Day 314: A Few of Your Favorite Things

For Tuesday’s act of love (8/7), I purchased a few of your favorite things—Doritos, an Arnold Palmer drink, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, some Ghiradelli chocolate, and a pack of Orbit gum. When I came home, we watched a few episodes of Downton Abbey while enjoying our goods. Hurray for (occasional) junk-food binges!

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Day 302: Candle-lit Dessert

For my 302nd act of love, I set up a dessert for us in our living room.

You left that night for a meeting, so I had time to put the kids to bed and set things up. I put candles on the table, on the chairs, on the entertainment center, and on the table/stand thingy beside the couch. Then, I took the petals from a dozen roses and arranged them on the center of our table. Finally, I prepared two bowls of ice cream, each with chocolate sauce on top and a piece of a dark chocolate bar on the side:

It got quite warm very quickly and you were concerned about burning our house down, so we blew out most of the candles before we ate.

This dessert was a very good time and I felt a great connection to you. So often in the evenings, we’re with each other, but not paying much attention to each other. I like when we can go a little deeper and make things a little more meaningful. This orients my heart away from myself, which gives me great resolve to do well at work and in every other aspect of my life because I know I’m doing these things for us–for you–not just me.*

If there’s one thing that 365 hasn’t helped, it’s our diet! So often, I resort to getting/preparing you food or dessert for my act of love. It’s partly because you enjoy it when I do these things for you and partly because I enjoy it. Anyway, in the end, this hasn’t had a real effect on our health since we’ve been conservative in our indulgence.

*Of course, the primary orientation of my heart should be toward my God. Such an orientation should motivate me to excellence in all that I do.

Day 279: Banana Split

On Tuesday, I made you this banana split:

Sorry it’s blurry.

Before I did, I was driving home from a work thing around 9 PM and I didn’t know what to do for my act of love. I thought maybe I could make you some sort of craft, so I dropped by Michael’s. They were closed. Then, I wandered through Albertson’s trying to come up with something. I realized that we had all the ingredients for banana splits except for bananas and whipped cream. So, I bought those things and went home.  Though I try to plan out my acts of love, many of them end up being spur-of-the-moment things. Some of them turn out well that way. Other’s don’t.

After I made you your dessert, I noticed that you’d already made yourself a dessert. That wasn’t ideal and could’ve been avoided if I’d planned out this act in advance. Still, you seemed excited for your banana split.

You were only able to eat half, so you gave me the other half. Lately I’ve been counting my calories. I knew that by eating it, I would go way over my daily calorie limit, but by not eating it, I would waste it. I ate it. That was certainly the right decision. Yum.

Day 276: Baskin Robbins

If it’s okay with you, I’d like to make more of my acts of love into acts for our family. It’s so difficult for us to do stuff together without our children and it’s so nice to do stuff with them.

So on Saturday, I took everyone out to Baskin Robbins. I got the idea because I remembered that you got an email coupon for a free cone. When we got there, we noticed that the coupon was expired. Oh, well. We still each got an ice cream.

Day 248: Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino

We went to the beach today. Our oldest daughter was so brave to go boogie boarding while we were there. As her reward, I promised to buy her an ice cream.

Later that night, when I took her to redeem her reward, I stopped by Starbucks to get you a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino. I pretended to drink it when we got back. “Want a sip of my coffee?” I asked you. “Sure,” you said, without complaining that I got myself a drink but not you. “Actually, it’s yours,” I replied. With that, you hugged me and said, “You’re so nice when your cousin is around!” Maybe you’re right. I hope, though, that I’m also so nice when he’s not around.

Day 95: Surprise Dessert

On Sunday, we celebrated New Year’s by eating at Chili’s. After we finished our food, I excused myself from the table, approached the hostess, and asked her for a pen and paper. When she gave me them, I wrote this on the paper: “Just because I love you. –Chauncey” (Let “Chauncey” be my alias for the blog. Let’s call you “Francine.”) Then, I approached our server with the note and asked her to bring us the brownie and ice cream dessert with my note placed on the side.

When I returned to my seat, you asked me what I did. I shrugged my shoulders. You jokingly whispered, “You got up just to flirt with the server then?” I whispered in response, “That depends on which server you’re talking about.” (I know—those are terrible jokes.) Then you said, “Seriously, what were you up to?” I laughed nervously and my face turned red. The server honestly took 10 minutes to bring out that dessert and you grilled me the entire time. I nearly gave up the surprise to make you stop.

When our dessert finally arrived, you said, “Oh, Chauncey! You did this for me?! Look girls, dad bought us a dessert just because he loves us!” As you girls were eating the dessert, I asked if I could have some. You said, “Oh, did you buy this because you love yourself?” I said, “Didn’t you read the note? It says ‘Just because I love you, Chauncey.’” You laughed as you handed me a spoon.

When we got into the car, you leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “I’m happy out of my tree that you did that for me, but I’m happier that you’re teaching our girls how guys should treat them.” As you said this, I reached around you and tapped you on the head with the book I was holding (yes, I see the irony in that). You grabbed the book from me, smacked me on the head (notice the lack of proportionality in your response), and said, “Are you ever serious? . . . Really, though, thanks for the dessert.” You’re welcome, Francine.

Day 4

Wow! you’re already suspicious of the new Keith. Last night, I brought you X-Men: First Class and chocolate ice cream. You looked at me and said “What’s going on? You brought me flowers the other night and now this! I like it but it’s kind of strange.” I guess doing loving acts is so atypical for me that you noticed something different after three days. Soon I’ll have to do these acts without you knowing so you don’t start asking me what’s going on. Even if I don’t, I don’t think you’ll figure out that I started a blog for you.