Vacations are great and all, but there’s nothing like being home. The worst part, though, is that G had to go to work today and I miss him so much.
Some highlights from Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur, California (click for bigger pictures):
It was overcast and rainy the whole time we were there (the whole trip actually except for the day we left) but it was also broody and dramatic and oh so romantic. In honor of my romantic getaway, I’m going to give away a skein of January One and a skein of G-Rocks to one lucky winner. Plus some other stuff like notecards and chibis and stuff. All you have to do to win is leave me a comment and tell me about your best Valentine’s Day, your worst Valentine’s Day, your first love, your last love, anything goes – heartbreak, love connections – the heart’s the limit. One entry per person please. I’ll close the comments at 11:59 PM EST on February 14th and pick the winner right after.
And if you don’t win, or are in the mood for some Valentine’s Day shopping, don’t forget to check out the Lovely Hearts exhibit. Some of the proceeds for each item in the show will go to fight Breast Cancer. I’ve got a picture in there for the taking.
I have so much to tell you about – knitters I met, yarn I bought, shrines I paid homage to – craziness! Re-entry is a bitch. So instead, I’ll just spend the day missing my boy and looking at pictures.
hmmm, delurking to enter a contest. classy, no? Well maybe I’ll be a first poster! I haven’t had many valentines days yet but it always brings to mind late nights of me staying up and wrapping together little packages of candy for my friends in red tissue paper. I hope this counts! <3 Happy Valentine’s Day!
I am trying to stay away from even thinking about my worst V-Days, so let’s talk about one of the best.
When I first moved out on my own, I rented an apartment with a roomie, who happened to have a boyfriend. I, however, was very alone and reminded of it daily.
I was not alone in my singleness, however. Many of my friends were shall we say “between relationshps”. And to be honest, roomie’s relationship wasn’t the shiniest of examples either.
And since several of us were struggling with the day, I decided to cook dinner. I sent invitations. I made party favors. I even cooked some edible.
And we drank wine and we relived sweet and sad love stories.
And as I was walking my last guest to the door, she (my dearest friend who had been adored by many and pampered like a princess each and every other Valentine’s Day) hugged me and said, “This was by far the most meaningful Valentine’s Day.”
And I was touched and from then on out, I never thought of Valentine’s Day as strictly for lovers, but instead for those you love.
Awesome pics, especially the kissing self-portraits! I’ll be spending the 14th (& 15th) in meetings with a bunch of guys I work with (I’m one of two women in a group of about 200 men), none of whom is my very own sweetie, who will be at home, caring for our darling boys – feeding, clothing, and getting them off to school while I’m gone. Ok, so I couldn’t ask for a better Valentine, I just don’t get to spend the day with him 🙁
Best V day? Had to be when sweetie and I were courting and he sent a barbershop quartet to where I worked to Serenade me and bring me a rose. (The lads were so charmed to be on a Maternity Unit that they went round to serenade all the new moms as well) I still have the rose 12 years later. Otter
ps love the kissing self portraits.
Valentine’s weekend of 1999 my boyfriend and I went to Spokane WA to stay the night at a hotel. We were at school at WSU in Pullman, but wanted to get away for an evening. We looked around the mall and ended up looking at engagement rings. He disappeared for a bit and then returned. We went to dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory and then went back to our hotel room. I wanted to take a bath, but the drain was broken, so I ended up taking a long shower. I got out of the shower and my boyfriend was looking really guilty. A few hours later we were laying in bed together and he started telling me this story about this couple where the guy wanted to propose, but his girl’s father wasn’t hip on the idea and so forth, but he proposed anyway. The more he kept going on, the more the story sounded familiar. And it was: it was the story of how my parents became engaged. He brought out the ring he had purchased earlier in the day and proposed to me. He had called his parents and my mom while I was in the shower. It’ll be 8 years ago on Wednesday that he did this and we have two boys adn we’re still together.
I’ve got one for you. My first serious love was my best friend from college. Let’s call him J. We were friends for 8 years before we started dating. We had planned to travel to Mexico together and I left town first to go to my cousin’s wedding. He dumped me a week after I left. This was in 2000. I just got married in August 2006 and J made our wedding cake!! Here’s to forgiveness, lack of jealousy, and long term friendships…
My husband isn’t a big believer in Valentines Day. 15 years ago, our youngest daughter nagged him enough that he went to the supermarket and bought me one rose. As this Valentines Day approaches, he is still complaining that he had to pay $3.25 for one rose! Not sure it this qualifies for the funniest or the saddest. After 38 years of marriage, I usually laugh when I tell the story. (And I have to admit that he brings me lovely jewelry whenever he travels without me.)
Hmmm… best Valentine’s day… right now I would say 1991, because I was 15 and had just gotten my FIRST BOYFRIEND on Feb 13, making that my first Valentine’s day with a boyfriend. But if you ask me this same question next week, I think I will say 2007, because our Valentine’s day plan for this year is to go and buy rings for our upcoming wedding in May. They are all picked out, but we are saving them for Valentine’s day!
My son was born on Feb 12 (5 years ago today) and I was still in the hospital on Feb 14. My hubby despite being pretty grubby after spending 3 days at my side without leaving, snuck away to buy me a miniture rose bush (which we planted in the yard) and pork lo mein which he fed to me while I fed our son. It was wonderful.
I once told my husband that I could care less about flowers on v-day. Which is kinda true, but oh how I’d love flowers on v-day! Good man that he is, he gets ’em for me anyway.
My husband doesn’t care for Valentine’s Day. He says he doesn’t like the idea of being romantic because it is “the thing to do”. However, he is one of the most romantic men that I know of. He always remembers the anniversary of our first date and the date that we got engaged, and usually plans something special. This March will be the 25th anniversary of our first date, and since that date was to the circus, he got circus tickets for us for this year (unfortunately the circus leaves several days before the actual anniversary, but…close enough!) So while Valentine’s Day isn’t too special, January 27th and March 27th of each year more than make up for it!
I intend to make this year a wonderful Vanentine’s Day. After breaking up with my boyfriend just last week, V Day will be an official re-enty into the single world!
I guess I’ll be a jerk and admit publicly that I don’t much care for Valentine’s Day, especially this year with my husband deployed. But I would like to say that your photos, despite the overcast and dreary weather, are stunning. The ones of you and G are especially cute.
Hi Cara,
First, it was so great to meet you on Friday night. Nice to put a real person to the blog. OK – best Valentine’s Day: I had a dessert and champagne party at my New York apartment back in the mid-80s. I baked everything and had about 20 people. One person was very special to me then, but sadly we never married. It was a magical evening.
I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day, it’s one of those things that I think is too commercial and puts too much pressure on men to get the women in their lives The Perfect Expensive Present.
But! You asked for the best Valentine’s Day story, so here it goes. In February of 2000, my husband (then boyfriend) were living in seperate states and counting the days until he moved down (at the time, it was 14 and counting). (We were one of those internet couples, haha.) Since this was the first year that either one of us were seeing anyone for Valentine’s Day, we decided to do it up right. He came down to visit, we got dressed up and went out to a fancy Italian restaurant. The food was well, meh, but being with the one I loved over a candlelight dinner for Valentine’s Day for the first time wwas magical. Two weeks later he moved down and we never looked back. The next Valentine’s Day, we celebrated by going to buy an engagement ring!
Years ago I hated Valentines Day. I always thought it was super cheesy. But February 14th is also my mom’s birthday so thankfully my family never made a big deal about it because we celebrated her birthday instead.
3 years ago, a week before Valentine’s Day, I found out I was going to be a mother. My husband and I told our families on Valentines Day. I’ve loved the holiday ever since.
My first valentine’s day with my husband-to-be I was sick as a dog. He was a trooper, trying in vain to take care of me through my wretchedness. He attempted to cook for me and then, with all sincerity, said “Happy Thanksgiving anyway.” 14 years later it’s still saying in our house.
Part A: My senior year in college, I had been dating an “older guy” — 4 years older — for about 5 months. That means he was working and earning a salary and could take me places that a college kid could not afford. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner, but he was acting really weird and distant. The next day he broke up with me, and he told me that he waited until after V-Day because he knew how much I was looking forward to going out to this particular restaurant and he didn’t want to spoil my Valentine’s Day.
Part B: The “older guy” realized his mistake by about Feb 20th, and we got back together. We’ve now been together for over seven years and married for 2 of them. Even when he “broke up” with me and (temporarily) broke my heart, I still knew he was a nice guy for not wanting to ruin my V-Day.
My husband is far more romantic than he admits to being. One Valentine’s Day, early on in our relationship (about 4 years in), he surprised me with a handmade wooden box that he crafted himself (he is a woodworker and carpenter). He marbled and stained the outside of the box and wrote our names in a heart he drew over it. It’s my favorite present and sits on my bedside table today, 15 years later.
My worst Valentine’s day was junior year in high school. The story is way too long for the comment box, but imagine maudlin high schoolers, and you’re halfway there.
Absolutely amazing shots!
I can’t really remember anything particular about any Valentine’s day. I do remember that I tended to go out drinking with my friends since I was rarely in a relationship at that time of year. I have no idea why that was.
Guess I’ll sit this contest out…
Welcome back!
Oh My! This doesn’t have anything really to do w/ Valentine’s Day, but LOVE – I LOVE LOVE LOVE that picture you posted of the beach rocks!!! LOVE, pure & simple!
One of my most favorite Valentine’s Days was two years ago. It was a cold night, and my husband–who is an excellent cook–made filet mignon and creme brulee for me and our two kids (then 12 and 9). Sitting at our table, with our fancy china, candles, and a delicious, special meal, I felt so loved and fortunate to be not just part of a couple, but part of a wonderful family. I still feel just as lucky!
The Valentine’s Day I would share is way back from my college days, about 36 years ago! My boyfriend (now my husband) was temporarily going to a different college close to his home, and I would probably not see him for months. (No internet or cell phones back then either.) He sent me a dozen red roses which were delivered to my sorority and all my friends drooled over how romantic it was. I cried because I missed him so much, and I’ll always cherish the memory. Later we were reunited and finished college together, got married, raised 2 great kids and are now growing old together. That’s what it’s all about.
You’re right – re-entry is a bitch! What gorgeous pics you’ve shared, though – and my fave is the last one, of G kissing you. Love your grin!
V-Day is kind of a non-event for me these days b/c my wedding anniversary comes 4 days before it, and we make a much bigger deal out of that. I have a really happy V-Day memory of my first kiss with a long-term boyfriend I started dating in college, but it seems sort of not right to think of old flames when I’m happily married.
So I guess the V-Day memory I’ll share is my first married Valentine’s Day, which happened on my honeymoon. We went to Jamaica and My Old Man accidentally left the Valentine’s Day card he’d gotten for me in our car back in the states. So on V-Day, he got a tube of my lipstick and wrote I <3 U on his chest (<3 is my attempt here at drawing a heart), and presented himself as a sort of V-Day card. I still laugh about it – both at him doing it, and at my stupid self being all bummed out b/c he’d used up so much of my good lipstick!
Best – the year my single girlfriend and I threw a lonley hearts valentine’s day party and only invited single people. When you walked through the door, you got half a playing card and you had to find the other half at the party. We both hooked up that night, as did many of our friends.
Worst – my first with DH – when we were dating. He was self conscious about his present (which was the best I’d ever gotten – before and after!) and was in a foul mood. We went out, ate oysters and I proceeded to vomit for the next 8 hours. We laugh about it now, but at the time it was miserable.
Um, somehow my message above got truncated. What I tried to say was that my husband wrote “I heart U” (with a heart, though) on his chest with my lipstick, and presented himself to me as my Valentine’s Day card. It was totally cute and goofy (though I was stupidly bummed about how much of my good lipstick he used up doing it!).
Add us to the crowd who would rather go out for a nice dinner some other night when it’s not so crowded. But for the boys we usually have a fun dessert on Valentines day.
My favorite Valentines day memories are from back in college when a friend and I had sort of an anti-V-day tradition of spending it together making cookies, eating half the dough before we baked them, and watching “Shirley Valentine.” Fun times!
My hubby proposed the week before V-Day and we spent V-Day at a wonderful resturant, Bainbridges in Chelmsford, MA. It was a wonderful day!
Yay! Great photos. I’ve been longing to do Big Sur in winter, and now I’m longing to do it even more….
It’s all too easy to recall my worst Valentine’s Day. I’d had a couple of dates with a guy named James, and he asked me out again for Valentine’s Day. I was supposed to meet him at a restaurant near the university. I dressed up cute and got there on time, and of course the place was packed with students on dates. I waited. Waited some more. Kept waiting until it was quite obvious I’d been stood up.
The best Valentine’s Day? Any day of the year with my husband. We don’t officially celebrate Valentine’s Day because we both have too many memories like the James story–and because we don’t need the reminder of a holiday to give each other special treatment.
I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day. But it now has a special meaning because on 2/14/00 I learned that I was pregnant with my first child. 😉
The very best one will be this year, because my husband is coming home from his LONG business trip a day early in order not to miss spending it with me. 🙂
You and G are just so darned cute.
Very lovely pictures. Sounds like you had a great time.
Well I will stay on the positive side with this one.
My best Valentines day so far was in 2005. My Son was just a little over a month old. He was being so cuddly and snuggly all day. My husband made dinner for me that night after he got off work and we spent a nice time on the couch together as a family cuddled up under a blanket watching a movie. It was nice to spend a relaxing day/evening especially being a first time mom.
Hope you have a wonderfuly Valentines Day and that your boy gets home soon.
My best valentines will be this coming one. I married my hubby Aug 6 2006, so this will be our first married v-day. We’ll probably drink champagne and eat pizza and just be happy. V-day is no big deal for us, we love each other everyday.
My worst V-day was with my first serious boyfriend, I was 17 and very much smitten.
The boy had mentioned once that he had always wanted a Mickey Mouse watch and I decided to get him one for valentines day. It took a few months to save up the $75 for the reproduction Mickey Mouse Watch which I nervously gave him along with a small heart shaped box of chocolates. He was thrilled to bits and gave me my gift…a faux wood jewelery box with a broken lid he found for .25 cents at a thrift store which he filled with $1.75 worth of “jewelery” and gum balls from the grocery store vending machine across from the thrift shop. I only know all of this because he boasted about how cheaply he “got out of V-day” to our friends in front of me.
I wish I could say this was my only crappy V-Day but sadly it served to just set the tone for future ones like the year that the Mother of the guy I was dating gave me some lingerie!!! After that I stopped celebrating it except to go to the stores the next day and buy a few boxes of my favorite chocolates at half off.
