Things To Do For Two

Ah, fall. The end of humidity and the return of sweaters. The changing of the seasons has brought with it a few changes to our household. Brad decided to go back to school to become the world’s greatest librarian and spends countless hours scouring our bookshelves for items he can use to practice cataloguing.

Though life has become a little more chaotic, we are still stealing moments here and there to spend together and pretend we don’t have a care in the world. Are these moments new and refreshing? Not so much, which is why we haven’t really posted a lot lately. We assumed you didn’t care to hear that our most exciting date night in a while has consisted of going to buy blizzards at Dairy Queen or watching the latest episode of Modern Family. Though these “dates” have been exactly what we needed at the moment, they are not so worthy of a proper blog post. Am I wrong?

Even though we aren’t doing anything worthy of a blog post, we thought we would share with you a list of things we have done around this time of year in the past and things we hope to try in the future. If you have tried one of these already or plan on doing so in the future, let us know how it went/goes. If there’s a great date idea we’ve missed, we’d love to try your idea as well!

Fall Date Ideas

• Fall Photo Tour/ Scenic Drive – Try this one out before all the leaves are gone. Hop in the car with one of Second Cup’s or Starbucks’ fall drinks and enjoy the beauty of the season. If you’re a shutterbug, you can try creating a photo tour of your town. We were invited on a photo tour last year and it was so much fun to go explore areas of our province we’ve never seen before and we ended up getting some really great pictures out of it as well. Even though we live in Nova Scotia, we are embarrassed to admit that we have never taken the opportunity to drive the famous Cabot Trail. Maybe next year (fingers crossed).

• Fall Weekend Retreat – Fall is a great time to take advantage of discount hotel packages. Many hotels offer lower rates during the fall and winter months. One of our favourite getaway places in Nova Scotia is the Quarterdeck Beachside Villas. If you book 2 nights, you get the third night free – a great idea for long weekends (offer is good between October 25 and May 31st.)

• Get Physical – Those leaves are already coming down. Take a break from that monotonous workout DVD and get outside to burn some calories by raking leaves! Okay, we’ll admit this one isn’t high on our favorites list, but if you love the great outdoors and a good old fashioned jump in the leaves, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

• Hiking – another active option for those of you who like to fill your lungs with the fresh fall air. At the mid-point of your hike you could stop to enjoy a picnic. If you’re from Nova Scotia, you may wish to visit Explore Nova Scotia’s website, which lists the hundreds of trails Nova Scotia has to offer.

• Harvest Date – In both of our families there’s a strong tradition of pickling and preserving! Growing up my friends always knew when my parents were making beets and pickles because I would go to school reeking of vinegar. If pickling intimidates you, why not try an easier pursuit of pie making? Or, if that even frightens you, just go out and eat some pie! The point is to enjoy all of the great tastes of the harvest season.

• Football – Though I tend to not really appreciate all of the hours of entertainment football has to offer, I would like to try going to a live game. Check out your favorite university or professional team’s schedule and let us know if it’s any fun!

• Craft Fairs – get ready for the winter season and start your Christmas shopping early by attending one of the many craft fairs around town. The Annual Dartmouth Handcrafter’s Guild Christmas Craft Fair will be kicking off the fun next weekend (October 29-31) Visit their website for more information. Other notable craft fairs in the area include Christmas at the Forum and the NSDCC Designer Craft Show.

Halloween

• Pumpkin carving – an annual household favorite. Check our post from last year that includes surefire tips for a successful carving experience.

• Scary movie night – my feelings towards the horror genre of movies have not changed since last year’s post, but I will stand by my claim to try one per year. A friend recently suggested watching Psycho – any warnings before I indulge?

• Haunted house – if you’re into self-imposed heart attacks, maybe this experience is for you. Many towns have haunted houses set up for Halloween. If you’re a local, check out this website for Halloween events happening around the province: http://www.novascotia.com/halloween/en/home/default.aspx

• Host a costume party or murder mystery dinner – dressing up is probably the best part of Halloween, but it might be weird to just sit on the sofa in costume, so why not have your friends over to enjoy a costume party or murder mystery dinner. We have hosted neither of these, but I would love to try out a murder mystery some day.

• Daylight Savings Date – take advantage of the extra hour when the clocks get turned back to enjoy an extra hour of each other’s company. This year, daylight saving’s falls on Sunday, November 7th at 2am, so set your clocks back on Saturday night.

• New Year’s Plans – no, we haven’t jumped ahead and forgotten Christmas altogether, but if you enjoy eating out on New Year’s Eve, you may want to start thinking about reservations. Some restaurants are booking up fast so don’t miss out!

