Valentine's Day

Woke up so grouchy this morning. Wished I was 11, so that my mom could make me heart shaped toasts for breakfast, instead of having to be the grownup. Grouched and grinched through all my morning tasks.

Went home for lunch, exchanged presents with J (SUPER cool earrings!) and decided to work at home for the afternoon. Don't I have the dreamiest job EVER?

Probably a dozen people in my church have major health things going on, and that's a lot in a congregation of 80 or so. Instead of visiting, as I had planned, I sat on my couch and made lots of phone calls and heard lots of stories and said, "I'll come see you soon, I just have this little cold right now and I dont want to give it to you." Everyone was delighted, I connected with lots of folks and I did not have to run all over creation. Doh. I feel like so 1937: "Say, Bessie! Have you seen this new telephone machine? Why, I can talk to you from a whole different building! What a time saver!"

I felt a lot better after that.

Got into the car to go to therapy (I had my list at the ready) and got a call from the therapist that she had to cancel, so I just sat in the car and made more calls for an hour. J and E were very surprised that I was "back so early" and even more surprised -- and giggly -- when I told them I'd been in the driveway the whole time. Sometimes you gotta take your room of your own wherever you can.

Called for pizza and while waiting for it, cleaned E's room, which had seriously gotten trashed. Found an overdue library book. Did not find the pencil sharpener for all his Valentine's Day pencils. Pencils are evidently the new chocolate for the kindergarten set.

Tidied the living room too. I can now sit on the couch without bruising any of my tender parts on a poky corner of The Star Wars Encyclopedia. Ahhh.

Had my favorite Valentine moment of the day, when E hid behind me to give one of his Valentines Day suckers (which I did NOT throw away. I'm thinking of all those teeth he has still to lose) to the pizza guy who either had smoked a bowl on the way over or, dude, has to have a serious talk with his Claritin provider about those red, itchy, allergy eyes. Pizza Stoner Guy was so delighted! It was his only Valentine present today and he really meant it when he said thanks. Sweet.

Ate the pizza, drank an unusual couple of glasses of wine (the grown-ups that is), played a lively game of Chutes and Ladders and agreed it was pretty much the perfect Valentine's Day for where we are right now. Other years have been more about another kind of romance, and will be again, but for now this suits us.



My favorite part of Valentine's Day, in the not so distant past, was making cards for everyone I knew and sending them to arrive on time. I'm assuming that I will do that again sometime, but this year is not that year. So consider yourself Happy Valentine-d via electronics instead.





LENT #8