In case you've been living under a rock, it's Valentine's Day. The day of love. The day of buying overpriced bouquets, cards, and chocolate. The day of pinks and reds. And hearts. And roses. That day. The Christmas in February. Executives, check your stocks.
Even though I'm not much of a romantic, I'm not immune to such a holiday. Well, perhaps because I enjoy celebrating all holidays. Even the overrated ones. An excuse to put together goody bags, make decor and dress up The Redhead? Of course, I'm game!
And of course, execute holiday hair.
Which I've been busy doing most of this week.
The teachers and classroom received gifts too.
Meanwhile, the cat's happy enough with another box.
The Redhead has also been busy wearing heart themed shirts for the past two weeks.
I'm so proud The Redhead chose Harry Potter valentines! A girl after my own heart.
Of course, we sent out cards too.
But none of this should surprise you about me. And if it does, well, it shouldn't. I make a big deal about almost everything, especially holidays. What should surprise you is how I spent my day.
The day before, Mister Man asked if I'd be home in the morning, as he had something being delivered. I'm going on about how he shouldn't send flowers and how they're unnecessary and expensive, but how I'd rather spend money on vacations and if he really needed to send me something, he could send me some Toms' shoes. Because those are better than flowers any day. Then I felt bad, because really, I shouldn't insult the flowers. In fact, I encourage sending them to other people. So, I prepared myself for the next morning, knowing I needed to be appreciative of anything I receive from him, especially since he hasn't really given me a Valentine's gift for years.
I had to run to the school to drop off the heavy box of notebook goodies. Then I dashed to Safeway for their Friday deals. Then I made it back home and was bringing in my purchases when my delivery arrived. At 9 am. And not just any delivery. He arrived. With a card. And inside the card was a receipt for the 0.47 cent card. And my gift. The best gift. We got to spend the day together. He had been driving around, stalking our house, waiting until I'd be back home from running errands all with the intention of taking me to a morning movie and out to lunch, all before The Redhead was out of school. Brilliant. What an awesome gift! And he said he told everyone in his office he wanted to give me something this year, that he had to make our first Valentine's Day here special. After all, he forced me to move across the country. I'm glad he remembered that part.
Now, I'm not one for romantic movies, but now it made sense why he kept bringing up that new movie, Winter's Tale. And I kept scoffing at it. Because perhaps it seemed to involve time travel of some sort, it also had potential to be terribly corny. He told me I could pick any movie I wanted, but you could tell he wanted me to pick something I hadn't seen. While I despise spending much money on myself, I do see a lot of movies. That's my version of me time. I pin myself down weekly for a movie, by myself, and no, it's not sad, and I watch something, anything. Mostly to unwind. I've been doing this for years and I find I'm much better for it. Some women choose massages, pedicures, facials, shopping trips, Happy Hour martinis, book clubs, Girl's Night, reading in the tub, but this is what I do. And this time, I got to do it with Mister Man.
And while I thought about seeing Monuments Men instead, and there were only a couple choices for early movies that worked within our time frame, I decided to embrace the whole valentine thing. So we went to see it. And I'm not going to lie, I thought it was cheesy. And we were fighting the urge to giggle while everyone was crying. And I'm serious. I almost choked while holding in my laughter. It had some okay parts, but as a whole, it wasn't my sort of movie. But I knew that going in. It wasn't about that though. It was about some alone time with my spouse, spending a day we wouldn't normally spend together. And then we got some lunch. And although we were both tempted by Italian, we went for something The Redhead doesn't like to eat, something we hadn't had out in forever. Mexican.
It's not about the food. Or the movie. It's about the day. About the surprise. The sentiment. The effort. And that was the best gift. Ever. But just so he knows, he set himself up to top it next year.
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