Better hurry before it’s too late! Do you really want to be in the crowd of anxious men buying last minute chocolate and flowers? No, really. You don’t.
My husband is pretty great about planning for Valentine’s Day. I tend to plan weeks ahead and I always make a special dinner – usually involving steak, sauteed asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes, and during the day the kids and I make chocolate covered strawberries. It’s so fun and easy for them. I had my usual fantasy of completely decluttering and decorating special, but I became too busy with cover letter writing and that sort of thing (hey, but I’m showing love, right?).
Every Valentine’s Day, I think back to one of the sweetest things my husband ever did for me. We were dirt poor in the Air Force and I wasn’t expecting much at all. I went to my mom’s house that day and he met me there later with a small box of chocolates and little bouquet of carnations. I was more than happy with that. For him, I had some heart shaped sugar cookies decorated to look like those candy hearts, only I got to customize them with silly messages. They were a hit.
We spent the night there and when we returned home the next day, there was a HUGE bouquet of roses mixed with carnations and a double decker box of Whitman’s chocolates on our table. I was shocked. My first reaction was, “Did you get a credit card? How did you pay for those?”
It turned out, the times he had asked if there was enough money in our account to buy lunch (I do the finances) and I told him to go ahead and buy, he was going without lunch. He did so for a week just so he could spoil me with chocolate and roses. I’ll never forget them. They even lasted an unusually long time! (The roses, not the chocolates. Those were eaten in no time.)
I wondered if I made sacrifices like that just to make him happy too. I think I do in my own way. I haven’t gone without lunch for a week, but I have definitely gone without sleep and spent a lot of time planning special things for him. For instance, on his birthday when I was pregnant and miserably sick, I got up and spent the whole day cooking recipes his mother always made for him. I think I did the dishes at least three times that day and thorougly exhausted myself. There was a special breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
I even made that disgusting green Jell-O concoction I hate so much that he likes. Oh yeah, we definitely love each other. Sacrifices have been made repeatedly.
May you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day and not end up in the dog house. It’s February 14th. Again. This Saturday. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Add A Comment