I don't care for Valentine's Day. It's just not a big deal to me. I'm married to an amazingly wonderful, caring man who would love to do something sweet and special for me for Valentine's Day but I wont let him. Yes I know I'm mean, Haley tells me all the time. But 1) I HATE SURPRISES and 2) I don't need cut flowers that I will kill in less time than I should.
Surprises I'm pretty sure I've always hated them. I like to have everything planned out, I like to know where I'm going and who I'm going there with. I like schedules. While my closet may never stay organized for more than an hour, I prefer my daily life and activities to be perfectly organized and neat. Surprises mess up my neat life. They call for unscheduled emotions, spotlight and attention and sometimes throw the rest of my schedule off. I also tend to always ruin surprises. I've made Bruce so nervous about trying to surprise me before that he's told me about it before he could actually surprise me so then I nix it- have you heard about the time he tried to surprise me with tickets to see my fave band? Luckily I didn't kill this surprise entirely we ended up going and had an amazing time, but it wasn't a surprise and I was able to schedule it way in advance. I know girls who love surprises and that's great for them! But I'm good thanks, no surprises for me.
Cut flowers I kill all living green things (sadly two frogs included- wait was Jabba green?) I kill plants, ask my cousin Casey who worked so hard to try to help me get my yard in order last summer for my Housewarming party. It died within a month, one plant died within a week! I suck at keeping green things alive when they're in dirt and soil (or mulch like the froggies). Cut flowers are even worse! They should live a good week most of the time, I can kill them in a day. I do everything I'm suposed to and they still die! Then once they're dead I throw them away, I used to dry them out in my room but then someone told me it was bad joojoo to keep dead flowers around. Usually mine are so dead by the time I'd try to dry them out that they'd fall off the stems anyways but that's besides the point. My sister loves cut flowers, her husband gets her them all the time and I think "awww that's sweet", but NEVER do I think to myself "awww I wish my husband would do that". I'm good.
Growing up my mom would always get us cards and candy and lots of fun little goodies- V-day undies anyone? Lots of v-day socks too. In college she even would send me a small little v-day care package. I've always bought small little v-day cards and candy for my friends and at work I always give my students candy and stuff. Just small little things, like people do with Candycanes at Christmas. On my desk at work I have a candy jar filled with heart shaped chocolates for coworkers and student visitors. This year I've received stuff back from my students and it's was so sweet! I just prefer Valentine's Day as a day of friendship instead of a day of romance, but I think I know why.
In high school for the most part I was single. So every year me and a girlfriend would be each others Valentine's. We'd buy each other candy and flowers and then go out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory together or a movie and hang out. It was soooo much fun! Then my senior year in high school I had a real boyfriend! I was so excited. All my friends asked me what I was going to get him and I was really trying to plan something fun. Granted this was at the end of January when I had thought things were fine and that I'd actually have a boy Valentine for once. THEN after the first weekend in February he pulled me aside and told me I shouldn't be planning anything special for Valentine's Day and me being the ditz I was asked "oh, why not" and then he broke up with me. I cried and cried and asked a girlfriend to be my Valentine again.
The college Valentine's days only get worse, I had a boy in my life for each one of them and each one was more upsetting than the next. The first one lavished me with so many gifts, candy, flowers delivered to campus, chocolates, Jewelry and a weekend getaway. But the getaway ended up being a total disaster and afterwards he started getting really jealous of every other guy in my life, wanting me to come home every weekend and he's always ask why if I wasn't wearing the jewelry he bought. He had wanted to send me a singing telegram but THANK GOD I was able to stop that when I spoiled the surprise by talking to his mother. The next year I was only dating the guy but he bought me a pretty red rose and then we sat in his on-campus apartment while he and his roommates got really drunk. The next year we were engaged and he made me a lovely home cooked meal then made me watch Sin City. Luckily I graduated before I could have a fourth college Valentine's Day.
After college I was happily single for a while. The first one I went out with my best friend to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and karaoking afterwards. The next year I was kinda dating someone but I told him I couldn't go out with him cause I was going out with a girlfriend which was totally true...kinda, I went to dinner with my friend then bailed on her to go back to my apartment and drink wine and watch Ally McBeal by myself. The next year I went out with the same friend and followed through with dinner and movie with her. Then went home and drank wine and watched Gilmore Girls.
The next year I was with Bruce and things have improved. I told him I wanted a cat for Valentine's day and so we got our big fluffy cuddle bug Sookie the Viking Kitty. The next year we were planning our wedding, I'd just started a new job and was finishing up grad school so I told him we didn't need to do anything special. But he did surprise me up at UTSA with flowers and we ate lunch on campus at Chili's. It was very sweet, that night Bruce had a karaoke show.
So this year our first Valentine's as a married couple I told Bruce he didn't need to do anything special, money as always is tight so I told him to just skip it and I was totally fine with it. Then yesterday morning I figured I could at least make a nice dinner. So I wrote out a simple grocery list for Bruce to get while I was at work, things like 1 whole roasting chicken, 2 lemons, head of garlic, 1 sweet onion, salad, butter and wine. Really simple- everything else I needed I had at home and could throw together. So he went to the store and got all the ingredients we needed. Little did I know he didn't know you could buy whole chickens in the meat section and he got one fromt he frozen foods section, while he had set it in the sink with water earlier in the day to start thawing the inside was not thawed all the way...so I had to improvise and hack the poor thing to death into usable pieces which ended up being fine. Dinner ended up being delayed only another 1/2 hour or so and we had a nice meal...while watching X-files. To me it was a great Valentine's evening! Low key, relaxed and at home.