Best Valentine: Freshman year of high school, 2003. Made Biotines for biology. Mine was to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecelia” on “Cillia: You move me along.” Made STD Poetry as an alternative, although feared that showing those to my teacher would result in her fainting. That evening, I was text messaging a friend (the times we live in), and “officially” started my first relationship.
This year: Finally happy being single, able to feel like an independant person. Making scandelous Valentines by cutting out the dirty passages of erotica novels and incorporating them into heart-shaped cards. Oh, and taking a music theory test and a German Prufung….
One of my favorite memories of Valentines Day is the year my best friends (two couples and my hubby and I) and I had an all-red party. We wore red, we drank red wine, we ate red meat and had roasted beets with red onions, and a radicchio salad, and ate red velvet cake for dessert. One of my friends even dyed her hair red for the occasion.
I moved away from these friends, and miss them terribly. I love them too, and was so happy to spend a Valentines Day with them.
i think one of my best valentines days was two years ago. my hubby and i had just gotten married, and right before that we had just re-located back to the u.s. after living in the u.k. for a year. my husband didn’t have is permanent resident visa yet and couldn’t work; i was just temping at the time, still looking for a permanent job. we were po’. so we didn’t go out that night, but we broke out the fondue set we got as a wedding gift that we had kind of laughed about, and we melted some chocolate, got some bananas and oranges and apples, and had a nice little romantic evening in. we’ve certainly had more elaborate and fancy valentines days but i’ll always remember that one because it was just us, getting through the tough times, and making the best of a situation together.
that doesn’t mean i’m not looking forward to going out to a fancy restaurant this wednesday though!
I met my husband through mutual friends during my senior year in high school. The week after graduation, we started dating when he told me he wanted to marry me. I laughed at him and told him he was nuts. We joked about what we would name our kids. Six months later we were officially engaged. Four months later we were married. Two years later our first daughter was born. Her name is Violet – the name we picked on the day we started dating. We’ll be married ten years this April.
I have a feeling this one is going to be my best Valentine’s Day Ever! (But more on that later…)
Thanks so much for taking us on vacation with you. I feel so relaxed!
this isnt’ a story about a love, but rather a tradition my mom started for us, for valentines.
she would decorate the kitchen and give us gifts of “red”–red cinnamon hearts, red candy and..wait for it..red underwear.
it started as a joke in highschool and continued up until college. i remember getting my package in the mail from my mom a box full of gifts individually wrapped in red and pink tissue paper.
i opened it in class and shared the candy with my friends. i totally forgot about the tradition until the last little package fell out and rolled across the floor.
everyone watched as i opened…red underwear.
i didn’t share that gift with my friends.
my mom died 6 years ago and i always laugh when i think about the red underwear tradition.
maybe i’ll buy some this year…..
One of my best Valentine’s Days was the year I moved to Boston. I didn’t really know anyone yet, but I was feeling very empowered by the changes I’d made. So, I made a Valentine’s date with myself and went to see “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” with a big box of Junior Mints. My new roommate wanted to come, but I was clear that I was going solo. It still amuses me — almost 20 years later — to think of going to see that movie alone on Valentine’s Day. Also, I’ve never thought of gazpacho the same way again. Tee hee. Glad you had a good trip!
Well this story has it all, funny (appernently for some), first love, worst valentine.
My boyfriend at the time was 7 years older than me and was old enough to enter the strip club, while I could not (under age and all). So on Feb 13th he went out with his buddies to the local joint. Fine, I was ok with that. Of course that was before he gave me his valentine. He thought it would be oh so funny to give me a picture of himself with the stripper and her personal message, “Happy Valentines day, Love “EX JERK” & “Bambi Big Boobs”. Amazingly I never married him! Funny he still isn’t married, go figure.
The two best Valentine’s gifts ever, one is currenly taped to my desk at work where I can see it everyday “I love you mommy” from my most recent pre-schooler, and the other is on my shelf in my bedroom from my now 11 year old valentine.
Last year I was shopping with my husband a few weeks before V-Day, and as we wandered through the jewelry section of the store on our way to somewhere else, I touched a necklace and said, “I like this, it’s pretty.” He sneaked back and got it for me, brought it to my office on V-day and wrote Happy Valentine’s Day on my whiteboard. Goofy, but I left it there until we moved to a new office.
Fabulous pictures Cara, thanks for sharing them.
I think my first Valentine’s Day with my husband sort of put a pallor on the celebration of the day ever since. The first Valentine’s Day of our married lives had him deployed in the CARRIBEAN and me digging out of a snowstorm in MAINE. While he was enjoying the warmth and sunshine (and the rum) in the Carribean I was trying to figure out how one raised in Florida navigated 30 inches of snow. Good times.
No Valentine’s Day really stands out as the “best”, so I’ll tell you about my worst. We’d been together for four years already, but last year was going to be our first Valentine’s Day “on our own”. I was going to cook a special dinner for us and we were going to go to the movies, but the week before Valentine’s he woke up covered in sores & what looked like the Chicken Pox. It turned out he’d (somehow, we have no idea how) caught Coxsackie. He ended up spending over two weeks in misery at his parent’s house (our son was two and we were all terrified that he would get sick, too) and I spent Valentine’s Day without my sweetie.
This year I’ll probably try again, but I’m not making any decisions until the actual day arrives. I don’t want to jinx it!
Oh, and those photos are so lovely! The last two are so sweet. 🙂
Oh, those are gorgeous pictures! I love that multicoloured sand/water shot with the brown and reds…I spy a design/colourway inspiring picture 😉
On the V-day front, I wish I had a story for you. I have never once had an eventful Valentine’s day, nor even a Valentine dude to speak of. Most of them pass me by in a blur of attempted non-self-pity and hanging out with friends – but at the end of it I DO get to have the same candy at 50% off on the 15th, which is of course the most important thing 😉
I personally don’t care for Valentine’s Day. I don’t like the commercial aspect, the pressure, and the busyness of every good restaurant in town on that night. My hubby feels the same way, so we don’t celebrate it. One year however, he brought home a dozen red roses for me. I don’t expect to get them again, but maybe sometime he will surprise me. He buys me flowers on lots of other random days though, so I really don’t mind at all.
Best Valentine’s Day? It’s this one. Yup, the one that’s two days away. I have nothing planned and won’t be with my girl in person, but it’s still the best because it’s going to be the first one where we’re ‘together’. And I’m okay with us not being in the same space on Wednesday because I have never, ever felt so certain and so sure that I am loved and that I love someone.
Hmm.. I’ve loved reading your blog and this is my first time commenting.
Valentines day last year… was a little rocky, and hard to explain.
I can say I am still deeply in love with the man I met seven years ago at Narita airport. We met over the internet and he flew all the way to Japan to meet me for the first time and we’ve gotten along well since then. 🙂
I hope you have a happy Valentines Day!
my TWIN!! where have you been all my life? i had a fucking blast on friday. how is it that you have 48 comments already? good lordie. i miss you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! is that possible?
Big Sur is so pretty…my uncle secretly went and got married there a year or two ago!
My best Valentine’s Day…Well the last two pretty much tie, as ’05 was my first date with the boy and I knocked him out with my Chocolate-Chili Pots de Creme. Worked like a charm. ’06 was our first anniversary, my first relationship anniversary ever (hey i was only 20). We got a bottle of Cliquot. ’07? Might top them yet! Man, I am crazy about him.
Hrm. I’ll do one of the best because I’ve had far too many non-existant ones.
When I was 18 I had just broken up with my boyfriend but we were still good friends. On Valentine’s day he called and invited me to dinner. He cooked me (from scratch) a good Italian dinner and bought me roses and a box of Almond Rocha. After dinner he got his two best friends to serenade me from the front yard (and they were in choir so they sounded really good). And then the three of us spent the rest of the evening laughing and dancing and playing Monopoly. It was low key and casual and my best Valentine’s day so far.
Those pictures are, as ever, beautiful. Nice to see the Pacific again, even in photographs.
my TWIN!! where have you been all my life? i had a fucking blast on friday. how is it that you have 48 comments already? good lordie. i miss you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! is that possible?
much love ~ no blog hannah
aw, cara – beautiful pictures!
valentine’s day still isn’t very big in norway which is just as well seeing as the husband is out of the country this week. hmpf.
Well, since I am currently going through a divorce right now, I am not especially looking forward to V. Day. In fact, I am dreading it. It seems like the whole world is in love when you are not.
However, after seeing your romantic pictures, I have hope that there is the right guy out there for me, one who is a hopeless romantic like me, who appreciates all the socks I will make him and buys me tulips when it is 30 degrees below zero.
I have yet to see what he’s going to do this year, if anything, but last year my sweetie surprised me at work with a red rose and a stuffed daschund (I want a real one, he’s not ready for a dog yet, so this was as close as I could get).
The one that got away:
He asked for a date, but he got a square. I didn’t know how to navigate anything between friendship and couplehood, so I forced myself to play it cool. I wore an old t-shirt and bouncy ponytail in the early spring sunshine.
He wore a ribbed mock-neck sweater. It was burgundy. I was flattered by the date sweater, but it made me nervous too.
So I said: What is yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice, and he immediately responded: Zorn’s lemon. I thought: he knows my favourite, stupid jokes. This must be the man of my dreams.
But he was intense, more focussed than I, and I was moving across the country.
I have found love elsewhere, but I lost a friend when I pushed him away.
I am weird about entering blog contests – I generally avoid it, but I have news for this one. This year is the best. I quietly married my Brad on Friday. I don’t think we need to do anything specifically this Wednesday, but it’s just a happy time for us to celebrate love.
Sigh…no wonder it’s hard to get back into the swing of real life. What a wonderful time you must have had!
You always think of the best questions for your contests! It’s rare that I want to read through someone’s comments, but your always bring out wonderful stories.
I’ll try to keep this concise. V-Day 2004. I had broken up with a long term boyfriend the week before and was still feeling pretty crappy. It was a saturday night and my favorite monthly dance night was happening at a local bar; I had planned to meet some friends there. I was hesitant about going but finally decided that it would cheer me up to go. By the time I got there, it was late and my friends left shortly therafter. I was really enjoying the music, so I just danced by myself and let all of my thoughts fall away. Eventually, I noticed a really tall, gangly guy was dancing right near me. We got a little closer, basically started dancing with each other without making any physical contact. After a few songs, it was clear that he wasn’t about to say anything, so I learned over to him and said “Did you have a good Valentine’s Day?”
“No. Did you?”
“No. What’s your name?”
It was really loud from the music, so I thought he said “Elmo.” I asked him if that was no his name.
He replied, “No, it’s Omar. Like Omar Shariff!”
I ended up giving him my number. Long story short, we now live together and we’re looking forward to celebrating our 3rd anniversary on Wednesday.
Not a V-Day story, but one of heartbreak and love connections, for sure:
I went away for the summer to work at a place a few hours away from where I lived. I met a boy there and developed a huge crush on him. The problem was that I had a boyfriend I had been dating for 4 years and thought I was going to marry. On one of his visits we went to see “American Wedding” (his choice) and I realized while watching that silly movie that I didn’t wany to marry my boyfriend.
I broke up with my boyfriend, and was quite happy after that with the new guy (we’re still dating). The real kicker was this: my ex had bought a house in my neighborhood before we broke up, and I had to spend the next 2 years living 4 doors down from him. I don’t recommend it!
Until I started dating my husband, I had never actually been dating anyone on a Valentine’s day, a source of grumpiness for me. One year, my Mom and I were taking a mother-daughter trip to England, leavng on Feb. 14th. I remember the day before she gave me a card that said, “If Mr. Perfect hasn’t shown up by Valentine’s day, let’s go to England!” It was so sweet because it made me happy to know that Mr. Perfect was not going to show up that year.
Since I’ve been with my husband, I really can’t pick one V-day that’s been the best because he is consistently wonderful every year. I am looking forward to this year, though. We’re going to have a romantic overnight stay in La Jolla, CA.
Wow! Amazing photos!
My best valentines’s day was my first year with my husband. He surprised me with dinner and tickets a favorite band for a show that night! Good times!
Many people wil say that “love at first sight” is just a myth. I often beg to differ: love at first sight may not guaranteed by any means, but there’s got to be something to “interest at first sight”.
I can still remember the instant my now-husband came swaggering towards my friend and I, sitting in a hall of our high school as we all cut an assembly, before I even knew his name. I remember his hiking boots and goofy large glasses. I remember how he was polite to me, and how talked with my friend about medieval warfare (he’s still that kind of geek). I don’t remember what I really thought of him then, other than that he was the cool guy who could teach us fencing. We met in the halls the next day, the lunchroom the next, for a fencing lesson with a few friends that weekend… and at least once a day for the next two weeks (including weekends). Despite me having a “boyfriend” at the time, we got together after about a month or so. A few months later we moved in together (yes, we were still teens). We stuck together through hard times, made mistakes, grew up together, made things work.
We’ve been together ever since, going into our 13th (!) year together, and were “legally wed” just last August. Did I love him at first sight? Maybe not. But I certainly love him now, more than ever.
16 years ago, looking at the Valentine’s Day cards and feeling so sad because none of them applied to whatever it was that was happening with me and my husband. Fast forward 3 years: divorced, realizing that it had been premonition, those Valentine’s Day cards. A new man in my life who is — how to say it — just my truest love, and ALL the cards apply to us and don’t because they can’t say it or say it just right. And today, married to him for 12 years it is still true. There is love out there. Don’t stop believing.
Well I have a funniest V-day story.
So in college my roommate had a very cute older brother and we dated for a bit. Well valentines day he came down and we had a couple of bottles of red wine around so we thought we would toast and drink and enjoy eachothers company. We were about a bottle and a half in and he turns to me and says, “Stacy wow you are really red”
I return, “Oh I know I can get a bit flushed drinking”
BF, “No really you are RED”
Me, “Yeah I said I get flushed kinda weird huh”
This went on for at least 15 minutes.
BF, “Ummm NO I MEAN YOU LOOK LIKE A FIRETRUCK!”
Me, “WTF you talking about man” as I go to the bathroom to look only finding myself BRIGHT FREAKING RED WITH HIVES ALL OVER!!!!
So yeah the one year in many years I have a BF at the time of Valentines Day and I get no lovin’ I am FREAKING ALLERGIC to red wine!!!!!! FREAKING ALLERGIC – HIVES and bad breathing for two days sick as a dog.