Hopefully these ideas will tide you over until our next post. In the meantime we hope you’re all enjoying the fall season and that you’re taking advantage of every minute we have until the snow begins to fall.

The idea behind this date is quite easy – simply pick a letter of the alphabet and choose only activities that begin with that letter. We picked the letter “H” and ended up touring around town on the Harbour Hopper, visiting Historic Properties, eating Hamburgers, and shopping at the Hydrostone Market in Halifax.

SHE SAID:

When Brad first suggested the alphabet date, I was a bit skeptical. It sounded kind of dinky and full of potential disaster, but I was open to it and gave it a try. I’m not going to say it was the most amazing date we’ve ever been on, but it wasn’t a disaster either.

We decided to pick the letter “H” (Himmery our cat insisted) and set to brainstorming ideas. This step in the process is key to success. If you don’t do a quick brainstorm you might end up staring vacantly at each other all night, which probably isn’t what you had in mind. In fact, you might want to brainstorm the night before you do it in case it takes a while to decide on a letter and think of activities. During our brainstorm session we stumbled upon The Romantic Vineyard blog which helped immensely in deciding on a letter. The couple that runs this blog took the alphabet date idea to the extreme and had a separate date for each letter of the alphabet. They obviously have a wealth of ideas and are a great place to start brainstorming.

Brad thinks we chose the letter “H” because of our cat, but I really wanted to go with it because of a little tourist attraction in our city called The Harbour Hopper. Some may laugh in its face, but I am still amused at how a vehicle can travel on both land and water. The tour guides are high energy and point out many interesting facts about the city, such as the burial ground of Alexander Keith and the dock where many of the victims of the Titanic were laid. The tour is a solid hour long and takes you first through the streets of Halifax, up on to Citadel Hill, then down by the Casino where you climb into the water and make your way first to the MacDonald bridge and then back towards Purdy’s Wharf. We sat in the back of the Hopper and didn’t get wet, but it looked like the people in the front were getting a good amount of spray. Though a bit on the pricey side ($25.99 per adult), it was a unique way to learn new things about the streets we frequent.

When it came to figuring out a restaurant that starts with “H” we hit a wall. Since the only place was Harvey’s, we opted to eat a food that starts with “H” instead and headed to The Chickenburger in Bedford for my favourite hamburger in town. We didn’t do this, but we should have found a song in the jukebox there that started with “H.”

Once our bellies were full we headed to The Hydrostone Market in Halifax’s North End. We have driven past this cute little historic market before but never took the time to browse the shops. The website doesn’t display all of the shops, so we were pleasantly surprised to find more than we bargained for when we arrived. Rusty Hinges and the Hen House are two unique home décor type shops that had me wishing I was made of money. Probably my favourite shop was the antique shop that was packed with a great variety of items from years gone by. They had everything from really old spectacles to vintage Hot Wheels cars. Since my new obsession is crocheting we had to visit LK Yarns, a shop devoted entirely to yarns of every variety and colour. We finished off our Hydrostone experience at Julien’s Bakery, home of my favourite bread in the world – the honey apricot and currant with hazelnuts bread. Yum!

Though I was skeptical of the alphabet date at first, I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. It got us out doing things we probably never would have done otherwise and is very useful when trying to think of things to do.

HE SAID:

We’ve all been there before. One person says “what do you want to do tonight?” and the other says “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” This continues until someone either breaks down and makes a decision, or things fall apart and you spend the rest of the evening at home checking Facebook.

Next time you find yourself in that predicament, try going on an alphabet date. After some brainstorming and searching online, we decided on using the letter “H” for our date. Luckily, I was wearing the perfect shirt for the occasion, my Hawaii shirt.

For a successful alphabet date, I recommend coming up with at least three things to do that start with your letter of choice.

We started by taking a tour of Halifax on the Harbour Hopper, a local tourist attraction that neither of us had done before. While we waited for our tour to begin, we walked down to Historic Properties where we enjoyed the scenery and perused some little shops. Once we finally boarded the Hopper, I knew I was going to have fun. According to the tour guide, the Harbour Hopper is actually called a Lark V, which was built for use in the Vietnam War. This was only the beginning of interesting facts we learned along the way. Of course my favourite part of the tour was the transition from land to water. Overall, it was a fun tour and a great way to experience an overview of Halifax.

After stuffing our faces with our favourite hamburgers from The Chickenburger, we checked out the Hydrostone Market. It’s quite a beautiful spot from the outside. I really enjoyed the antique store and the bakery. The yarn store wasn’t my thing, but Susan enjoyed it, so I made the best of it.

