valentines eve. and run on sentences...

---will you---

sometimes my best and most clear thoughts are late at night at work, when all the kids are content in their rooms and the house is clean (i am a nanny, remember?) and i finally find myself alone in front of the fireplace with the tv on, on mute, and all that is heard is the hum from the heat clicking on and off, the relaxing flow of the logs on the fire and the exhale and inhale of the sweet pup sleeping right beside me.  on nights like tonight, i feel good about my job and the three little lives i get to enter act with and help grow on a daily basis.  on nights like tonight, i also think about the little life (or lives) that one day brad and i might get to bring in the world and how i will get the gift of doing the same to them what i have just done to the three little sleeping bodies that are now contented in their beds.

i have been thinking a lot about valentines day.  how many people HATE the day, it makes them sad, or it;s just a silly holiday.  and i get it, i do.  but at the same time, i think if we all lived with the mentality of having more valentines days and turning them into our every days, just think how much better the world would be.

because really, it's just about love.  love.  easy enough.  and even if we don't "have" it in our lives, so to speak.  give it away.

smile at the elderly man bagging your groceries today.
return the shopping cart for the lady that has her hands full with her children.
pay for the person in line behind you at starbucks.
tuck a sweet note in your husbands jacket that he will find during the day.
send a card to a friend, just because.
call your parents and tell them you love them.
and then call them the next day and tell them again.
tell someone you appreciate them.
send a random person on facebook a message and tell them you were thinking about them.
pray for someone.  an then tell them you did.
and then do it again tomorrow.

i am a fan of valentines day.  because i really like love.
even when i was single for forever.  i still loved what it represent.
even the year my best friends dad came and cooked dinner for us---reminding us, yes, it;s another year and you still ain't got no date...

red, pink...it's just happy.
and it's always the best choice i think to choose to be happy.
and even if it't the "fake it 'til you make it" kinda happy.

you can still choose to make someone else's day.
ease someones else's load.
and that in turn will only make you feel love in return.

(and that's my two cents...happy valentines day eve.)

---be mine?---

i'm not a murderer. yay me!

since it's my first and last valentines as an engaged gal, i decided to go all out.  someone once said, "go big or go home."  i decided to go big.  well, brad decided that for me, actually.

when asked about a month before valentines (i'm a planner, what can i say?) what he would like me to cook for dinner...he replied without hesitation. "lobster."

because i like to impress him and pretend like i am a know it all in the kitchen, i said, "okay, cool." and turned and walked away.

lobster really?  i was thinking chicken.  gulp.  of course, i pretended like i was a lobster pro. so the last month i have researched lobster and how to cook, the best way to cook, the best to buy, etc.  and the more i researched, the more and more i felt like a 

MURDERER.

 

i mean, one minute they are just swimming around in their fish tank and the next BAM boiling hot water.  it just ain't right.  the more i thought about the little guys, i just was heart sick at the fact that i was going to have to put a live creature into boiling water.  i even read somewhere if you rubbed the lobster on their head for ten minutes before putting them in the boiling water, it hypnotizes them and they feel no pain.  should i apply lotion so my hands are soft, so it feels like a massage on their day of DEATH?  see the issues i was having?  i voiced none of this to brad, since i had it, uh hum, under control.  but i was stressed.

the closer it got to the date and the more research i did, i decided that if i just bought some lobster tail, i might do better.  i did not kill the lobster, i can still be a friend to the lobster, i am just buying seafood.  i can do that.  and i did.  

it was still hard.  i kept thinking, 'what if the tail starts flapping!?' ahhhh!  you know when you kill a granddaddy longleg and the legs are still moving?  yeah, that's how i was feeling.

 everything i read said boil it one minute per ounce.  so after five minutes of rapid boiling, the brown turned to red, WHO KNEW?, and we had ourselves some lobster.  i never even had to thaw out the chicken.  go me.

 so we had lobster, baked potato, corn souffle and asparagus.  and slowly but surely i am convincing my valentine that really it is a fun day o' love.  

is there or is there not lobster on your plate, dude?

this is how romantic we are...i had big plans of lighting the candles, but then forgot and moved the asparagus to where the candles should be, and then and there we had a full light dinner and no candles were lit...then there's the whole issue of the pot holder thats still on the table and the paper napkins.

don't judge me.  i was still crying over my little lobster friends and their tails that i had just boiled.  i just could not take the risk of setting them on fire.