It was Lovely simply lovely.
Best Valentines…first v-day with hubster in maui 2 months after we met…but yeah I got the flu two days later…but v-day was rad!
I don’t have a best or worst Valentine’s Day, but I do have a hilarious story. My husband is a typical PhD (inorganic chemistry) – lots of brains but tends to miss out on practical details and tends to forget information not considered pertinent to his mental database.
One year in our marriage he gave me a really nice card with a caveman on it. Cute card, nice sentiment. The next year, he gave me the same card. Had no memory of buying said card the year before. Two years go by and last year – yep, same card. I pulled out the other two and he did one of those “aw shucks” moves and told me he thought it looked a little familiar. (And no, he isn’t faking it just to be funny. He can’t keep a straight line to himself.)
Good thing it’s a good card.
I hear you on re-entry — it sucks. So glad you had fun.
As for Valentine’s Day, well, when I was growing up VD was a holiday at our house much like Christmas. My mother got gifts for all of us, plus candy. I always got a nightgown in addition to other gifts. And we’d have a very special dinner, too. I have great memories of those valentine’s days with my family.
Worst: Two years ago, I proudly wore my Charlotte’s Web to work, her maiden voyage off the needles. I went to a little Italian grocer to pick up some pasta after work. I took off my coat because it was 60 degrees or so. Put the coat in the car. (Charlotte was on under the coat.) Got back in the car. Started driving home.
Charlotte was GONE.
I raced back to the shop. No Charlotte. Back to work. No Charlotte. I cried. Cried and cried and cried. Got home to my boyfriend (now husband), who told me he had bought me fancy chocolates. It was the smallest box possible of Russell Stover’s and I freaking lost it. (I had asked for GOOD chocolate.) I sobbed the rest of the night. Hands down, worst ever.
Aw, you two are so cute!! I’m glad you had such a nice break!!
I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, being the mostly single type. My best v-days are usually the ones where I ignore that it’s v-day, but I did have one fab one that I spent with two great friends, exploring DC and finding a disco bowling place where the DJ played the electric slide and everyone in the place got up and danced. TOO FUN!
welcome home cara!
well my best v-day thus far happened back in HS. We played a huge basketball game against our biggest rival and actually won. (we’re talking a huge losing drought here, it was at least 7 years…) I then went straight after the big win to visit my boyfriend in college who gave me a brown paper bag (a la Shoprite) filled with silly gifts. He tried to spruce it up by drawing a huge heart with a red sharpie marker on the front. It was priceless. I thought then and now (still dating same BF, oh it’s been 8 years now) that that was the best V-Day ever.
Haha, worst Valentines Day ever? I was dating a barista at Starbucks. He had told me the week before that he had the evening of Valentines Day off, and then the day of, he called to tell me that he instead had to close, but he would take me out afterwards. So I showed up at the cafe around 10:00 (when they close), and it turned out that the other person had to leave early for a date and bailed on my boy. He ended up having to stay til after 11:00 cleaning the place up. By the time he got off, he told me he was just too tired to do anything, and he had forgotten my gift at home anyway. So I just gave him his gift (a very nice box of chocolates and a hardcover version of Beowulf, his favorite epic story of all time) and went home. A very lousy Valentines Day all-around. 🙂
I have a worst one –
Three days before my wedding, the guy decided he wasn’t “ready” to get married.
Yay another contest!
I think my best Valentine’s Day was a few years ago when I was in teacher’s college. I was going to school close to forty hours a week and working at a nursing home on the weekends. I was stressed out to the max. My husband and I decided to break the bank and go to a inn and spa in northern Ontario for a night. We had massages, excellent food and our company.
We don’t get many chances to splurge on our relationship as he works for The Salvation Army and I’m a substitute teacher so I will always remember how relaxed and content I felt on that little trip.
Is it bad to say that my best V-day memory is with an ex and not my hubby?!?! I was dating a guy right after college, who was an ex of an ex roommate of mine, and he surprised me with tickets to see the Phantom of the Opera in Toronto! Train tickets up, overnight hotel, and dinner at a very romantic French restaraunt. It was just such a lovely little mini trip that I will always remember even if the guy faded away!!
Let’s see…I’ll probably be retelling this story on my own blog on Wednesday, but I don’t mind giving a sneak peak.
My first Valentine’s Day with Bradon, my now-fiance, was on a Friday. I came home from work for lunch and discovered a path of rose petals leading from the front door to the bedroom. Our bed (a huge, faux-wrought-iron canopy bed) was covered in rose petals and had a note on it that told me to pack an overnight bag and be ready to leave shortly after 7:00, when he would be home from work. There was a lot of squealing and (happy) crying as I stuffed a duffel bag with clothes and toiletries.
I was treated to an excellent sushi dinner and an evening in a suite in a very posh hotel downtown, complete with more rose petals and all of my favorite things. Up until that day, I’d hated Valentine’s Day with a passion – now, I look forward to it!
I think the best will be this year. I am going to be cooking for the guy that I am dating a few days after valentine’s day. I have quite a few bad memories of valentine’s day so I can’t wait to make some good ones with this new man! I’m still figuring out what to make, but I think it will be delicious and we will have a fantastic weekend together 🙂
The pictures are wonderful and it makes me want to take a vacation even more now!
Cara–I actually don’t want any more yarn (the house might explode), but I just wanted to add a nice happy V-day story. My husband came and found me on a Valentine’s day after searching for all the “Laura’s” in our dorm in college. He had met me a few weeks before and decided that he had to find me and ask me out even though he didn’t know my last name. And, he still asked me out even though I was doing homework on a weekend/holiday night.
Beautiful photos. I have some from a week I spent in Tofino with my parents back in 2002, and it was nice to be reminded of them by looking at yours! The image of the sand is beautiful. It’s the kind where you’re not sure if it’s a close up or taken from an airplane, you know? I love that kind of abstraction. Don’t you think that would make a nice colourway? 🙂
As for Valentines Day… well, I think this one coming up will certainly be interesting. I have been married 5 years, together for 10, and this year my husband is on vacation at an all inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic. With his buddy, our neighbour. Without me. The only thing that is making me laugh about it is that people will probably think they’re a couple… If you knew him you’d find that funny too! I guess our son and I will have a nice dinner (well, as nice as you can with a 3 year old) and call it a party. Yee haw.
When I was in kindergarden, we always gave out those Snoopy(TM) cards with those crappy envelopes that never stayed shut, to every kid in the class. I had already done my duty and gone home and had dinner and gotten ready for bed when there was a knock on the door. My mom answered, and I came to the top of the stairs in my nightie. There was Chris Sullivan from up the street and his dad. Chris wanted to hand deliver a crappy Snoopy card to me in an envelope that wouldn’t stay shut. When I opened it, after they left, I saw that he had written “i <3 you” on the back side in wobbly 5-year old writing.
I never acknowledged his 5-year old love for me, but I kept that card for years in the Top Secret box.
I don’t have a best or worst Valentine’s Day, but there is certainly a memorable one. My BF took me to a sushi dinner at one of the best places in town–authentic, run by a little old Japanese grandpa, and totally delicious. We let the owner talk us into ordering the special sushi of the day–sea urchin. Although the rest of the dinner was lovely, let’s just say that sea urchin looks like a small orange brain, tastes like a small orange brain, and I’ll never, ever eat sea urchin again.
Beware, I am a bitter bitter soul.
My best valentines day was 2 years ago. I’d never received any valentines (despite having a boyfriend… he just wasn’t a romantic… or faithful) and that year I got a rose from my best guy friend. They’d already finished handing out the roses at school, so I figured I was safe. But alas, it was not to be.
He was basically the only person I really didn’t want to get a valentine from. There was no name on the card but I knew, I just KNEW it was him from the quote. “We few, we happy few, we band of buggered” ( we loved the Vampire Slayer). I never spoke to him again after that (not my fault, mutual friends had a falling out and we chose different sides), but it was my best valentine because it taught me a lesson. It made it very clear to me that if you just wanted to be friends with a guy, he just wasn’t going to get it. He was a nice kid.
My worst one was the day my boyfriend sent another GUY a dozen roses. EXCUSE ME?!
I am sure you can imagine what my comment should have said – maybe I shouldn’t use brackets in my text, your site thinks it should be html. Anyway, “i [heart] you.”
The vast majority of Valentine’s days I didn’t have a significant other. Then I had one, but he wasn’t the right guy, and none of the Valentine’s days really stand out. Now I have a *wonderful* guy (we started dating last June), but this February 14th he’s in New York and I’m in Winnipeg. However, every day with him is romantic. Two in particular stand out.
The first is a day in June that we spent walking around Central Park. It was a perfectly wonderful day… he even rowed me around the pond. 🙂 It happened to fall on our first “date” (which was actually around five or six days long… we define a “date” as being a time at which one of us is visiting the other, since we live far apart).
The second really romantic day was in November, the Friday after Thanksgiving, a few days before I had to go home from our third “date”. We walked along Fifth Avenue, looked at Christmas displays, went to Rockafeller Center and to a Christmas market.
I feel like I’m in my own personal chick flick when I’m with my J. 🙂
I’m glad you had such a fantastic time on your vacation! Your photos are lovely. (As always. 😉 )
That multicolored sand is AMAZING. Somehow or other, I must knit it.
My love story isn’t about Valentine’s Day. Go read this post (sorry, but ya gotta) and try to imagine how, in my place, you would have gotten through a single day of the last eight years without the sustaining warmth of your one true love. If you can do it, you’re a better woman than I.
A Slim Jim once saved my Valentine’s Day . . . and maybe my “life.” Let me explain: back in 1991, the Flyer and I were celebrating our first Valentine’s Day together, as well as the impending birth of our children. Something went a little wrong earlier in the week with my blood work and they asked me to come in for a full gestational diabetes test. I had to fast for 12 hours and then have close to one pint of blood withdrawn over the next five hours. After I was done, they sent me on my way without so much as a cookie or an orange juice. I would assume that the ladies in the clinic would have noted – “being tested for gestational diabetes, high risk pregnancy of twins” – but tha twould be asking too much. Silly me . . . I then went grocery shopping for a “romantic” dinner for the Flyer and our roommate, Bob. Standing in line at Kroger’s was when the lack of food and blood hit me. My head started to spin, I broke out into a cold sweat, and grabbed the cart for support. The cashier, who saw all this, tore open a Slim Jim and literally forced it down my throat. A few minutes later and I was good to go cook really bad chicken, even worse rice pilaf and passable grasshopper pie. Not a Valentine’s Day goes by when I am not tempted to Snap Into a Slim Jim.
Awww, how cute are you two?? Seriously, so cute!
My favorite love story is from when I got engaged. It’s here: http://fidget.prettyposies.com/archives/000113.html
I just reread it and felt really lucky, all over again. Happy romantic readings!
My worst V-day by far was exactly 10 years ago.I went out to a Japanese place with my then bf; we were having a fight, and then two hours later, he got food poisoning (I didn’t). All I could think of to do for him was offer him saltines and pepto-bismal, to little avail. We broke up a little while after that when he confessed he’d accidentally gotten someone pregnant. Don’t worry; I’m totally over it.
Your pictures are breath-taking.
January 1st 2006, I gave up my apartment to move in with my boyfriend. We hadn’t even finished unpacking all of my things when, two weeks later, he was unexpectedly called to active duty from the Navy reserves. He had thought that his unit was unlikely to be deployed any time soon. As it turns out, he was right. His unit wasn’t deployed. He had been plucked out singly because of his rank and qualifications to serve with the Army in Afghanistan. I was devastated.
We busied ourselves preparing him for training and me for managing the new household alone. Plus there were all the emotions of the impending separation. It was a chaotic time. We had talked about marriage both before and after the awful news. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him but I was still on the fence about getting engaged. Not because I questioned my love for him, but because of my obsessive compulsive need to overanalyze and plan every situation. On one hand, I didn’t want getting engaged to be just another item on the growing pre-deployment checklist. I wanted it to be special. On the other hand, it seemed utterly ridiculous to send the man I loved into harm’s way without some formal acknowledgement of our commitment to one another just because his deployment interfered with my storybook imaginary concept of what our engagement was supposed to be like.
Valentine’s Day was around the corner. He started dropping hints that he was going to ask me to marry him. He kept talking about the big Valentine’s present he had but was nervous to give me. That morning, he handed me a huge heavy box. It was an assortment of books and movies and music. The theme being things to keep myself occupied while he was away. It was very sweet and thoughtful but it was not an engagement ring. I was squirrelly all day at work, thinking the proposal had to be coming at dinner. Wrong again. I was disappointed and afraid that I had put him off with my waffling. Two days later, he proposed and I accepted. Valentine’s Day had been a ruse to throw me off his tracks. He was trying to preserve a shred of surprise for me!
This Valentine’s Day I am anxiously awaiting his return (just a few short months – fingers crossed!). Last Valentine’s Day was a little of the best and the worst. This last year has been difficult without a doubt, but it has also helped me to be thankful for the truly important things in life. We are so fortunate to have found one another. This year apart is just one tiny fraction of the lifetime that we will share.
I love all the pics of your trip and you and your honey. Thank you for sharing.
I guess my best Valentine’s Day was the one right before we had our older daughter. My husband had been deployed the year before. I don’t remember anything special that we did, just the joy of knowing my beloved was safe with me and that were about to begin a new part of our lives together.
First of all, I love the photos.
Best V-Day was actually after I broke up with my fiance in college. My b-day is 1-25 and we broke up that day (it was my 21st)and it was a hard b-day. I was in a co-ed fraternity and on Valentine’s Day, my sisters in the fraternity and I all went out for dinner. And all of the brothers showed up and gave us roses. Those who had boyfriends or girlfriends brought them along and we all had fun together. I also realized that night that in the 2-1/2 years that my ex and I had been together, he had never done anything for either my birthday or V-Day. I got lucky in that way. I realized that year that V-Day is about being with those who mean something to you even if they are just friends.
Beautiful photos!
My best Valentine’s Day was Valentine’s Day my freshman year of college. I had just started dating my boyfriend a couple months earlier, so I didn’t really expect much…Well, I don’t even remember all that happened that day but I was treated so well the whole day. My boyfriend wrote a really sweet note and put a line of Hershey Kisses on the floor from the door to the bed and he sneakily tucked my favorite candy bar into my coat pocket. It was one of the most thoughtful, sweet, romantic Valentine’s Days I’ve ever had.