The Harbour Hopper was easily my favourite part of the date. It wasn’t super cheap, but it’s one of those things you have to do once, and I’m glad I did. The alphabet date has a lot of promise for the future. It’s the perfect way to spark some fun ideas during those times when it seems impossible to think of something to do. I had a great time with our “H” date and can’t wait to try it again.

If you’ve noticed we’ve been absent lately, it’s because we got the home renovations bug and have been covered in drywall dust and paint for the past couple of weeks. We’re still in the process of painting more rooms, but we thought we would share with you our experience should you want to try it out yourselves. Be warned, this type of activity can make or break you. Tread carefully.

SHE SAID:

I got to the point this summer where I was tired of the poor college student décor in our bedroom. You know what I’m talking about – the mismatched, old 70’s dressers straight from the dumpster complete with sticking drawer and old varnish smell. While our dressers have served us well, they needed a little reviving so we decided to refinish them instead of spending more money on brand spanking new ones. Sometimes I wish we had just gone to The Brick.

As the first day turned into evening and I had only sanded down 2 drawers I knew I was doomed. My hands have never felt closer to those of an 80-year-old arthritic woman’s than they did that day. Sweet heavens, rent a power sander if for some reason you want to attempt this after reading our experience.

Since we also wanted to replace the old hardware, we had to fill the existing holes with wood filler. I had no part in this, so it was quite easy for me! Although, when I think back I see Brad raging on the patio as he tries to slough off the hardened filler with his inadequate square of sandpaper.

If you can get yourself through the sanding process, the rest is quite fun and satisfying. Instead of staining, we decided to paint both of our dressers an espresso colour. We used a little foam roller, which worked quite nicely to achieve an even finish. It was very exciting to watch our old, decrepit furniture transform before our eyes into slightly less decrepit furniture.

Once the paint dried we measured the drawers for their new hardware and, voila, we were done! Okay, it wasn’t that easy. Actually, we were so sick and irritated by the end of it that we called in Brad’s mom for reinforcement, i.e. to help put on the handles. Admittedly, not our shining moment. Who knew you have to screw both sides of the handle on at the same time? Not I!

You would think after this tiring experience we would shy aware from any further home improvements, but we are currently in the middle of repainting my office. Home renovations are a ton of work and they make me feel like lighting a match, but in the end they are (usually) worth it.

HE SAID:

I have to admit right away that before this summer I had basically no experience with any kind of home renovation, no matter how small. Sure I helped paint my bedroom as a kid, but beyond that I was useless. Well, I’m happy to say that I have learned a few things over the past few weeks and I am officially slightly less useless.

When we first considered sprucing up our dressers, I naively thought that it would be done in a day, maybe two at the most. Wow, was I ever wrong. That said, most of the hold ups were due to my lack of experience with this sort of thing.

The problems began when I tried to fill the holes on the front of the dresser drawers left behind by the old hardware. I was moving pretty fast trying to get through the process quickly, not thinking about the fact that I was slopping on WAY too much wood filler on each hole. I assumed it would easily sand off and I’d be on my merry way. Not so much. For what seemed like an eternity, I spent my time hunched over dresser drawers, sanding, and sanding, and sanding some more. By the end I was starting to feel like Tom Hanks in Survivor when he tries to start a fire and ends up just slowly gliding two pieces of wood together.

Once the sanding was finally complete we painted everything, which was the easiest and most fun part of the whole process. Then came problem number two. I had drilling anxiety. After all that work sanding wood filler from the previous holes, I was terrified of drilling new holes for the new hardware. I was convinced I would make them uneven. Once reinforcements arrived, I got the hang of it.

In the end I really like how they turned out. Was it worth the effort to save the money by not buying new dressers? I think it was. If you had asked me that question right after we finished I would have said no. But now I can look at them and know that I was part of making them look the way they do. Also, we did save a lot of money. Buying new dressers would not be cheap. This only cost us around $150. So it was worth it, but I wouldn’t do it again unless I had to.

We’re currently knee deep in redoing our home offices. Mine is basically finished with a fresh coat of paint and some new blinds, but Susan’s is still in chaos. I think by the end of the summer we will be very pleased with the progress we’ve made. Our house (specifically upstairs) will no longer be a sea of beige!

If you’re a couple who are well versed in each other’s ways, you should try some simple DIY home renovations. If you’re a new couple who have yet to experience each other at their worst, run far far away from a project like this. We definitely had a few tense moments with each other while making our dressers look nice, so just be aware of that.

To avoid several trips to Home Depot here’s a list of some things you’ll need:

• sandpaper and/or a power sander (we used medium to coarse)
• a handy friend or relative
• paint
• foam rollers
• paint tray
• drop cloth (or old bed sheet or newspapers)
• hardware
• wood filler (if adding new holes to replace old hardware)
• electric screwdriver