<p>Its dinnertime there now. Dinner for one on the company dime is much easier on the dirt poor than dinner for two, though I don’t know the current exchange rate, which could possibly be favorable. However, free is definitely a preferred cost.</p>
<p>** edit** One Euro costs about $1.35 Possibly too pricey for some who have to dust off their wallet</p>
<p>Usually I make a nice dinner and put out the red tablecloth and candles and dh gets flowers. This year he’s out of town. We had a pre-Val dinner last Friday at a restaurant. I’ve sent him a Valentine email.</p>
<p>I like going out and won’t miss any reason to do so. DW is low key so I’ve to find reasons to go out and this is one she doesn’t object to at all.
I sent candies to DD whom I love more than anything in the world and she should get it today with a home made card.
I’ve bought an IPAD for DW and 've made reservation for an 8:30 p.m. dinner. The resturant is serving a special menu with live entertainment and flowers for the lady.
I’m hoping it will be a hit both with DD and DW.</p>
<p>No special Valentines Day plans at the Thumper house. DH bought me a small plant from the grocery store. I got him some Valentines colored M & M’s. Around here most of the decent restaurants are closed on Monday. We’ll watch Jeopardy also…I’m dying to see that Watson!!</p>
<p>When I asked DH this a.m. what he wanted for dinner,he said he wasn’t feeling great and couldn’t think about food. Said we’d decide later. He’ll be home in an hour or so. We’ll see. </p>
<p>Honestly we’ve never made a big deal out of V. Day. DH is one of those (super practical) guys who thinks it’s not really necessary to go out and buy gifts because of the date on the calendar. I guess he’s not too awfully sentimental.<br>
Today is S1’s birthday so for many years Feb. 14th was about birthday parties,pizza,movies,sleepovers. S1 is an adult now (24 today) and lives three states away. Guess we need a new Valentine’s Day tradition.</p>
<p>Went to stop at a local bakery today to pick up some extra special cupcakes for H and D2. Closed on Mondays. Went to a second bakery, not AS good, but still good. Closed on Mondays. Seriously? Both stayed closed for Valentiine’s Day?! Seems like a good day to break the rules. </p>
<p>Instead, ended up taking a Jiffy yellow cake mix, doctored it up to make the mini cupcakes richer and made a homemade chocolate frosting that is to die for. Guess we’ll still get our sweet fix!!! </p>
<p>Going to pick up our favorite Chinese and enjoy a quiet time at home catching up on some television after a busy weekend. Sounds great to me!</p>
<p>I just went to Trader Joe’s and they are doing a booming business today. Lots of men. H came home at lunch with two bunches of flowers from Trader Joe’s. We have never been big on gifts. Younger D who is Valentine less has made a point of letting her Dad know that he is on the hook for something for her. She really wanted a chocolate rose. She also wants me to make a good dinner or hit the chinese place that she loves. She wants filets and H wants chicken. I will make both. Plus twice baked potatoes. D and H both love them. I also picked up the frozen chocolate lava cakes at Trader Joe’s.