I have a good “how I met my husband story”. A bunch of friends and I were at our local bar planning our camping trip for that weekend, when one of the waitresses ran up to me and grabbed me by the arm and told me to follow her. I schlepped behind her to the men’s bathroom and saw this guy completely covered in blood, with a large gash over his eyebrow. Turns out he was “Drinking and Walking” that night and decided to kiss the curb on his way home. Being a nurse, I quickly assesed the injury, and decided it should be stitched up, and looked at by a doctor at the hospital. This guy was completely drunk and was adamant that under no circumstances was he getting in an ambulance. I told him it was a possibility that he had a bad concussion, and that if he went home drunk to sleep it off, he might not wake up. He still insisted he was fine, so I turned to walk out and go home. A couple of steps away I realized it would be irresponsible of me to let him go home like that, so I went back and offered to take him myself. After about 5 minutes of convincing, he finally got in my car, and we drove to the hospital. As I suspected he needed stitches, and just about bolted from the bed when the doctor came in with the needle to freeze him up. He looked at me and pleaded for me to stay so he could squeeze my hand, cause he was terrified of needles (big baby ). I agreed, and sat there while he cut the circulation off from my right hand. When all this was done, the doctor informed him that it was best to make sure he was not alone overnight (since he had a concussion, and was obliterated). He had just moved to my town a month ago, and didn’t know too many people. I agreed to sleep on his couch and make sure he woke up in the morning.
On our way out of the ER we were walking to my car, and he stopped me, looked me straight in the eye and said “Thanks so much for being so nice to me.” And he kissed me on the cheek. The next morning he woke up, and made me breakfast. He asked what I had planned for the weekend, and I said I was going camping. “Do you want to come along?” I asked. He agreed, so I gave him my number and went home. Turns out, he showed up at my place that night with 40 long stem roses, and asked me if I would consider ditching my camping trip, and have dinner with him. The rest is history, we were married 2 years almost to the day we met. I love him more and more as we grow older. He always tells his friends and family that he really “fell head over heels for me.” Had my husband not been such a clutz, we would have never met. Fate is a powerful thing I tell ya.
The Big Sur pictures are wonderful. They made my day.
Worst Valentine’s Day:
My ex and I had filed for divorce at the end of December. Indeed, I had chosen that path because I couldn’t continue to be the only one trying to save our marriage, but on Valentine’s Day I was still grieving.
We ran a dinner train. He used his employee credits to have a family event on the Valentine’s Day train. Despite the disparaging remarks by the on-board services manager, I worked hard during train prep to ensure that he had a nice event because it was the right thing to do. I sent his party a round of his favorite, expensive cordial. The “family” he was entertaining were the parents and siblings of his *GIRLFRIEND*. Essentially all of the staff knew, but they were trying to protect me. When I found out, I felt so stupid.
Best:
Every day with the love of my life, the man I consider to be my real husband.
How my husband and I met is a long, complicated story. To sum it up: I had a crush on him not knowing who he was and he had a crush on me not knowing who I was. The exact same day we both asked a mutual friend about each other, each having no idea about the other. The mutual friend introduced us a day later and we’ve been together ever since. 12 years last weekend. I think it was meant to be.
I haven’t had a lot of chances to really fall in love. I tend to just pick the wrong sort of fellow to be interested in, honestly. But the strangest fellow was the one I asked out to the movies about three years ago.
Hellboy was out and I may be a good Christian girl but I like my action movies. Girly movies make me irritable and uncomfortable and so when B and I met outside the theaters, I figured that he being a guy would be happy to hear that I would be all for seeing “Hellboy”. After all, it’s the perfect guy movie, right?
Apparently not this guy’s movie. He squirmed, he reddened, he said he would rather not see “Heck Boy” (as he called it) and suggested that we instead see the latest Scooby-Doo movie. It was a little hard to comprehend. How could he NOT want to go see Hellboy? But he balked and there was no way I was stepping into a Scooby Doo movie. So we finally compromised by watching Ella Enchanted.
Of course, Mr. Twilight Zone wasn’t done astounding me yet. During the previews for Ella Enchanted they featured a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie. And so I huddled down and did my best to endure it when I hear B go “Awesome! I can’t wait to see this movie!” I turned and stared at him, absolutely baffled. “What?” “Oh yeah, I love the Olsen twins!” he said excitedly. “Oh. Okay.” I said and spent the rest of the movie keeping my opinions and my hands to myself.
It was the most bizarre date I had EVER been on and though I still doubt he’s actually gay, I do think he is the STRANGEST kid I have ever met.
Brr!
My fiancee and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date (2/8) rather than valentine’s day. Our first date was coffee at Starbucks, were I had a grande nonfat caramel macchiato. On our three year anniversary last thursday, he brought me roses and a pink starbucks travel mug with the drink I ordered on our first date- a nonfat caramel macchiato. He remembered! I have the most thoughtful partner I could ask for.
I am in the don’t-celebrate camp. I think I joined that camp from having my feelings hurt too many times in a previous relationship. So I just steeled myself and told the whole world that I hated Valentine’s Day! My husband who is the love of my life has taken this to heart and knows not to get anything or schedule any special dinners. Now that we’ve been together forever, I’m starting to re-think my hard & fast I-hate-Valentine’s-Day rule but can’t really change my mind now without looking like an utter fool or, worse, a gimme girl. So there will be no big (or small) romantic gestures here on Wednesday other than the ones we make on a daily basis (and thankfully those are plentiful). Ain’t love grand!?!
I so totally understand the feeling of missing your man when you have to spend a few hours apart after you got used to having him around all the time! My boyfriend and I are both freelancers working from home, so we spend all of our days together. Last fall, I had a one-month contract for which I had to work out of home five hours a day, and I was missing him so much! The contract was great, but that was one of the reasons why I was happy when it was over!
A Valentine’s Day story? Well, I guess there are a couple I could have told, but all I have in mind right now is the one coming, and I’m thinking about what an ordinary day it will be for us. And, thinking of it, I just realised it will be just like any other day precisely because every day here is like Valentine’s Day! Really, this is how it feels like over here! I know, I’m a lucky girl…
Oh, and I meant to say, Cara, your photos are wonderful (as usual). I especially love the Schindler’s List-ian one of the rocks. And of course the ones of the 2 of you. Very cute. Do you mind telling what camera you use?
i would have to say the best valentine’s day was before i even knew it was for “lovers”.
i was in 4th grade, and we had to make “pockets” for the front of our desks – you know, so we had a place to receive our valentines! anyway, i had been pretty sick that school year (ear problems that continue to plague me really) and i missed the pocket construction day.
the night before valentine’s day, my mother was up late finishing a red satin dress she was going to wear on a date with my stepfather,(My mother is still the craftiest woman i know) and of course, i was trying to fashion a pocket out of notebook paper and markers. as she was struggling with the zipper (don’t we all!) she looked over at me and said – “let’s make you a pocket miss priss!”
she gathered up scraps from her red satin dress, and found some red velvet scraps from christmas, and (staying up all night to do it) proceeded to make me a quilted heart pillow pocket, complete with white lace ruffles and gold trim.
i not only used that pillow pocket (to the envy of the rest of the class) the next day, but i also slept with it on my bed for many years to come.
thanks mom.
she never did get that zipper in.
happy heart day y’all!
robin
I have a pretty crazy love story to share with you. My sophomore year in High School I met this boy. The first time I saw him I thought he was cute and asked about him. I learned that he was a Senior and what his name was. After a few months we started dating, up until graduation and I went home for the summer (this was a boarding school).
We kept in touch the next couple of years until he got married a few years later. We lost touch for a couple years until we were both in a couple of friends’ wedding. I had traveled over from Europe to the US for the wedding. We then exchanged email addresses and went on our way. We wrote back and forth once in a while just to keep in touch.
4 years later in the fall, he separated from his wife. I encouraged him over emails and try to help him keep his spirits up. He learned that I was going for a few days to Barcelona and asked if he could join me (a week before the trip). I guess he really needed a vacation! The vacation was amazing, we got along so well! But I never thought I’d see him again.
2 days after we parted, me back to Switzerland and him back to the US, his job asked him to go to England for a week. I met him in London 2 weekends in a row. The second weekend we just couldn’t part.
We met again in Canada that Christmas and 6 months later I left Switzerland and moved back to North America.
We were married a year and a half later… My first love became my one and only love, my husband.
Looking at the wonderful pictures of you and G; you so happy and knowing what you went through is the best Valentine’s story! I have to work every year waiting on people having romantic dinners, that’s the worst! But my husband always runs me a bath and rubs my back at the end of the night and that’s also the best!
I met my husband at my former workplace. We are both accountants. I met him on my first day of work and I was like “That guy is the cockiest guy I have ever met. I can’t stand him.” I used to call my mom all the time and complain about things he did or said. Well we ended up getting together shortly after my 1st busy season. And it’s been love ever since. We were married this past August, and this Valentines Day is our first as a married couple. We ended up celebrating this past Saturday because we’ll both be pretty busy on Wednesday. I still haven’t figured out whether being in the same profession as him is a good thing or a bad thing though… luckily he is supportive of my knitting so I can’t ask for more than that 🙂
Way back when I was a senior in high school, my boyfriend (soon to be husband) snuck into the school the night before Valentine’s Day and rigged my locker. When I opened it, several firecrackers exploded. Freaked me out big time! Inside, he had decorated the whole thing with pink and white hearts, spelled words from conversation hearts, put a vase and red roses and a huge heart-shaped sugar cookie. It was so much fun, and very romantic to my young 17-year-old heart. There were a lot more great Valentine’s Days to come (and, let’s be frank, some not so great), but this was our first and was very special!
So, one year I was without a sweetheart for Valentine’s Day. A thoughtful co-worker left me a little stuffed kitten on my desk as a present since there was no guy to give me a gift! It was so cute. It is many years later and I still have that stuffed cat. I smile and remember her sweetness. Lucky me to have her as a friend!
My favourite Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with romance. In my senior year of high school I was tired of not having any reason to celebrate, always unattached. So my friends and I decided that we’d reclaim the holiday. My unsuspectingg French teacher was the victim. He hated anything remotely resembling holidays and had a bit of a reputation as a scrooge. So the night before we got together and made tons of hearts, heart streamers, heart mobiles, etc.. and got the janitor to let us into his room. We covered it from head to toe in hearts and especially his doorway. It was hilarious in the morning seeing him standing in the hallway,arms crossed, looking dead serious but surrounded by hearts. Come class time we came in all dressed in pink, heart shaped baking, music and told him we were having a Valentines Day party. He had a soft spot for his class of girls though and we somehow got away with it. We continued the tradition for a few years after graduation.
I met my husband at a frat party on February 2nd. 12 days later on Valentine’s day he gave me 3 candy hearts. I kept those hearts in my change purse for years — years I say! One day upon inspecting my wallet my sister asked me the story behind the gruby candy hearts. She listened, shruged, and ate them! We laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Thank goodness I have my sisters to keep me in line.
It was really fun meeting you and hope your trip back was uneventful! I look forward to watching your bow-tie squares develop.
My favorite Vday was last year when I took the day to appreciate who I am and spent the whole day doing things that I wanted to do. 🙂 My worst Vday was when I had mono. A kissing disease on the kissing day!
My hubby and I don’t make a huge deal about this particular Hallmark holiday, but we do mark the occasion in some way. Here’s my WORST V-day ever:
My Husband and I knew each other in college (he was my best friends’ boyfriend), but just tolerated each other. However, when we re-met 4 years later, everything was different…he actually asked me to marry him after we’d been dating all of 2 weeks! We spent most of a year engaged and 15 hours away from each other (before email, so we had quite the phone bill!). Anyway…after we were married we lived in Chicago and it took 3 months for me to get a decent job as a research technician. The guy I worked for was NOT a good people person, and it turns out that I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do (um, it was legal, just he wanted more self direction in experimental design that should have been expected from someone at my level). So, he FIRED me on Valentine’s DAY! AAAHHH! My hubby had dropped me off in the morning so he could pick me up at the end of the day and go to a romantic fondue restaurant we’d been wanting to go to, and finally had the money for because I had a steady job – HAH! So, not only was I upset and could only tell him quickly in a whisper on the work phone what was going on, I had to wait around until he could come pick me up! No romantic dinner for extremely upset me, cause we had just lost that oh-so-important second income!
SO, fast forward 15 years, I’ve had wonderful jobs as I move around the country with my academically upwardly moving hubby – this job was HORRIBLE and I am GLAD now that I didn’t have to work 1 more day with that man! But, this definately qualifies as a really crappy Valentine’s day, especially when it was the 1st one I was in the same city as my DH.
My best Valentine’s Day will be this one.
My StepDaddy has inoperable lung cancer. Because there is only the ability to delay the inevitable and not cure the cancer, our family knows that we need to make the best of things. This Valentine’s Day I will be standing up for my mom and my aunt for my stepdaddy as they get married.
Mom and Him usually do not celebrate Valentine’s Day in a big way. There are little cards but that is about it. For them to do this on V-Day is both cute and endearing. Plus, he will then always be with mom on this day. She will always have a positive memory of the Man she loves on a day when it can be rather depressing to not have a loved one around.
This is special for me as I get to be a part of this moment. One I will always cherish. After the passing of my dad a few weeks ago I am looking forward to my step daddy being “official”.
Ok so this isn’t the happiest but it is still happy for me.
I don’t have any good Valentine’s stories of my own (sad but true), but I DO have a good story. See, my mother’s birthday is ON Valentine’s Day, so in my family, the day’s always been about her–as it should be, naturally. (Well, she is a pretty terrific Mom.) But–the first year my sister was dating my now-brother-in-law, she was torn. She finally had a serious boyfriend she wanted to do the romantic thing with, but, well . . . Mom’s birthday! So, she compromised with herself. She bought Mike some chocolate and a card and one of those big balloons with streamer hands and feet–you know the ones? They have faces, and the attached appendages are just enough weight to hold the balloon down, so it kind of bobs along, looking happy. Well, she decided to run over to Mike’s office or apartment or wherever he was going to be that morning before work, but she had one, last stop to make. She parked her car, opened the door, and a gust of wind came along at JUST the wrong moment, so that the little Valentine balloon person swept out of the car and up, up, up into the sky, with my sister practically in tears in the parking lot, watching it float away. It was a sad day for all of us, really–she’d had it at the house the night before and we all got rather attached. Our hope is that it found romance with the Big Balloon in the sky . . .
This would be my worst Valentine’s day. It’s pretty funny now but I was right pissed about it all at the time.
