The 52 Dates of 2012

Once upon a time, there lived a girl (me) and a boy (Taylor). They did a lot together, were rarely separated really, and liked spending time with each other, but they began making the same date night choices every week. Let's go to [insert restaurant we've been to a hundred times here], watch some TV, and then go to bed. Sounds good? Alright.

Two thousand & Twelve is going to be a year of magic, of love and newness, and of changing my ways to better myself. I want to relish in the delight that a new year brings, look at things from a different view, change my habits up and discover wonder around every corner. And because I'm selfish and need someone to hold my hand along the way and because I really love Taylor, I've involved him in some of this.

Introducing: The 52 Dates of 2012

The idea came to me from a few places. Firstly, I've been doing my own goal-like lists the last few years, and Taylor has loved helping me cross of 21 Before 21 items. Secondly, I was super inspired by Elsie at A Beautiful Mess and her 12 Dates of Christmas. I love the idea of pre-planned dates and the excitement of randomly selecting one. I tweaked it a bit so it would last all year, one date a week. Some of them are silly and simple (Write letters to our future selves), some of them are a little more involved (Order the fanciest drinks off the menu at dinner), and still some are things that we would normally do but are simply making them special (Go to the beach and take Pippa).

Taylor came up with 26 and I came up with 26, and I typed them up, cut them out, and placed them in a leftover mason jar I had from Christmas crafting. Every Sunday night, we're going to choose one date to have over the week. We've also made rules, like if it's expensive and we're broke or if we can't do it that week for some reason, we can put it back and choose again. The point isn't to be strict about it, it's to explore our town and our hobbies in a new and invigorating way that keeps us in love and keeps us from saying "I'm bored, what should we do?"
For our first weeks pick (!) I let Taylor do the jar pulling, since I had just finished cutting (and let me tell you, cutting out 52 little strips of paper is a lot more time consuming than you would think). The winner for this week is:

Build a fort and read stories with a flashlight! Ding ding ding! 
I'm really enthusiastic about this little project right now and hope that I can blog about quite a few of them. I've got class in a little bit and need to tire out Miss Pippa, so until next time my loves, XO.