Ok, so I told you about how Candace’s Three Things List played out. Shall I share Hub’s Three Things? Ok, you talked me into it. Of course, as a reminder, we did this to force ourselves into spending some time together AND to save some wad simultaneously.
Hub’s list was ambitious. That’s why it took us until March to get it all done. Next year, only I get to make the lists.
First off, he wanted to spice up our life with something cultural by seeing a play/musical/performance of some kind. I found us one. An oddball one, turns out. In mid December, we hit up this drum concert of sorts that my awesome yoga instructor had mentioned one day after class. I thought this would be a perfect event to tackle the first wish on his list with and he (grudgingly?) agreed. He shouldn’t have agreed.
Here’s how this weird concert went down: It took place in a barn. The musician played these crystal drums that resonated (apparently) along the lines of the seven chakras in the body. She had a side kick that would chime in (sometimes literally) with random musical instruments – mostly tribal drums, flutes and other obscure pieces that I’ve never seen before. It was really interesting and melodic at some points and really strange and random at others.
(In the middle though, the main musician gal played this incredible Native American flute and it was sublime. It really was.)
We actually had to bust out before the event officially ended because 1. It went long and 2. I had to hurry home to kick off a job for work so it could run over night (Fancy Computer company, aren’t I so dedicated to you?).
Cost of concert: $12 each + an experience we won’t soon forget + freezing cold tootsies (since we had to leave our warm boots at the door of the barn). It was so cold in fact, I tried to surreptitiously slip my mittens over my feet towards the end of the concert. Hubs almost busted out laughing at my antics and I almost responded with my very embarrassing snorty-gaspy laugh. Which would have been cool but not appropriate.
Speaking of inappropriate, now would be a good time to include a bad self timer picture from that night.
Can we move on? That date was kind of a fail. Ok, next up…off to see a Timberwolves game!
We scored front row tickets (can you believe our luck!?) to the game and, by golly, it was a nail biter! Unfortunately, the Twolves ended up losing by a few points in over time. We were devastated.
All was not lost though, we were able to catch snippets of American Idol during the commercial breaks.
Cost: Pizza was $12 bucks (and we ate it for two more meals in the following days) + got to stay home in our slippers. Holler.
Last, but not least, a community service excursion. Not to brag (ok, I will) but Hub’s has been donating his Saturdays (and many other days) for the last 6 years to teach high school students computer programming. He is incredibly dedicated to them. His students are deserving and brilliant so it has been totally worth the work he has put in to make this program successful. But, logistically, he doesn’t have much time for more volunteering. Weeks slipped by and we started worrying about how we were going to get this last item checked off our list. Until, one day, I found this hanging on our door.
It couldn’t have been more perfect. The local boys scouts were collecting for the food shelf and they would be returning the next week to pick up any food we placed outside our door!
Hubs and I set a budget of $50 and headed out one Friday evening (aren’t we wild and crazy!?) to do some grocery shopping. It was easy because the Boy Scouts listed the food items that are in high demand and we focused mostly on those. I say mostly because everyone needs a little fun too – so we threw in some cappuccino mix as a sweet treat for those hard working adults and some cake mix and frosting to help celebrate an upcoming event!
Hubs was born with a brain that landed with the smart side up (I mean, he married me after all!) so he was adding up the items on the fly as we stocked our cart. Turns out, he was pretty good at keeping track of where we were in relation to our budget:
We packed up our goodies and placed them outside on a blustery cold Saturday and a little while later (while Hubs was teaching class and I was at yoga) the Boy Scouts kindly scooped them up!
Although this was not how we initially envisioned our community service outing – we actually had ourselves a smiley time and feel good knowing that this will make someone’s normally tough day a little brighter.
Because Math is fun here is the total cost of these adventures: $24 for drum concert tix +$cost of stifling a snorty gaspy laugh + $12 pizza + $price paid for eating too much cheese and throwing off my pooping schedule + $50 worth of groceries – $nice feelings of goodwill = $86 and a whole lotta making memories with the peanut to my brittle. I think we’ll do this again next year.