I was dating a real loser (but at 19 I was fairly clueless) but I took Valentine’s day off anyways so we could spend it together. He was jobless and broke so I knew I wasn’t getting anything. As we went over to a friend of his appt we noticed a bunch of cops around. We went in and his friend and roommate were getting busted for growing pot. After the cops left, I got the “Are you a nark” interrogation multiple times, “because if you’re a cop and we ask, you gotta tell us”.
Being young and stupid, I stayed with him for probably another 6 months.
I think one of my best valentines days was when a coworker I had been crushing on surprised me with a roses and candy. It was just so unexpected and sweet.
We aren’t a romantic couple. However it makes me happy to know that every year, I will get a handmade card. Since MR is a graphic designer, he always takes the time to create a one-of-kind. It’s funny because he never knows what to write on the inside, and he always apologizes for it. Someday I’ll get a card with a UPC that plays a song. On that day, I’ll be sad.
When my husband and I got together the first time, we weren’t married, didn’t get married, I had three children all of whom he took to his heart, we were young, things didn’t work out, we split up but he wouldn’t let me take ‘his’ children from him, so for 20 years we raised our children,albeit under different roofs…but then after 20 years of remaining very good friends that ‘spark’ ignited again, we got together and officially wed on 1-23-04 which was actually 26 years after we first got together….on our anniversary this year (we don’t observe V-day in that *every* day is V-day) he came home with cashmere for me. BTW, our children were tickled when we made it official.
Your contests are so much fun!
Your romantic getaway sounds and looks delightful, and I’m glad it was wonderful for both of you.
Beautiful photos!!
I was a senior in high school. Every year the student council would sell carnations to raise money. They cost $1 and were delivered to homeroom first thing in the morning, anonymously. If you wanted to know who sent it you had to pay $1 a lunch time. I was shocked to receive one since I didn’t have a boyfriend. I wondered if maybe my crush sent it or some other cute guy. All morning long I wondered if he had seen me with my flower and I wondered if he would say something or if he expected me to pay the dollar and then thank him. By lunch I was out of my mind with curiosity. I went up to the table and paid my dollar. They handed me the slip of paper with the name and to this day I wish I hadn’t opened it.
I don’t have any good Valentines Day stories to tell…
But, the fact that I knit is directly tied to my first love. A few years ago, my then fiance cheated on me with my brothers fiance. Needless to say, I ended things, but I was completely devestated. My friends wanted to take me out everynight, try to get my mind off of it, but I just didn’t have the energy. At the same time, I didn’t want to sit home feeling sorry for myself. I decided I needed a hobby.
I don’t know why I picked knitting. But it seemed like a good idea. It would distract me, and I remembered seeing yarn at Wal-mart, really cheap!
A few years later, and I’ve learned quite a bit. First, that yarn isn’t all that cheap, and second, that knitting heals me. To this day, knitting is my therapy.
Amazing pictures! I love Big Sur, have camped there twice and it’s always stunning. Also, yay for sock yarn contests!
I don’t have a fantastic V-day story, but instead the story of my first anniversary celebration with my guy. We were spending the weekend in his home town, and he wanted to take me to a restaurant he’d loved as a little kid. I said ok (he has great taste in restaurants), and we walked downtown. When we got there, we were shown a table, and he started looking around kinda nervously. We drank a little water and ate bread, and when they brought the menus, he took one look at them and told me what was bugging him: The place had changed hands since he’d been there last, and he assured me it wasn’t going to be what he’d wanted. I took one look at the menu, realized there was nothing on there that I wanted to eat, and that it was quite a bit outside our college-student budget. We snuck out the back, walked down an alley, and went to a pizza joint instead, where we got the best deep-dish pizza I’ve ever had. I love that restaurant, and we try to go whenever we’re visiting his family.
We don’t really “celebrate” V-day at my house; I usually get a couple little treats for the kids, and the hubby and I exchange cards. One year he told me he forgot my card at the office, and it didn’t matter because it was a “Schlock” holiday anyway, made up by the greeting card companies. (I never did see the “forgotten” card. I’m pretty sure he just “forgot” to buy one.)
I’ve never been a huge fan of the day since then.
Ah, I LOVE Big Sur. Your pics are gorgeous! I am sooo MISSING Northern California right now. Here’s my first and only “traditional” Vday.
I am sentimental, but not romantic, so it never bugged me that I was never in a relationship around Vday. However, my hubby is a total romantic. The first year of our relationship, he started planning our Valentine’s evening months in advance (required in order to get a reservation at a hoity-toity restaurant in SF ~ where we were both living at the time). I wasn’t so into it (eye roll), but I didn’t want to disappoint him.
Two days before the 14th, we both came down with a kick-in-the-tookas cold. Still not wanting to disappoint and cancel, I medicated myself up. It was a prix fixe 7 course meal with 3 or 4 different wines. All I can remember is that I couldn’t taste the food, I could barely hear because my ears were sealed shut and I had to go to the lady’s room several times to blow my nose. Hubby (then BF) practically fell asleep in his plate cause his medication choice was nyquil (not a good paring with red wine). Oh, and a wandering violinist came over to our table and wouldn’t leave ~ probably because my eyes wouldn’t stop watering from the cold and he thought I was crying with joy/love/happiness. Oi!
All we wanted to do was go home, put comfy clothes on and curl up in bed…which we did as soon as we paid the bill. I think the night set him back financially for quite some time. OUCH! Hubby has agreed to minimize the extravagance and we celebrate at home (9th year) with a quiet house (kid asleep) and a piece of really good chocolate cake.
I have a romantic story that ties into your vacation destination – Hubbo proposed to me on the beach in Monterrey, and then we continued on our trip to Big Sur, as his great-uncle lived there until he passed away last year. It is a gorgeous place – his uncle’s house was right on the cliff and absolutely breathtaking. But the Valentine’s tie-in came much earlier – two years before we were engaged (and I was dating someone else), he gave me a cute, hokey Cinderella valentine (left over from his daughter’s box for her pre-k class), and told my best friend that he thought he was in love with me. She, of course, being a good best friend, told me and it motivated me enough to get out of the awful relationship I was in.
I’m glad you enjoyed Big Sur – it really is a magical place.
I never really cared about Vday. My girlfriends and I normally hung out and did something really cool. The last single bash I had was at the Ram in Portland. About 30 of us showed up to party and dine away the night.
It was awesome but I think I will value last years the most. My husband of 9 months went all over our little town looking for tea spoons for me. Being a southern gal and all, I wanted a proper length spoon to stir with. Well none was to be found in our town. He decided to get me something for the kitchen. An onion dicer. Now every meal that I make, I think of his love for me as I dice onions without crying or needing help because chopping onions with a knife scares me. This onion chopper has taken a beating and still keeps working. It has been patched and had pieces replaced but it does the job just great.
It resembles our love. We have problems but they get fixed by our hard work. Things don’t always fit so we replace the bad attitudes. We don’t like doing things but out of love we do them for the person we love most. We keep giving ourselves to keep the love fresh and new.
my boyfriend and i have been together for 6.5 years and we have never celebrated valentine’s day. you know, i’d just rather spend every day of year loving him. he’s my one true love and is so sweet and rotten and not romantic, not even a bit. but that’s ok because he loves me and that’s what matters. i’m leaving you with one of my most favorite pictures taken of us… just this weekend, we were at the beach too. 😀
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparkli/386133734/
happy vday, cara!!
OK worst Valentine’s Day for me went a little something like this. My ex-boyfriend’s b’day is on Feb. 14. We’d been together about a 2 years and I had planned this huge, special birthday with all his favorite things. We drove to the big city near our little base and I took him go-cart racing, target shooting at our favorite range, the children’s museum (so we could play with all their toys) and then to his favorite, expensive restaurant where I gave him his gift of a car stereo and his favorite CD. We usually went all out for birthdays and Xmas and I spent over $200 dollars on this day. The next day, he told me he was thinking of seeing other people. I told him not while he was living in MY house and I told him to get his shit and move out. As I was removing my key from his keychain, I asked him why hadn’t he mentioned this yesterday. He said he wanted to see what I’d had planned for his birthday and he wanted his gift. I took the stereo out of his suitcase and told him to take a good look at it, as that was as close as he was going to get to it. I later had it installed in my car!
Almost 18 years ago, after a five year verbally abusive relationship I decided to join the living again. I had taken 6 months off after licking my wounds. I went to a Medieval and Rennaissance event. As I entered the room, looking around tentatively for the lady I did know I saw a fine looking Lord across the room. (He states that as I entered the room the hair on the back of his neck stood up). I noted that he appeared alone at his table and was very, very cute. He turned and saw me framed in the light of the doorway and decided to find out who I was.
We ended up being introduced by the lady who I did know and talked well into the evening, in fact, well into the morning. The next day we spoke on the telephone for hours until I finally invited him to my home and we talked some more.
I haven’t stopped talking to him yet and it will be 18 years October 14th of this year.
Love at first sight brought us together. Nothing will tear us apart.
You make a fantabulously handsome couple! K here goes… and believe me I don’t share this one too often… (funny eh! I won’t share with brick and mortar people but feel free to share via the internet…go figure) So….my hubby whom I’ve been with for 26 years….dating plus marriage time and I did have a parting of the ways about 16 yrs ago…before marriage. Anyway… broken hearted yes, but necessary… soooo as I said went our separate ways…. my happiest/saddest valentines day are 2 in 1… In the year we were no longer together, I met dated, and was actually proposed to by another gent…it was on valentines day… he had the super let him in to my apt. and filled it with flowers balloons, stuffed animals (UGH!) and had a lovely dinner waiting when I returned home from my late night at work. He proposed …. i said yes…. it was a happy time for all… but so terribly sad for me…. alas…. I knew he wasn’t the one for me… yadda yadda yadda my hubby and i reunited shortly thereafter and the rest is ancient history… 🙂
Valentine’s Day has been rather uneventful for me in previous years. Although there was one great year when I didn’t have a sweetheart to share it with, that a few of my friends went and got burgers and milkshakes. We had a fab time.
This year I’ll be spending it with my honey, but nothing crazy. Just enjoying each other’s company. 🙂
Not about valentines day….. will my first kiss do?
In 8th grade, I had a huge crush on Rick. So did my freinds… well, except for his sister MaryBeth.
In 9th grade, the crush remained. He was, however, now among the group for friends who hung out together generally. I walked to school with his sister and little brother every day. Every morning, I’d come in through their kitchen door, say good morning… everyone said Good morning… except him. He’d grunt. Every single morning it was like this.
Then, one spring day, I said good morning, and he said good morning back. He spoke actual words to me! And though I wanted to talk about that, I coudln’t say a word to his siblings. You know how siblings are… they’d never let him live it down if I told them that I thought he just might like me….
About a week later, we were all over at a street festival type thing when it became time for me to head home. My mom’s rule was that I had to be home by dark. We were all goofing around, and he said he’d walk me home… we were tickling each other back and forth… reaching our arms around behind each other to tickle the far side…
then we were walking guardedly with our arms around each other prepared to tickle in force if the other tickled first… very guardedly.
then we were just walking with our arms around each other. It was so nice! I was in heaven.
When we got to my tree filled neighborhood, it was suddenly much closer to dark. oops.
We walked through the park that our house looked onto, and he stopped in a copse of trees, turned, still holding me, and leaned down to kiss me.
He was gentle, and sweet, and a wonderful kisser.
And despite being a year older, didn’t try anything more. Just held me and kissed me for a few minutes, then walked me to my door.
sigh. He set a pretty high bar.
I still wonder what might have happened if we’d not moved away that summer.
your pictures are just wonderful!!!
i and mine are not very romantic. we have been married for 27.5 years. and if we make it to the 15th he’ll be the big 50.!! we just had a big scare–he went to the doc.(not feeling quite right) and i get a call from her asking me to come and get him and take him to the ER,she thought he might be having a stroke. and i’ll be $#%%$@% if he didn’t. not a bad one but things like that make you sit back and go “oh shit”. So i guess i got my v-day present to day. my husband. can’t ask for a better one than that.!!
lori
C – it was awesome to meet you this weekend — now when I read your posts, I can hear your voice telling me what’s going on!
I’ve never actually been in a relationship on Valentine’s day and neither has my best friend of 10 years, so, of course, we always spend Valentine’s day together. Chocolate, foreign films and take out pizza were the order of the day. Such fun to spend a holiday (that can so easily lend itself to self pity) with someone who is practically your sister. I, honestly, do not know what I would do without this woman that I’m so very proud to call my best friend. Which is kind of what will make this Valentine’s day so hard. This year, she is in Korea following her dreams and teaching english. As much as it will suck a lot to be alone, I’ll be watching a foreign film and eating chocolate and pizza for the both of us.
My best V-Day: My first with my husband. He knows that lobster is my favorite food in the whole world (good thing I live in Maine) so he decided to cook me a lobster dinner for Valentine’s Day. I’d told him before that when I eat lobster I like it steamed, with butter, and I don’t really care to eat too much else. Just two lobsters (small ones) or one two pounder. Yum, yum! He obviously misunderstood, because he thought I wanted two two-pound lobsters. So he bought four HUGE lobsters for dinner. They all wouldn’t fit in the pot. Needless to say, there were leftovers! But they were the best lobsters ever, and he was the sweetest to buy them, cook, and clean up the mess.
on my first or second day back at work this year, i received a meeting invite from my boss. it was for february 14th. since i was only january 2nd or 3rd, i thought he made a mistake and that the meeting was really january 14th. so i accepted the meeting but basically said that in my reply. he said that no, it really was for february 14th. and that he wants me to be at the meeting in person, not just call in. well, the boss man works at an office in a non-descript mid-western city. i work at an office thousands of miles away on the west coast. my love is also (finally) in the same city on the west coast. we’ve had some tough times over the past few years, but we’re really trying to work things out. but alas, no valentines day on the 14th for us this year. i will be hanging out by myself in a midwestern city, drinking or shopping or hanging out in my room at a generic business hotel. sometimes work can be really soul sucking!
Um, my best V-Day has to have been my first semester at Washington State University with my best buddy from middle school. We were both single and sad because we hated the boring environment. On V-Day, she surprised me with a stuffed animal and chocolate. In a panic, I told her I was waiting to give her her gift later. I ran over to the bookstore and bought her a stuffed animal in opposite colors and something with Mickey Mouse on it (she LOVES Mickey).
