Love is in the air!!

Several weeks before Valentine’s Day, Brandon and I had a conversation regarding the celebration of it. I basically told him that I think it’s a Hallmark Holiday and I don’t believe in the way the flower industry tries to rip guys off on this one day of the year. I told him not to worry with sending me flowers on Vday, not that I dislike flowers but I just don’t like the price of them. If he wanted to send me flowers, send me ‘just because’ flowers any other day of the year…when they aren’t double in cost. What Brandon heard, “We are not celebrating Valentine’s day at all.” Ha! It cracks me up to think about the differences between guys and girls, especially in a conversation like this.

Apparently there was some confusion here…I LOVE Valentine’s Day! Who doesn’t love a day full of PINK, hearts, chocolate, happy smiles, giddy girls?!? A day focused on love…love for your friends and family, spoiling kids with goodies for no reason, happiness even if you are single. I’ve been single for plenty of Valentine’s Days and I made the best of it. I used to plan ‘Singles Awareness Day’ events. We would go bowling, dinner, movies, etc. It’s a day to be in love with the blessings you have in your life…no matter what that might be at the time! So please don’t confuse my statement above that I don’t like Valentine’s Day. I do. As you’ve seen in my previous posts, I made a plan a little early to do the 14 day countdown with daily gifts for Brandon. I was very excited about it once I had it all figured out and fortunately I mentioned my excitement regarding his gift to him a few days before I started. After the pause and confused look on his face, following the statement, ‘Wait, I thought we weren’t celebrating Vday? You said no flowers…’ I started cracking up. Uhm no. Yes, I said no flowers, I didn’t say no Vday. Whew! Catastrophe averted.

After further explanation of my philosophy…I don’t believe in spending tons of money. I believe in making it fun, light, easy, simple. A nice card, dinner at home, splurge on a tasty dessert…that’s all I need. Brandon is very sweet and very thoughtful. He doesn’t have to try hard to impress me or make me happy…it happens regularly and it’s the little things that he does that make me smile on a daily basis. Brandon thrives on being a little creative with stuff, so he jumped on this opportunity and went all out. I was surprised throughout the day and must say it was the best Valentine’s Day EVER. I’m okay with what he did…it was our ‘first’ Valentine’s celebration of hopefully many more…so I don’t believe he set the bar so high, he will have to top it next year. I believe one year of an all out splurge…the first year being the most important…next year, I’m 100% happy with dinner at home and a simple card…well, maybe with some kind of chocolate/dessert/large calorie intake!

Anyway, here’s out the day went. I had my trainer at 6am so I was gone from my house for about an hour that morning. Brandon, in the meantime, got up early, blew up about 50 balloons with a helium tank and tied curly ribbon around each one of them. He had them all hanging in my kitchen/dining room as I walked in from the garage. Holy Surprise! He bought a couple strands of lights which made it look really cool in the dark house. The flash on the camera takes away from the effect of the lighting…but it was so cool and so pretty in the room!!

I had a smile on my face all morning. Then after coming back from lunch, I had an FTD box waiting downstairs for me…2 dozen long-stemmed red roses…absolutely gorgeous!

if you've seen or read the book 'The Help', you'll get the reference above. makes me laugh.

As I said before, I’m good with dinner at home instead of fighting the crowds on Valentine’s night. But Brandon ended up making reservations to surprise me for sushi…one of our favorite meals to have together. We had dinner and came back to the house for dessert. Brandon loves his sister’s recipe of Dirt Pudding so I emailed her, got the recipe and surprised him with it as dessert! It was phenomenal!

Overall, a fabulous day…today, I still have a smile on my face, smelling my pretty flowers on my desk! Happy Valentine’s Day!