Category — date night

All right ladies, pull out the old Kiss t-shirts and plan to rock!  Well, not really.  More like sit back in a chair and relax while listening to great music.  It’s time to find a great music venue to relax and hear great music.

The best place to find venues like this is in your independent newspaper.  Read the concert offerings to find a coffee shop that has live music on the weekend.  Go and see someone that you’ve never heard of.

Amy Gerhartz will be playing at the Black Bear Tavern (Buckhead, Atlanta) next weekend.

Jana Hunter is playing tonight at the Bottle Tree Cafe (Birmingham, Alabama).

Rachel Unthank is playing at Schubas Tavern (Chicago, Illinois) tomorrow evening.

If you’re not on a budget and want a party instead of relaxation, go see Madonna! Her US dates start in October.

Personally, we love WorkPlay (non-smoking venue) and Small Stages (BYOB concerts held in someone’s home) here in Birmingham.

Menu:  Save the planet and go vegetarian tonight.  If you have one, eat at a great local vegetarian restaurant!  If not, try this recipe for fresh tomato lasagna from Myrecipes.com:

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E is, this very moment, in her favorite city (Atlanta) making plans for the fabulous vow renewal and hopefully attending a Braves game.  This date night is in honor of her!

Location - Your favorite place to watch the game.

If you’re in a town that has a major or farm team, go to a game!  For our local farm team, it’s the last home game of the season tonight. If you’re in Atlanta, the Braves are home all weekend playing Washington.

If you don’t have a team, watch at a local sports bar.  Make sure to wear your favorite gear!

If you don’t like sports bars, go to a batting cage.

If you want to watch from home on your giant Plasma tv with surround sound, go for it!

Menu -Hot Dogs, Boiled Peanuts*, Nachos, Coke

What to bring -Your foam finger, binoculars and favorite jersey

What not to bring - Anything in the opposing team’s colors

Topics for Discussion - The glory days of the Jones boys, Maddux or Glavine

Enjoy!

A.

*Boiled peanuts, a south eastern specialty, are one of the easiest snacks to make.  You can find green peanuts in the vegetable section of your market.  If you’re not in the southeast, you may need to call around to find.  Green peanuts are very very fresh.  Fill up a pot with the peanuts, salt liberally (most recipes call for a cup of salt per gallon), fill with water to the top and heat to boiling.  Keep it on the stove for 4-6 hours.  You may need to add more water halfway through.

Some of the best advice we received during our engagement period was “Date your mate!”  Written somewhat sarcastically by a single friend, the phrase stuck in my mind.  We have not missed those opportunities during the first two years of marriage.  A date gives each of you a chance to sit down and talk.  To ask, “How are you?” instead of “Why the &&*#%@ are linen rentals so expensive?”  Dating reminds us why we are doing this: for the relationship, not the wedding day!  At some point, you run out of creative ideas for dates.  EAD is here to help you with this!  Consider this the inaugural version of EAD’s new feature: Date Night!  Each week we’ll be posting a new date idea.

For various reasons, the hubby and I are on budget right now.  So this first Date Night feature will be a budget date.  This will not always be true, so expect some fancier (my new favorite word) dates that might be a little harder on the wallet.

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