Needless to say, her thoughtfulness that day really made me happy and it’s one of the reasons why we’re still friends to this very day. Down in the dumps, and still thoughtful enough to think of her best friend. That’s what love is all about! 😀
Ok, I’m not big on Valentine’s Day (stupid commercial shit, if you ask me), but I do have a cute-ish story about how I met my boyfriend.
I was happily involved in a 3-year relationship with a boy I’d gone to high school with when I met R in my Ecology class. He complimented me on my David Bowie shirt and we became friends and kept ending up in the same classes (we were both English majors and Japanese minors but had never met before).
A year after we met, he and I and my boyfriend went on the same study abroad trip to Japan. While there, my boyfriend (who I thought I would marry) decided that he “just doesn’t feel like being a boyfriend right now” and went off to drink his way around Kobe and Osaka and flirt with all the pretty laydeez on our trip.
So R and I hung out a lot, as he was my only friend on the trip. He listened to me complain, talked to me like I was an actual person (shock!) and we spent the next few weeks sightseeing together. Before I left Japan (he was staying for an extra month) he expressed his intentions to win my heart. And he did.
De-lurking, not to enter the contest (can’t stand v-day, sorry), but to say that it was really great to meet you on Friday! It was so fun to get together with knitters and hang out on a Friday night. Glad you were here!
Ok, so i know you’re all going to roll your eyes at my seventeen year old naivete, but just listen first. i just fell in love for the first time, and now i really get what that means. I’ve always been a little skeptical about love, for various reasons, but as soon as i met M, someone who understands me and connects with me and listens and thinks i’m funny, it became clear that all those rock songs and chick flicks aren’t making it all up.
I know that nothing lasts forever, but right now, it’s enough to have someone who let me believe in love.
My first Valentine’s Day with my current boyfriend, 3 years ago we went into Boston to stay overnight in a hotel. Clearly we weren’t thinking and didn’t make plans for dinner. We went to the Prudential center where there was a 3 hour wait at the Cheesecake factory. We tried a few more restaurants and ended up eating at the only restaurant open in the food court. It was awful! Then we got take out cheesecake, which made up for it, a little.
My first love, in high school. Also the first boy I ever kissed. I still miss him and the Valentine we spent drinking Boone’s Farm Strawberry Wine.
No lie!!
WORST VDAY CARD EVER RECEIVED – Front: Big Heart saying “Every other thought is of you!” Inside says: Titty Bump Titty Bump Titty Bump. WHATTTT??? That guy was a total creep needless to say. Sorry to say Vday rates right up there with Ground Hog Day at my house.
Also delurking for a contest 🙂 The pictures are absolutely beautiful
Every year on Valentines Day my husband buys too much candy, and we eat chocolate until we’re hyper like little kids. Usually we get a good bottle of wine and some take out, nothing too fancy. I haven’t ever been a super huge fan of Valentines day, but I look forward to it every year since it means one of my favorite days is approaching – the Daytona 500. This year I have a new Valentine – my 7 month old daughter!
I’ll bite.
My worst Valentine’s Day – I had been dating a man long distance (me in Washington DC and he in NYC) and had, after three years, moved to NYC. The first year was impossible and I was broke so much that I was working three jobs seven days a week to pay my rent, the bills and eat etc. He was playing the “starving artist” and barely working and I was enthralled with everything – NY, him, the whole nine yards. Man was I hooked. Did I mention that he was the first man I truly loved. (It was a complicated relationship)
So the first Valentine Day that we are in the same city rolls around – and he doesn’t make plans, there are no flowers at work, nothing. So I buy a long red rose at the florist and walk over to his apartment after work and knock on the door – oh it was raining too – and he opens the door and I hand him the rose. I don’t remember what he said but I ended up going home alone and … well by the next Valentine Day we were no longer together (although it took a therapist four months to help me see why this relationship wasn’t working.)
I can still remember his face at the door and me standing on the stoop and wondering what I had done wrong. (let’s not even go there right now, I am listening to LA TRAVIATA and crying enough already)
No Valentines stories. But dang, that shot of the rivulets in the sand brings the smell of the Pacific Ocean back to me. Now THAT”S heartbreak.
My best valentines day was when my bf at the time took me to the beach for what I thought was a normal stroll… but instead to find out he had been there hours earlier picking up rocks and carefully placing them to make a giant heart in the sand in our exact favorite spot we always went to. It was a good surprise because it was so different and thoughtful.
i have a rather bittersweet story. summer romance stories are always bittersweet, aren’t they?
it started as a crush…a long, drawn-out crush. i couldn’t shake the magnetism i felt when *HE* came around. the object of my affection was the type of person i’d always wanted to date but who never seemed interested in me; i found him absolutely gorgeous and i felt so plain and unadventurous in comparison. he seemed like the kind of man who could have anyone he wanted. but i sensed despite the packaging, he had a heart of solid gold. we worked together a lot and it was easy to see we had a lot in common. an electric chemistry was in the air whenever we were near each other. i think everyone around us felt it, too.
and one day, we gave in to the tension. it was absolutely divine. we fell into a summer romance, silently, that blossomed into something wholly unexpected in so many ways. we spent many nights under the stars and days at the beach, talking and loving and enjoying each other’s company.
i fell in love with him despite everything that told me i shouldn’t. he stimulated me in ways no one else ever had. i always felt vulnerable with him – like he could see right through me. and i let him. he got to know me intimately, and i think what i loved most was how much he told me to be myself because that’s what made me stand out. i utterly adored him. but when i told him i loved him, he said he didn’t know what to say.
he was leaving at the end of the summer. i didn’t want to force him to stay with me, especially if i didn’t know for sure that he loved me back. it’s one thing to show it and another to say it. i gave up something beautiful to let him go. and even now, i’m still trying to let him go.
i’ve knit him socks. at first, it was just on a whim because he said no one had ever made something for him like that…with their hands. he said i was skilled. and then it became something sacred; it’s like i want to be the only one to ever do that kind of thing for him. to ever love him like that, i guess, since it feels like i have nothing else to give him.
there are days when i feel like i wasn’t enough to get him to stay…like i’m not enough to get him to come back. i know that’s anything but true. but, at the very least, i made him socks. and i gave him love, my love. i hope he remembers me when he wears those socks. i hope he knows how much i loved him and how much love i put into every goddamn stitch of those socks.
i know it sounds corny. love makes you say stupid things like that. and do stupid, silly things. and dream. and hope. until you give up and make socks for someone else. like yourself.
This post totally reminded me… I received the skein from your LAST contest and THANK YOU SO MUCH! It’s absolutely beautiful and I love the card you included as well.
I’m not entering because I think it’d be fair to give someone else a shot… but I’ll share my lone, horrific Valentine’s Day story anyway. In the eighth grade, this boy had a huge crush on me so he presented me with a stuffed bear and a heart-shaped box of chocolates. I, somewhat flustered, accepted… which he took to mean as acceptance of him. Oops. He started telling everyone I was “his girl” and proceeded to stalk me for the rest of the year.
Dan was crazy about me, and especially at the beginning he did the sweetest things. He planned out a huge surprise for Valentine’s Day–dinner & dancing at Swing 47, followed by a tiny but elegant room at the Paramount, a tiny box of Godiva, and a bottle of Veuve. It was dreamy.
For my birthday, he took me to a sleazy motel that had hourly rates and a whirlpool with no hot water. Then he brought me flowers when he came to break up with me.
He was weird.
my best valentine’s day ever was last year. the boyfriend (now fiance!) got me a ball winder and swift.
it just doesn’t get better than that!
(i’m also a STR virgin… does that help to swing the fates toward me at all?)
hmmmm…well, i’ll bite.
i’ve never, ever had a Valentine.
the end.
Sounds like a wonderful trip. My best V-day was when hubby purposed to me – he proposed on the 13th rather than the 14th after I told him I thought V-day proposals were cheesy. He took me to the park where he first saw me during a 10K run.
Delurking to enter your contest and to commend you on a fabulous blog. I love your photos!
My best valentines day was the one where my boyfriend proposed to me. He took me to a botanical garden in the middle of dreary Indiana, the day after a horrific arguement, about whether or not we should get married. Afterall, I was graduating from college and needed to make plans. He laughed. Little did I know that the reason he was laughing was because he had already decided to propose to me and didn’t want to ruin the surprise. Needles to say I accepted his proposal. We’ll be celebrating 15 years of marriage this summer.
Worst valentines? Maybe this one, cause I’ll be stuck at home with two sick kids (long running fever virus, day 6 with dd 2, day 1 with dd 1) and Dh working on a set.
Awesome photos of you and G!!! The happiness jumps out at me! Nothing could be better. Plus, it’s all the sweeter to see in light of last year’s dread. Thanks for sharing.
My earliest Valentine’s memory is from first grade. At recess I was placing my cards in the heart shaped construction paper “mailboxes” that were hanging on the bulletin board in our classroom. In order to reach the ones at the top we had to stand on folding chairs. I tripped and hit my knee on a slotted easel, tearing open my knee-cap. Off to the health room, phone call to my mother, ride to the hospital with Mom and the neighbor man because Dad we only had one car and it was with Dad at work, get my knee stitched up and miss the Valentine’s party altogether.
I’ve always considered that event symbolic. Like love (and future Valentine’s): it’s full of enthusiasm, sometimes pain and, if you’re not careful, you’ll miss the party!
You and G are obviously not about to miss the party!
Okay may sweetheart and I have been married for 20+ years and have had the same Valentine “week” tradition since before we were married. Its a Valentine week tradition because we watch an event that happens on a Tuesday and doesn’t always land on the 14th. The event is the Westminster Dog Show. I know not very romantic but we have been watching this one event together every year since 1982. (2 nights of sitting on the sofa hoping our favorite breed wins Best Of Show on Tuesday night.)
I’ve never had a ‘real’ Valentines Day, and I mock the overdoneness of it, but the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me was when I went to visit my best friend at his uni at the end of semester. We had Thai and walked around the Sydney Opera House and I had a nice icecream. We got some wine, and Passion Pop, and we watched Black Books in a very tipsy state in his room. Then we sat on his windowsill and talked about things, and then when we went back inside he kissed me, and I got so dizzy and overwhelmed with it all. We ended up falling asleep in each others arms in a wonderful PG way, but when I woke up he was on the spare mattress and we never spoke of it again.
Three weeks of confusion ensued.
welcome back! great pics and the pics of you two lovebirds are fantastic!
I have a worst story for you and it really was the worst.
A few years ago, I was dating this guy, we’ll call him Bozo (he really was). We planned on going out to dinner and a movie for valentines day. Well, about an hour before he was going to pick me up, a delivery man showed up and delivered to me a dozen red roses. Off to a good start, or so I thought. He came to pick me up and handed me a box of candy and a card. I told him previously that I’m not allowed to have candy, can’t have the sugar. I thanked him and put it aside and off we went to the city. Once in the city, I asked where we were going to dinner. He wouldn’t tell me. I said ok, a surprise is nice. Truth be told, he forgot the name of the restaraunt and by the time he did remember, our reservation had passed and our table had been given away. No Dinner!!! We didn’t have time, he had already purchased the movie tickets. Well, you won’t believe this, but he didn’t know where the theatre was. All he could remember was that it was called the e-walk. Being I was new to the city, I had no clue. Up and down the street we walked and no one knew where it was. Finally found it. I was starved from no dinner so he went to get us something to eat. He comes back with salted, not buttered popcorn and a very large soda. Hmmmmm, what part of I don’t do sugar didn’t he understand? and salted popcorn without a drink. I nibbled at it and tried to enjoy the movie and all I wanted was to go home. At the end of the night, he brought me home and I said good night at the door. I guess Bozo expected to come in. The roses died the next day.
Needless to say, I’m no longer with this man and Valentines Days have been wonderful since 🙂
Right, so, most of my Valentine’s Days have been blah. The only one that I can remember for importance was when I was in 6th grade. I was terribly awkward in those days (oh wait, those days haven’t ended), but smart and crazy and cheery. Valentine’s Day, 6th grade, I got my first rose from a boy. It was a beautiful tropical steam rose, from this boy named Asher. Asher had a big crush on me. He was in a different class than I was, but both of our classes were having our Valentine’s Day celebrations at the same time. He came into my classroom, gave me the rose, and also gave me a candy heart with something like “I like you” on it. We starting going out March 4 (I needed time), and I dumped him March 24 (I needed space. I said I felt like my childhood was slipping away). But I still have the rose, which I pressed and framed, along with a dark red rose my father gave to my mother that same day.
And as karma would have it, I haven’t had a memorable Valentine’s Day since then. That’s what I get for breaking Asher’s heart.
What I love is the pics you posted from your holiday. They’re both wild and peaceful. I could have a wall full of them, and just sit back to look for a bit. Thanks for posting them.
I’ll say that my best Valentines day ever is 2007, and as for story telling, I’ll go with “last love”.
I got dumped a short time ago. On my birthday. In bed. Post-coital, still naked. First thing in the morning (second, I guess…), at the cottage, with friends in the next room, more friends due to arrive for the big dinner I was cooking for everyone. Out of town and far away, with no way out for anyone til we all left together the next day.
I’m sure it’s a much longer a story than that (isn’t it always?), but let’s just say that the man I was so very sure of left me questioning my abilities in judgement, love, romance, and all things relationship. That was all nearly six months ago, and I have utterly abandoned the desire to date at all.
That said, I am not sad, I am not lonely, I am not bitter. I am merely alone, and I don’t need for anything, emotionally speaking (although it’d be great if I ran into someone terrific who was crazy about me). I am a busy person with an interesting life and I’m pretty proud of the way I pulled myself back together, actually — it was touch and go there for a while. Check out my blog for the wicked v-day present I got myself — but some g-rocks and january one would sure add to the festivities of my Happy-Valentines-Day-I-love-me party.
You asked for it, you’re gonna get it…
(Its a 2-fer. And before I start let me just say that I am not a materialistic person by nature, and don’t REQUIRE expensive gifts, but SOME token (preferably a THOUGHTFUL one) of how one feels about one’s significant other is, you know, kind of appreciated.)
Two years ago was the very first Valentine’s Day I was actually dating someone (wonder of wonders), and pretty seriously too, on the day so I was really excited. I even bough a super cool gift that I new he would like (the box set of season 1 of The West Wing – he is a super huge West Wing nut). But, he was dealing with some of his grandmother’s health issues and ended up having to put her in a nursing home – in New York (we were living in Cali at the time). So, needless to say, we weren’t together on the day. But that’s ok, right, because he sent flowers, right? Or chocolate? Or CALLED? Or…or…anything? Yeah, you guessed it – there answer or course is no.
