January 2015 Year of Dates: Bookstore Treasure Hunt

Tonight we began a new year of dates.  If you're not familiar with what this is, a few years ago I heard of the idea from a friend & jumped on board. Apparently it's a thing.  I had no idea but if you google "year of dates" there are a zillion ideas out there.  Anyway, so about what it is.  At Christmas, I give Larry 12 pre-planned dates, one for each month of the coming year.  Without a plan in mind, we tend to TALK about going on date nights a lot, but never get around to it.  Or the date nights end up being the exact same thing over and over.  So when I heard of this Year of Dates thing, I loved the idea of coming up with 12 really fun, creative dates that we'd both enjoy!  So tonight begins the 3rd year.  You can scroll to the bottom of the page & click in the labels section on "A Year of Dates" or "Year of Dates 2014" to see what we've done in the past.  On with our date!

First of all, I had to turn THIS....

...into something date-able.  It was tough work, folks.  I mean, really...that's a scary sight.  Fortunately I'm an Avon lady so I have tons of products to employ and I believe in the curling iron.  See?

Whew.  All done.  I took this pre-date selfie & sent it to Larry's phone.  He was sitting in the living room waiting while I got ready.  I sent it with the message "Hey cutie.  Want to take me out?  I'm ready!"  {To be totally honest, I had to take a pic alone because I wasn't 100% sure if I could convince him to take a date night pic with me, so I wanted some documentation that I got dressed up!  But more on the date night picture later.}

The plan for tonight:

We went to Barnes & Noble tonight at 6:30.  We each set a timer on our phones and split up to see who could find the most weird books by 7:00.  It didn't take long to find some crazy ones.

Here are a glimpse of the treasures we found.

After all, if you're having some trouble, the best way to fix it is to never actually talk about it.

I'm really not sure what the 5 very good reasons are to punch a dolphin in the mouth, but I glanced through the book & enjoyed several of the ironic or sarcastic cartoons.

Clearly, Alan Alda's dog died & he had it stuffed and he wants to advise against that.  I wonder why.  Did it scare the neighbor kids?  Did it fall off the mantle & break something?  Weird.

This was in the cooking section of the store.  Maybe a guide for all the newlyweds & young singles out there?

Like that will ever actually happen!  There's just no way to make sense of people!

Beyond the word "adulting", which I didn't even know was a verb, I love that it says you can become an adult in only 468 steps.  Is that all?  Just 468?  I mean, if it had been 469 it would've been too many!

Clearly, there is a problem if you are dressing your child in this way.

I'm sure there are major theological issues with this book, but the title struck me as pretty funny.  Please don't hate me if the picture & title are horribly offensive to you.  And if you do, don't scroll down.  The book titles get worse.    Well...not this next one, but after that.

I didn't realize there was a book for this.  I guess someone needs it, but of all the "for dummies" books out there on big topics like accounting, passing your SAT, potty training (YES, that is a big topic for parents of toddlers!)....I just didn't know there was one for raising chickens.

And then we reached the umm....not as nice, but still very funny books.  Mind you, Larry and I both have a pretty warped, silly sense of humor.  While neither of us TALK LIKE THIS in real life, we both found great humor in these titles.  If you offend easily, just scroll to the bottom & read the part right above the final picture.  If you think you can handle it, scroll on.

Seriously...what ARE they thinking?  The women of the world will never 'get' them!

Well...somebody's got to marry them I guess.

Someone wrote a book about this?  Who reads this stuff?

All these women telling about the life of a woman...and they are deemed to be the B word for doing so?  That's so weird.

This was in the cooking section.  But it's about doing a cleanse I think?  But she's talking about beauty secrets.  I'm really not sure where nuts fit into all that.

And finally...a book that many a person should read.

I love how Dick & Jane are high-fiving on the cover.  Sorry, folks...bad humor cracks me up.

I won't get into which book won, but I will say that we ate dinner at Jason's deli.  Their California turkey club is to die for!  But Larry's asiago roast beef sandwich was nasty.  Apparently it had horseradish on it & he hates horseradish.  He took it back & swapped it for something & the guy at the counter told him that the roast sandwich is actually their most returned sandwich.  So there ya go, a little heads-up on the yuck factor of that sandwich.

Now...about that date night picture.  I always try to convince Larry to take a picture with me and he does all he can to refuse.  If I guilt him enough, he'll usually go along with it, but he isn't thrilled about it.   Tonight on the way home, I reminded him that we hadn't taken our date night pic yet, so we had to take one when we got home.  He whined and said no.  I reminded him that one day when we were dead, the kids would need pictures for our funeral services and they wouldn't have any if he didn't take a picture.  He told me not to be so morbid.  So I tried again.  I told him that one day when we're in the nursing home & the kids are having to come change our diapers, they'd want to have pictures to put up on the walls to remind us of our younger days when we were so in love and doing fun things together.  And I told him if he never took pictures with me, the kids would go through the pictures and say "Wow.  Mom went out a lot.  This time in 2015, she went to the book store and took a bunch of pictures of funny books.  I wonder where dad was."  Eventually he agreed to take a picture with me.  ha ha!  YAY!  It's a little blurry, but it's a picture.  And I'll take it.  I even edited and added a sepia filter so the kids could hang up one for us at Shaky Acres that looks a little fancier.  Ha!