuss that we might otherwise let fall through the cracks. For this Date Night, I started off by writing a quick letter to Kylie in our handmade, leather-bound journal that I bought from Iona Handcrafted Books a while back before we got engaged. I hadn't written in it since our wedding day, so I thought it would be a good time to add to this keepsake of our story together. And with spring arriving here in Texas, there are so many fresh flowers now, so I picked up a few to go with the journal. The journal and flowers were waiting on the table for Kylie when she got home from an afternoon with some girlfriends.

This time we went to a cooking class at the Central Market Cooking School . This particular class was dedicated to cooking with fresh spring herbs... perfect for this time of year when herbs are at their freshest.

On the menu for this night was Herb-Citrus Salad with Shrimp, Baked Trout with Basil, Lemon Butter and Lemon (I had chives and dill on mine instead of basil), Rosemary-Inufused Roast Beef, Sage Risotto with Shaved Parmesan, and to wrap it up we made Rosemary Shortbread Cookies with Olive Oil Ice Cream? Olive Oil Ice Cream?? Yes, Olive Oil Ice Cream. It was actually much better than it sounds using a meyer lemon infused olive oil to give it flavor. Fantastico.

This last image cracks me up. This is one of the down sides of having a fancy schmancy camera where you have to tell the camera where to focus. It's hard to get others to take photos where we're in focus instead of the guy's hair behind Kylie. Actually, the guy that took this was super nice and did manage to get several perfectly fine images (see 2nd image in this post).