Well since I am clearly a masochist (or stupid) I stayed together with this, ahem, person for another whole year. The next Valentine’s Day rolled around (last year) and I thought for sure something special was going to happen. The relationship was super serious, like talk about life plans together, and, you know, he had last year to make up for. So I bought him another super cool gift that I KNEW he would love (it was a new edition of a book he loved to read so much that he loved it to death). I was thinking maybe a mini vacation… or maybe just a romantic day trip, that would be ok too… or some jewlrey… or some roses… or chocolates… or… or…. We went to dinner at our SECOND CHOICE restaurant because he waited too long to make a reservation at our first choice restaurant. And before you say, well that is nice too, it really had ZERO specialness to it, since we went out to eat ALL THE TIME. So THIS year… I am single again.
Valentine’s Day sucks. No offense.
I’ve been lucky enough to have had two best Valentine’s days. The first in 1973. My new twins were just a month old, and I received a huge bouquet of roses from my husband, who was far away, and sadly, I never saw again. Time passes, and lives go on. Fourteen years later, I had met someone with a heart big enough for all of us, and were married on Valentine’s day.
My first Valentine’s Day as a married woman. No plans were made, no talking about what we would do. I was nervous about what was expected. We are still in college and money is extremely scarce, so we make a pact to spend no money on each other. I walk in after a day of student teaching and there on our bed is our suitcase, packed. On top of the suitcase is a blindfold and a note. “Babe, put this on when you hear me drive up.” So I do and he leads me to the car. We drive all over town until I have no idea where we are. I am not even sure we are still in town. After about an hour he finally relinquishes and lets me take off the blindfold. We are in the country and I still have no idea where we are. (if you’ve ever been in Texas, you’ll understand) Eventually I see we are headed to Abilene. My sweetie had reserved a room at a pretty nice hotel, and planned dinner at Red Lobster. (but he didn’t make a reservation and the wait was 2 hours!) I will never forget that Valentine’s. It was just a glimpse of the kind of man I had married and the many surprises to come!
My best Valentines day was in 1947. I was in Kindergarten. My mother and her friend thought it would be so cute if the friends son would bring me my first box of candy. The door bell rang I answered the door, there stood Jimmy with the biggest heart shaped box of candy I can ever remember seeing. (do you think it was that big cuz we were that small?) I can remember every detail of that and very few details of a Valentines Day since. Jimmy was my boyfriend till the 4th grade. Now my Valentines Days are about Grandkids as I am alone.
How about oddest Valentine’s Day? This year my husband and I are celebrating our first Valentine’s Day in our new home (we moved in in late Feb last year), and my parents will be joining us on their way through town. I was a bit surprised at the timing, but that’s just the way it goes. We’ll go out for dinner, then have a lovely dessert that I’ve ordered from my favorite French bakery, followed by a Wii bowling tournament (the Wii being hubby’s and my gift to each other). It could certainly be worse, but it will be strange.
Aww Cara I’m so glad you had such an awesome vaca with G. 🙂
My last two… let’s see. I’ve had two awesome Valentine Days with my husband. And a few more that were less memorable. Three years ago when we were expecting our first baby we were still living in different states. We met in the middle in Norman, OK for a nice weekend. It snowed in Texas and snowed in Kansas but where we were in Oklahoma was beautiful and sunny all weekend. It was romantic and special because we didn’t get to spend much time together in those days.
The other special Valentine Day I’ve had with my husband was last year. When he woke me with flowers and candy and fun gifts and my first sock pattern book. heh That might not sound like romance to many people but to me it was the sweetest thing he could have done. I heart my husband.
Have fun reading all the comments on this post!! 🙂
You look so happy. Glad you had a great trip.
My first real valentine was in the 8th grade when my boyfriend rode to the mall on his bike to buy me teeny tiny real diamond earrings and roses. I kept those roses forever and still have the earrings but don’t wear them anymore.
Since then, I’ve had many other great valentines but that was my first.
My very first week at the university I attended was actually the week before school was to begin. I was in band so we were getting to know each other, being put in our squads, etc. That very first day, the week before school, I met a guy. We had some friends in common, both played the sax, hung out some in the dorm cafeteria. That was 15 years ago.
Now instead of watching tv in the dorm tv room we watch tv in our own living room. I love him 10 times more today than I did back then, easily. I doubt I would have guessed that could happen.
oh boy, lots of heart happiness here!
My favorite romantic memory is also on an overcast beach- on Prince Edward Island… my sweetie asked me to be his wife there. He was so nervous and it was so cute. 🙂
My DH isn’t much for romantic anything, which was why I was so blown away the one time he did something romantic… He had been up in Alaska for the summer, which was really tough, but we met out in New Hampshire to attend the wedding of some friends and to visit his parents. He had been telling me about the camp his stepfather’s father built on a little lake, and was so excited to take me kayaking on it. Halfway down the length of the lake, we pulled up next to each other and I told him how nice it was to see him again, and what a great weekend I’d had. We shared a really beautiful kiss, and when I opened my eyes, he had a ring box open in front of me. A whole weekend with all his closest friends and his parents, and no one knew he’d even been looking at rings — he thought I ought to be the first to know. It wasn’t V-Day, but it was a wonderful day. For V-Day we just plan to have dinner together at home, and enjoy being together, as we usually do.
I’ve been married for going on 17 years. I have to tell you, love isn’t in the holidays and the big special thoughtful things, it’s in the everyday. Having someone who refills your coffee for you without asking, buys you dark chocolate every time he sees it in the checkout line, is the one you worry about when he’s driving home in the ice and snow, and is the one you knit your first pair of socks for.
Giant calla lilies grow along the cliffs on the northern california coast – and just on Valentine’s Day, my husband would climb into them and pick a very tall handful to bring to me. Our sweet yellow lab puppy was born on Valentine’s Day, and of course her name is Calla!
Our first married Valentine’s Day 1990. We looked forward to returning to the scene of the crime – the Italian restaurant where we had our reception six months earlier. Reservations had been made and we even knew what we were going to order. Except… mother nature had other ideas. It had been a mild winter. At this point no one was wearing boots or even heavy winter gear. As I recall, about late morning a snowstorm rolled in and kept coming. It did not let up. It was a workday and pre-internet and cellphone. Hubby left work early afternoon and I couldn’t figure out where he was. He was stuck in gridlock traffic but made it home by 5:00. I on the other hand left work before 4:30 and trudged about 3 blocks in blinding snow with no boots or hat. I was soaked by the time I was on the bus. The bus ride that normally took less then 25 minutes did not get me home until after 7:00. I had to walk two long blocks in the street because the sidewalks were impassable.
Hubby had warm pj’s, robe and tea waiting for me. The shoes went straight into the garbage. He had cancelled the reservations and we were going to try to make it to the neighborhood pizza joint but had to give up on that idea and just made do with whatever. Over eight inches of snow fell that day. Fast foward 17 years later and another storm is expected only on the 13th. What are this year’s plans? Our typical romantic dinner with our 3 children.
When people reminisce about the Valentine’s Day that snowed all day, I always say 1990 my “first”.
Valentine’s Day? Is that a holiday or something?
Well, I am hoping that this VD will be one of the better ones even though I am currently unemployed. We are planning on having a nice dinner at home with our son who is almost three years old. He is wonderful, and after reading all the posts above I think that this day should be about our family and the love that we share with each other every day. I hope to have the other sock done by then!
I’ve never had a boyfriend and have been single every single Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day 2004 rolls around and my new best friend from University was newly single and feeling the V-Day Blues. So we decide to be each other’s dates and go on a romantic dinner to MacDonald’s. XD It was the most fun Valentine’s Day I’ve ever spent, and it made me realize that Valentine’s Day is just one day out of the year to spend time with someone you love, and it shouldn’t matter if this person isn’t your romantic love interest. On Valentine’s Day, even silly dinners at MacDonalds can be a tribute to St. Valentine. 🙂
holy comments batgirl!
Ok… best Valentine’s day… I don’t think i’ve had it yet. There isn’t one that sticks out in my mind. But this most recent one was already great… had a romantic dinner with my new sweetie. New relationships and valentine’s day can usually go either way, but this was nice! It can be so hard because you don’t know exactly what they are thinking and feeling about you, and you don’t want to presume anything. And when it turns out that they are more into it than you thought they would be… thats the best.
I love your photos by the way!!
Thank you for sharing the lovely photos.
Is that really pink sand?
You and G look so blissfully happy. God, it makes me miss Big Sur.
Worst Valentine’s Day ever: 1998. Phone call from my dad telling me that my nana died that afternoon after battling breast and ovarian cancer for several years. 8 of her 10 children were with her, literally singing her into heaven. I was two thousand miles away, missing the woman who was more like a mother to me than my own mother, a woman whom I worshiped. Valentine’s Day isn’t for romance to me. It’s for mourning.
Before I got married I used to feel really miserable on Valentine’s day (once the craze began here in India). Had one or two nice ones after marriage, but now it’s just any other day. This time my husband will be late from work and I’m off to the radio station before he gets back.
You have a nice day!
Nerts to Valentine’s Day, I say! NERTS!
My worst one was when I was in college, art school to be exact. I was dating a boy who I thought was great. He was vegan, as was I at the time, and I wanted to do something nice for him. I didn’t have a ton of money, being a poor art school kid. I couldn’t just go to a store to buy him chocolates or something, so I decided to make him truffles. Vegan truffles. From scratch.
It took me three days of melting, chopping, mixing, blending, etc., to make the damn things. My kitchen, my poor tiny poor efficiency kitchen, was filled with dirty pots and bowls, and melted business on every concievable surface. Finally, Valentine’s rolled around. I got ready for what I was sure was going to be a great night. He came over to my apartment. He had printed me a tiny card with Hello Kitty on it, which was sweet, I thought. I gave him his awesome truffles (doubly awesome by vegan food standards). He swooned over them, giving me a long hug with me sitting on his lap. I hugged him tight, feeling delicious. He leaned toward my ear and whispered:
“I think we should break up.”
They’ve not improved markedly since.
I’ve been steadfastly ignoring Valentine’s day this year — well, for the last few years — because it’s such a mess of emotion for me, and I don’t really feel like I can talk about it with my friends. This is a semi-anonymous forum, though, and when I saw the post I figure what the hell, right?
When I was thirteen, I fell in love for the first time. We were in a summer theatre group together, and I thought that he was fantastic. We ‘dated’, which at the time meant that we ate our lunch together. We were close at the end of the summer, and would’ve stayed in touch, but the night before we opened, I was raped by someone else in the group. I was thirteen, you know, and blamed myself and obviously couldn’t tell anyone, so I just severed all ties with everyone from the group.
When I was eighteen, we were re-introduced by a mutual friend: a fellow that I worked with said that he knew a guy I might like, and later that day, he stopped in. We picked up more or less where we left off, but with less eating lunch and more making out.
We dated on and off for three years, and had been on for about a year when, on Valentine’s day, I found out that he’d been cheating on me with my roommate. It was a little obvious when he picked her up for a romantic night away — she’d said she had a date, and I’d agreed to watch her daughter, and then he showed up. I was delighted, of course, and thought that he’d come to see me, but as it turned out, not so much.
I left, moved out of the apartment and back in with my parents. A month later I found out I was pregnant. When I told him, he said that I had to choose between him and the baby — well, that wasn’t too hard.
The upside, of course, is that I have a wonderful four year old, and even if I do sometimes fantasise about taking a shower all by myself, or about going out by myself some evening, I wouldn’t trade her for anything, especially her asshole father.
You look so happy together! Wishing you blue skies forever, Lark
One of my worst that turned out pretty ok after all Valentine’s days. We were just married for almost 4 months. Living happily ever after in Texas. I got a phone call, your father’s in the hospital and needs open heart surgery. The DH helped me pack, drove me to the airport. I flew up to Chicago Daddy was operated on Valentine’s day, spent the entire day up in the VA hospital. Daddy sailed throught the operation with flying colors. The DH my darling new husband did not even get me a card for our first Valentine’s day as a married couple. He has a sobbing bride on the phone trying to explain why she’s sobbing and why even the simplest card would have ment the world to her. My DH met me at the airport with balloons, and roses and also a pretty pair of bobbles to hang from my ear lobes.
I’m still a bit young yet to have really ever fallen in love and I used to be a hardcore member of the “Valentine’s Day SUCKS” club. That being said, I met this guy once. Don’t all good stories start out like that?
It was senior year of high school and I was still shopping around for the right college. Washington University in St. Louis had this program where you could go and spend five days on the campus, living with a student and attending classes and learning about WashU. I was too much of an overachiever to miss class, so my dad and I flew down after school on Friday and I met my host. We were unofficially referred to as “prefrosh” and the college kids with the prefrosh were keen on showing their charges all the different dimensions of WashU. My host was a bum who had no idea what to do with me, but her roommate was brilliant and we clicked. She took me around the campus and that very night I was introduced to the concepts of a shot and the whole new scene of college parties.
The next day, the prefrosh were broken up into tour groups. My dad, ever the social butterfly, made friends with this one couple and their son, Dylan, and I made some awkward conversation until we realized that, hey, we actually had a LOT in common, right down to the same bizarre sense of humor. He was kind of a skinny kid, longish hair, and wore a chainmail bracelet because his friend had linked it together while around his wrist and he couldn’t get it off without wire cutters. He was into programming and decided that weekend to apply early decision to study computer science. We made a lot of excuses to hang out all weekend and our parents liked each other well enough to just go along with it. Our last night together, we (ready for the romance?) scampered all over my dad’s hotel, causing general havoc. We clashed in massive tickle battles, I got my butt handed to me in arcade games and we never kissed. Right before we said goodbye, my dad had the brilliant idea to exchange email addresses.
So, I got back to Connecticut, a little giddy, a lot morose. WashU was amazing, Dylan was amazing, and I had to go back to life. I waited a whole day before emailing him and it was a really embarrassing email, spilling my emotional teenaged guts about how I felt about him. There was no response. I waited a week and tried it again. There was still no response. More than a little confused and hurt, I gave it one more shot and then gave up.
