Enjoying the ride

Delayed as ever, I decided to take up the offer to join the Twilight band wagon and began reading the saga series last week.

I've never read Harry Potter or other mythical series like Lord of the Rings or Percy Jackson. I just don't really "do" fantasy-like books. Nothing personal against J.K. Rowling, but I'm just more acclimated with tragic drama and romance to really take up the idea of fiction beyond my imagination [or reality for that matter].

So why not read on some vampires and werewolves, right?

I'm currently finishing the third novel, Eclipse, in the saga series which should indicate that it's suspended my disbelief in fantasy fiction having any deeming qualities.

I have one confession, however, but I'll get to that later.

As I mentioned I am a fan of romance and usually reread one of my Nicholas Sparks novels and become indulged in the twisted fate of a couple who fall in love and likely ends in tragedy. I'll admit that some end happily, but mostly always end tragically; regardless, I read these tear jerkers repeatedly with the same result. Another trip to Costco's to replenish the tissue supply in our house. So why do I do that?

I asked myself the same questions about the Twilight series, but the question was phrased more like... why do I like this stuff?!

My step-daughter is also a pretty big fan of the series, being that all I've read is borrowed from her Twilight shelf of her bookcase. She'll be fifteen this Fall. When I was her age, I definitely focused on falling in love and looked for it everywhere, to put things mildly. I don't know that her thinking is quite as warped as mine was. I suspect she wonders what the love fall is all about too.

She forwarned me the second book in the series was a bore to her before I started the book this weekend. I finished it on Sunday and realized her boredom was due to the absense of details pertaining to the passion of falling in love that are exemplified in book one and three. I'm sure it's all over the final book as well, I just haven't reached that point yet. Without saying it, she too was drawn to the acute details of the two people falling in love-- the sheer physical, emotional and mental states that are completely overpowered by nature. Perhaps that intrigued her in a way of not having experienced that euphoria, the same way I would have viewed it at fifteen.

Enter: confession. At twenty-seven, I still look at it similarly, but in a way of nostalgia.

In a way of totally and completely missing it.

We lucky ones who have made a journey in our life and managed to fall helplessly, sometimes blindly, in love can remember the unbelievable array of emotions resulted from that first trip.

I was well into college when I realized that I was helplessly in love with a coach, yes my coach I met the last three months of my senior high school year, who I kept in contact with after graduating. I remember the visits to my dorm, our dinners out to local restaurants and the electricity that seemed to flow from him to me, and how the cheeks on my face would blush instantly when I thought about being around him. To say I had butterflies in my stomach with or without him in my proximity was a vast understatement and just one of the many physical results I felt after crashing head over heels in love.

I remember the first time he kissed me and how it literally left me breathless. When he returned to his home after that visit I remember replaying that kiss in my memory leaving me without oxygen again and again.

Poetic conversations, and lofty ideas of what the future could hold. I repeatedly thought of these words endlessly over in my mind during the time we spent a part. When I wasn't with him, I was completely out of myself and loathed the idea of feeling incomplete. Without any reservations I was overpowered by the notion that he was the one I would spend the rest of my life with, unquestionably.

The journey of falling in love is a profound, albeit an amazing experience too. I feel dismayed right now as I'm staggering through these vampire novels because it acknowledges that the high of falling in love is a temporary state, something I obviously knew before now. At the time, you feel compelled the emotions could last forever, and when it fades I think it's safe to say you miss it. Being in love is quite different and soon follows "the fall". The former almost always requires a commitment of faith and unlike the latter is not necessarily an amazing act of nature.

Regardless of the literature that gets me to relive those early days of our relationship, to be able to recount and revisit that experience vicariously through fictionalized characters, even vampires dare I say, is totally worth it.

Cheap, hot date ideas... okay maybe they're just cheap

Flat line the bank account or grab dinner with my husband to escape the craziness of parenthood for one night? What a quandary.
Unfortunately I’m afraid this is the sentiment of all too many people in recent months as it seems fraudulent CEOs are just about as plentiful as the steady decline in personal stocks, checking and savings accounts nationwide.
While maintaining some gross income for the family to eat and stay warm for the week are the top of my priority list, so too is the priority of my marriage. But how to do date night on as little cash as possible has become a challenge of sorts. Perhaps you too are thinking how it is possible to get out of the house to breathe away from the kids, pile of laundry, mountain of junk mail, and never-ending overly ambitious to-do list that popped up post-New Year’s.
Below find some cheap if not completely do-able date ideas as we approach the hallmark-y holiday of holidays: Valentine’s. [If you’re a VD-hater, opt any choice below for any time other than feb 14!]
Most would require you to find a babysitter which also implies more money spent which may leave you digging in the couch cushions before you head out the door. Instead, if you have friends with kids, trade off. One week is your night without kids as they watch your darlings and vice versa for the week after.

• Make a thermos of hot cocoa [perhaps with or without irish cream] and go for a scenic walk or drive
• Cook-in with each other AFTER the kids go to bed, and do a dinner with movie inside the comfort and warmth of your own home… perhaps even in your pjs. RedBox is now available in many grocery stores nationwide for as little as $1 a day for a DVD rental! [check out www.redbox.com to find a location near you!]
• Enjoy some local music at a coffee house, or the like, over a cheap cup of coffee, tea or chai
• Rise early on the weekend and visit the local farmer’s market, where fresh food, free samples and sometimes music abound
• Physical activities are always free, healthy and beautiful. Dust off the bike, slip on your running shoes, or pack up some hiking gear and do something together.
• After eating dinner “in” go out for dessert to share. Whether warm apple pie a la mode or crème brulèe.
• Visit the galleries of local art schools during year-end shows
• Volunteer for something together-- whether its an event for disease awareness or helping out at the soup kitchen once a week
• Post-bedtime for the kids, turn on some music and dance together. Okay so maybe I couldn’t take myself that seriously, but we can’t afford dance lesson so self-taught activities will have to suffice.
• Adult beverage on order? Mix your own cosmo and throw it in a mug, with your hubby’s Corona and take a walk down town, or around your neighborhood if you’re not that thrill seeking to drive with alcohol in the car. Who’s going to pull over your mini-van any way, in search of open adult beverages?
  

When in doubt, there’s always just good conversation on a comfortable cushion in the family room couch, but I do dare to live on the side of wild from time to time.

Go ahead. Be crazy, and indulge in the romantic life of a thrifty Juliet.