"Sorry I have plants this weekend!"
My husband laughed when I answered him this. I could see the change in his mood, he was expecting another joyride maybe, or another day on the beach. Haha.
We made it a routine to always go out, find a new place to unwind, or do something outdoors on weekends. We are turning 3 years old in our marriage this year, and it has been a year already since we applied the "777 Rule for Healthy Marriages". A very interesting rule I came across while scrolling on my social media. The rule says to go on a date every seven days, go on an overnight escape every seven weeks, and go on a vacation every seven months.
As a couple who loves the outdoors, I strongly believe that this rule is effective for us and will definitely help us build a healthy marriage. So we followed this at first until we realized, that every week we go out was no longer because of the rule, but because we wanted to have the best quality time with our small family, be it in a new simple place, a simple joyride, or a time spent watching sunsets and so many simple and cost-free escapades.
"I thought we were going somewhere or do something different this weekend?", he asked.
"Yes, we are! We are going on a date and this time in my school garden!" Wink!
Skip conversation.
When all our household chores were done, we then went straight ahead to my school garden which is only 15 minutes away from home. For the past few days, I have been active in gardening as we will soon have our Gulayan sa Paaralan Evaluation, a National Greening Program wherein students/learners are given awareness of the importance of growing vegetables organically either on plots or empty containers.
A date at my school garden.
There are a lot of things not done yet in my garden. And though I only have 1 month left before the scheduled evaluation, I'm still on the hunt for various vegetable seedlings/plants so I could display more than what is required but most importantly harvest a good amount of produce from my garden.
So this weekend, I planned to add Galay-galay (Sweet Potato tops/leaves) and more Spring onions. We brought with us empty bottles that we bought in the junk shops.
After a little conversation here and there, we then started our date on the dirt. I volunteered to cut the bottles and my husband do the mixing of the available soil with the sawdust he gathered from outside the school.
I noticed that he enjoyed what he was doing as our daughter and her cousin Majimbo, also joined in. They filled all the half bottles with soil despite my daughter playfully pouring the soil elsewhere. Looking at them made me so grateful for all the humble little things our small family got to experience.
When they were done, it was my turn to plant the onion springs and the Sweet Potato tops while they watered the plants.
I really was enjoying planting the vegetables while my 2-year-old daughter enjoyed watering the plants too! Haha (As if she knew what she was doing)
On top of our gardening hubby and I were also able to exchange conversations about how our weekdays went. He shared how his language class went by and even shared the funniest thing that happened in their classroom this week. I also shared mine! It was the simplest and sometimes most nonsense conversation we made. Hehe
We finished the task at almost 4 PM not minding our hands getting super dirty as we did the gardening using our bare hands.
You see, our weekend was so simple. A date in the garden. But I consider it a meaningful and memorable one. My daughter was able to explore and discover the beauty of playing in the garden (thankfully she didn't pick any) while hubby and I were able to find a different avenue to spend our time and energy. Moreover, another vegetable member is added to my garden!
Takeaway:
A date with family doesn't need to be extravagant, far away, and fingernails always clean, because sometimes, we get the most quality and meaningful time and a productive date at times our hands get dirty. Quality time over a little dirt!
That's it for our weekend date! Thank you so much for reading. Wish you are all safe and well always.
Smile often and here's mine!
🤗
Warm smiles from @callmesmile.