I buy my chicken at Whole Foods and it was cute to see quite a number of young adult males with carts full of flowers and dinner fixings.</p>
<p>POIH remains one of my fav’s posters. I’d feel special if someone got me iPad </p>
<p>Me, I sent DS new iphone4, 32 bits. First time in years I could hear him distinctly. I don’t think that counts as a gift, as his old phone defective. So, sent him cookies and brownies from Dancing Deer, thanks to another CC poster. Sent best g/fs cards. One friend said she bought a few cards, but her mom with some dementia moved them to a tissue box. I feel so badly for anyone living with an parent with special needs.</p>
<p>I really do feel like you shouldn’t need to set aside a day to tell someone how much you care and appreciate them, that should happen every day. That being said, my BF did text me at 8 am asking “will you be my valentine for valentines day?” I wrote back “No.” He wrote back “that’s mean” and I wrote back “I’m your valentine every day” and to that he smiled and told me i’m adorable. Lol.</p>
<p>I did suprise him by puting a card and a lollipop shaped like a rose in the lunch bag that I packed for him today along with his monday pb&j, chips, soda. He said it was the cutest lunch he’s ever eaten. LOL. I’m cooking dinner tonight (monday is my night to cook) of yogurt marinated chicken w/ salsa topping, and rice. we are having cheesecake for dessert. I did buy some sparkling cider to go along with it. I’m going to put in the movie valentines day. I figure this is the one day of the year he’ll feel “obligated” to watch it with me. Might as well take advantage of the commercialism of the day while I can… haha. Saturday is his night to cook and this past Saturday we had chicken parm, garlic mashed potatoes, and pasta. Yum!!!</p>
<p>I’ve got an awful sore throat and am ever so slowly getting over a cold, so it will be nice to cuddle up on the couch in my pajamas and watch my movie.</p>
<p>This one girl at work had the biggest set of roses i’ve ever seen in my life. They literally were like two to three feet tall in the vase. You could see it on her desk from clear across the room. I have a rose bush in my yard and I think these roses were even taller then if I cut those off at the bottom of the plant!!</p>
<p>I’m a little uncomfortable with the whole Hallmark Valentines extravaganza that goes on but my dear husband of 32 years takes it all very seriously. We don’t spend that much but usually try to get each other something thoughtful and then work hard to find nice literary quotes to put on the cards we purchase for each other. This year I’m using a quote from Sense and Sensibility. DH tends toward poetry or Shakespeare. That is fun. And then this is the one night of the year along with Christmas Eve when we drink bubbly and eat silly stuff – shrimp and truffles type stuff. It’s all dumb but okay and kind of nice. I like how men are so earnest about it.</p>
<p>My husband bought and installed a headlight on my van. And gave me a card and a jumbo Kit Kat bar. I bought him a Godiva raspberry chocolate bar.</p>
<p>We show each other our love every day by the little things we do for each other, and agreed we’d forgo the Hallmark fueled expenditures.</p>
<p>MomLive, bookworm: I appreciate and DW was blown away too. She really dig the IPAD and the evening turned out to be very serene one.
My wine (Kistler Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard 2000) was excellent and so did DW cocktail of Godiva chocolates and Smirnoff vodka. We had Tuna (smoked with lemon grass) and scallop as appetizers. A rack of lamb and crab for main course with rice. We couldn’t finish the dishes and packed the left over.
So all in all it worked out to be a very nice evening.</p>
<p>We don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day to any significant extent. I did spend the weekend with my wife out of town, because she has a stretch of 2+ weeks when she can’t be home and this was in the middle of it. And she had V-Day dinner with one of our kids last night. (She was working where he goes to college.)</p>
<p>Back in the day, we would make elaborate arts-and-crafts valentines with the kids the weekend before. I loved that, but after eight years or so I felt maybe I had loved it enough, and I hadn’t had a fresh idea in years.</p>
<p>My mother sends chocolate hearts to about 50 people, always packed elaborately (and unsuccessfully) to preserve the names written on them in decorative frosting.</p>
<p>D used to celebrate Valentine’s Day religiously in college: She would bake vagina-shaped cookies, and then hawk them (with the predictable slogans I won’t repeat here) in the main quads as a fundraiser for her feminist group.</p>
<p>S has broken up with two girlfriends just before Valentine’s day. (Not the same year. Please.) What with the ebb-and-flow of his heart and SAD, I don’t think he has been paired-up in mid-February since 2003. As I said, he went out to dinner with his mom last night, but usually I think he just broods.</p>
<p>I have been dieting since January first with success. For the first time in YEARS, my husband bought be a big, heart-shaped box of candy. He and my 17-year-old went to the candy store and DS picked out a very fancy box and then each piece of candy to fill it. Very sweet–in more ways than one. I bought DH a picture frame so he can see the new me at work.</p>
Might as well take advantage of the commercialism of the day while I can… haha. Saturday is his night to cook and this past Saturday we had chicken parm, garlic mashed potatoes, and pasta. Yum!!!</p>