Fast forward to Easter. I had received a large enough scholarship from the George Washington University to pretty much invalidate every other offer I had from the rest of my schools, including a decent offer from WashU. I sent off my deposit to GW that week and was admittedly bummed, GW being about last on my list of schools and my safety school to boot. I was on AIM waiting for dinner to finish when I received an IM from an unknown user. I clicked it open. “hey loser” Who? “do you still suck at racing games?” Like the biggest cliche in the world, my heart dropped into my stomach and I realized it was Dylan. The butterflies came back and the giddy feeling returned as we chatted. Yes, he had gotten in, yes, he was going to WashU for computer science. No, he hadn’t received my email. What? Mr. Computer Science had set his spam filter so aggressively that my poor little emails from Hotmail never had a chance. I admitted to their contents in lieu of the actual emails and he informed me that he kicked himself the entire way home to Florida for not kissing me that night and that he felt the same way.
And then nothing. It’s like that “missed connections” section on Craigslist. We talked for a while and then things just kind of trailed off. And isn’t that the worst? Boring what-ifs.
But that weekend rocked my seventeen-year-old world.
Oh God, that was long. Sorry.
Beautiful pictures. Wow, you have a lot of stories to wade through!
My best Valentine’s was the first one I spent with my future husband. I had told him not to make a big deal of the day. But when he didn’t, I got a little sad. Finally at noon or so, he put on a big show of feeling obligated to take me out to dinner, hired a babysitter (for my future stepsons) and took me out because he “felt he had to.” On the way to the restaurant, he asked if I thought we needed reservations. Ack! Yes, we needed reservations.
As we stood in line at the very busy restaurant, I was fuming at him for not planning ahead and for taking me out only because he thought I expected it. When we got to the hostess he had the gall to say his last name, as if he had a reservation. Naturally, she couldn’t find it. I was totally mortified.
Suddenly, she found it (!?) and took us back to a secluded candlelit table, where a dozen long-stemmed roses and a bottle of champagne stood waiting.
All planned, of course.
A couple of the waitresses cried. And his toast to me? “Here’s to us. And I think someone owes me an apology.” 🙂
I met my First Love at school when I was 14.
At 16, we were in love.
At 17, I went away to University.
At 20, we broke up.
At 29, I married someone else.
At 39, we met and fell in love all over again.
At 40, I moved hundreds of miles to be with him.
Now at 42, we are together at last. The circle is complete.
My first Valentine’s Day with my then-boyfriend (now fiance!) we wanted to do something really special. There happened to be a little restaurant right down the street, an Italian restaurant built into a converted house that everyone just RAVED about. A little expensive, but we figured it was the day for that kind of thing, so we splurged our college student budgets. So we got all gussied up (early, of course- to beat the rush) and hiked down the hill to the restaurant…to find out the list was FOUR HOURS LONG at 5:00 in the evening. Astonishment doesn’t even cover it. Defeated, we walked back up the hill to my apartment and ordered heart-shaped pizza from a delivery place and called it good. We had pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert, an hour before we would have been seated!
Five years later, our wedding day is approaching and we still seem to end up having pizza on every Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Take this for what it is worth. Valentine’s Day, while meant to be sentimental, has become commercial like every other holiday. The almighty dollar. Love the one you are with everyday and shout it from the rooftops. Life is too short (and scary at times as you well know) but when you are blessed with a second chance….every day is Valentine’s Day.
Sorry to be so cynical but commericalism for every holiday is really getting on my nerves. It was great to read all the great days of others though. I love my husband and my family dearly. Enough said.
My husband and I don’t do the commercial Valentine’s day stuff. Our first Valentine’s Day together (last year) we made a huge dinner together, think 4 course meal, while dancing to big band music in the kitchen. It was so much fun because neither of us cook much, so we weren’t quite sure how the food would turn out. Thankfully everything turned out beautiful for a wonderful evening!
Pfeiffer beach in Big Sur is where my fiance proposed to me!! A truly beautiful beach, and now one that will be my favorite place in the world! SO glad that you had a romantic time there as well.
My most memorable Valentine’s Day — when I was in 6th grade. The boy who I was madly crushing over (though of course I never let on to ANYONE) gave me a Valentine. I was the only girl in our class he gave one to, so I felt pretty darn special.
And I never saw him after 6th grade — we were military brats overseas in a school run by the U.S. Air Force. Both our dads were transferred elsewhere the next summer.
I’ve just started reading blog recently and I’m hooked. 🙂
I’ve had several “good” V-Days over the past years that BF and I have been together, but the one that stands out in my mind is the V-Day before BF and I started dating. I was technically single, but he had been “courting” me via email and snail mail ever since we had met 4 months prior, but he lived 500 miles away. My roommate suggested it, and we were hosting a V-Day party just for The Girls that night. We had all the girls over and had a great time laughing, noshing, sharing tales of love, loss and hope. It was the close of a year I had taken off from relationships, in hopes of learning to love myself. V-Day that year for me, seemed to be a celebration of that rediscovered skill of loving oneself before you can truly be happy with another. And Future BF mailed up a package with the most thoughtful collection of girly gifts (teas, chocolates, paperwhites, bubblebath, etc.) that he had planned specifically to arrive on V-Day, but to not “look” like a V-Day gift. So sweet.
Mine had to be last year. After many, MANY years of not dating (single mom + bad experiences), I met someone. It was going okay…slowly. I thought it was so sweet when he wanted to meet at the bus after work to take a walk and see the daffodils. Kinda romantic, you know. (Yes, there are daffodils at Valentine’s Day in the Atlanta area.) After a nice walk hand-in-hand, we went to my apartment for a cup of tea. Oops, he forgot something in the car. Dummie me thinks nothing of this. I come into the living room to find a chocolate box full of truffles! I burst into tears…the big, fat, sobbing ones. Poor man was beside himself…kept asking if I was diabetic! When I recovered enough to speak, I gave him a big hug and told him it was the first Valentine’s gift I’d had in over twenty years. (And it was fabulous Belgian chocolate, too.)
Best Valentine’s Day Ever-My darling husband took me to see the ballet of Romeo and Juliette!
I love reading all the stories!
Growing up, Valentine’s day was never a big deal–my parents (married 38 years and going strong, so cute together it’s practically gross 🙂 celebrate Groundhog’s day, instead.
So I didn’t expect much for my first Valentine’s day with my then-boyfriend now-husband (7 1/2 years), my own G. He, however, had other plans. Which included telling me to pack a bag–warm clothes the only directions he’d give–and be ready right after work. We left NJ and drove, in a snow storm, up to Lake Placid, where he’d gotten a private chalet w/a fireplace and jacuzzi. The next day, he took me bobsledding at the Olympic facility, tobaganning, and ice skating, and then for a lovely meal.
Since then, we’ve both gone back to grad school, so our Valentine’s days are a little more . . . economical, but it was a wonderful way to spend out first one together.
Thanks for the lovely photos!
Valentine’s Day isn’t a big celebration in my house, but I do love just cuddling on the couch with my sweetie!
As a single “mature” (ahem) woman, VD doesn’t do a whole lot for me. I use it to give extra love and cuddles to my grands and my 2 wonderful DD’s. There have been wonderful VD’s in the past and some awful ones. I don’t sweat it any more and celebrate “love” in a family way!!
Thanks for ALL your wonderful posts. and Happy VD to you and your “G” Man.
The WORST Valentine’s Day? 2 years ago on valentine’s day, I was working in Cambridge MA (contract, no insurance) and I stepped off the bus at kendall square, I walked behind the bus, into the crosswalk ( I had a cross signal) and BAM! I was hit by a car! I went up in the air and down on the hood. The guy who hit me, pulled me to the side of the street, and then took off. A very nice Spanish man ran to help me. I was taken to the hospital and I called my boyfriend and he called my parents. He also called my work, who said I needed to be at work by 12 or I was in danger of losing my job. I was released from the hospital ER at 3pm (got there at 6:30am) with a severe concussion (“don’t let her sleep for 12 hours”) and a bruised body. I could barely walk. My parents and Dan swung by my work and I had to walk in, show my ER papers and ask if I could have the next day off. They said no. The police never found the guy who hit me. And since I qualified for health insurance on 2/15 of that year, the trip to the ER cost me $5600 b/c I needed a CT scan and stitches. That was the worst Valentine’s Day ever. The best one? Every one but that one! 🙂
I can’t think of anything special that’s ever happened on Valentine’s Day. No big break-ups and have never really done anything spectacular either. Next week I’m heading out to California for Stitches though! Can’t wait to visit with everybody!
Cara,
Three years ago, Valentine’s day, my husband had an alteration in his blood pressure and fainted in our bathroom. It was 2 in the morning and I woke up with that unforgettable noise. We went to the hospital and after some (or many) examinations, he was diagnosed skin cancer. You know what I mean when I say desolation… that’s how I felt… We had got married only 3 months before that day and I lived that day and the following months as if they were the last moments we would spend together. He underwent a delicate surgery and had many difficult and painful days after that.Always a gentleman, he never complained. These days are gone and he is now totally recovered. This year we will celebrate Valentine’s the way we like the most: he plays the piano and I sing for him. Life is simply adorable by his side…Have I mentioned that I love him?
The only valentine’s day that I really can even remember is when my stupid boyfriend at the time was being an idiot. We hadn’t said the I love you words yet, and he was at my apartment when I came home and in the refrigerator (since it was empty to start with) there was a bear holding a little baloon and flowers and candy etc. Well the balloon the bear was holding said I love you on it so then I didn’t know what to do because he didn’t say it and I didn’t know if he even realized that the balloon said it or not and it was just all awkward and horrible.
Ummm, I guess this is the best V day (for dodging a bullet), but at the time, I didn’t really think so.
It was university – Boyfriend (only going out for a short time – the worst situation as far as Vday goes) is making plans and keeping them secret. At the last minute I have to cancel – Roommate’s father is suddenly, inexplicably ill, and they are calling the kids home. She lived in Ottawa, ON, we were in Hamilton, ON – a 4-5 hour drive, but double that by train or bus. I had a car. No second thoughts – we made some phone calls to let people know where we were going to be (before the days of cell phones), and jumped in the car to make the drive. My parents were so supportive. My brother, with whom I shared the car, understood, even though it threw his Vday plans awry because I took the car. We stayed in Ottawa for 4 days – Dad recovered (it was a particularly virulent virus) enough to come home and they sent us back to school. We arrived at our dorm to find our door lock broken. Dorm friends tried to stop us from going in – my bed had been slashed. Mirrors broken, dresser drawers upended. Just my stuff. I was in shock. Turns out boyfriend didn’t take the cancellation very well. He had boasted about it to friends, but no one would come forward. He was never charged, but he did leave school. Long story less tedious – I never heard from him until about 5 years later when he sent me a Valentine (?!?!?) saying he was sorry. I tossed it. I have never heard from him since. I have been incredibly, happily married for almost 15 years, with an 8 year old son, and hubby and I don’t really celebrate Vday – we celebrate every day, just like you and Georgie do. This year should be extra special for you with the good news recently received. My best to you both.
Once upon a time,
there was a girl
who couldn’t remember
anything special about Valentines day.
There is a vague memory of a heart shaped meatloaf.
Perhaps it is time to make some new memories.
Donna
My worst Valentines Day ever was 4 months before I got married. That’s the day that hubbo got cold feet. I was miserable but we got thru it. I don’t usually like to even think about it but this year it’s easier. My dh is going thru cancer treatment and it’s cause us to really think about our relationship. Suddenly, after 13 years of marriage, I feel like I’m 17 again and can’t get enough of him. Crazy!
My worst Valentines Day was two year ago, 1995, when my husband of 8 years told me he wanted a divorce. But now, 2 years later, I am happier than I have ever been and relieved to be out of such a horrible relationship. So now every Valentines Day I celebrate taking care of myself and my friends. So I guess in a way, that was also the best V-day, since it freed me to be exactly who I always wanted in life.
I was thinking my v-days weren’t too eventful but when I was chatting with a friend last night, a repressed memory of the worst v-day ever came up. It was 8 years ago and I was visiting my friend (now ex-friend) in LA. Her bf was in town so she left me with another friend of hers (I should have seen the signs here she was a bad friend!) for v-day. So this friend of hers was a guy and she was trying to hook us up. She gave him a flower to bring to me on v-day and he took me to Disneyland. This was my first and last time to Disneyland. Here I was with this guy I hardly knew at Disneyland with ALL these couples making out and being cozy in the lines. It was SO awkard. It was horrible! And it was ALL DAY. Of course there are those rides where you have to sit really close or like the log ride where you have to sit in between someone’s legs. AWKWARD. I think we went out to dinner too. Ugh, absolutely horrible. To top it off, he was my ride to the airport the next day (my friend was still gone with her bf). The guy overslept so I missed my flight. And when he did get me to the airport, he didn’t even help me with my bags!! Ugh, no wonder I blocked the whole thing out of my memory! I was trying to remember this guy’s name ‘cuz he was really smart and I think he started his own business… then I remembered his name was Eric. Ironically, the same name as my bf now!! I laughed but I don’t think my bf thought it was that funny. Luckily, that was the worst v-day ever and I’m pretty sure that nothing else will be that bad!
PICK ME————————-
Best Valentine’s Day—tomorrow: I am getting married to the love of my life–he was my first love, and we were separated for a long time, but were re-united and we are having a very understated, small, and personal day tomorrow.
(BUT I am so worried about the snow forecast!)
I think my worst Valentine’s day was in high school – my best friend and I didn’t have boyfriends, but her family took us skiing in New Hampshire. We learned to snowboard (sort of), and I got overconfident, took off on my own, and fell and broke my ankle. I spent the day in the infirmary, sending people out to find my friend and her family to tell them what had become of me!
Vdays these days are pretty formulaic – my boyfriend cooks something Italian and picks a good bottle of wine. He used to bring roses, but then we got our cats, who like to eat roses. I guess the idea that he would if he could is romantic enough!
Love your pictures! Sounds like you had a wonderful trip!
While I have had some good Valentine’s Day, my favorite ones were when I was in college, when my mom would send me a box of goodies, which would usually involve a pair of Valentine’s themed underwear. Little weird to get that from your mom, but, you know, it was a nice thought!
Jen
My brother was born on Feb. 10th, and he came home from the hospital on Valentine’s Day. This was in 1971, when children weren’t allowed upstairs in the hospital. I wouldn’t have seen my mom at all for the entire time, except that she put on a floor-length quilted satin robe and came down on the elevator to give me a hug. I saw my brother for the first time when my parents brought him home. He was dressed in a one-piece outfit that looked like a white dress shirt and red pants with feet. He had dark, curly hair and looked like a baby Elvis. I was 5 years old, and he was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen (or would see, until I held my own). I was convinced he was mine as much as my mom’s. My brother was the best Valentine I ever received.
The best V day ever was when I proposed to my guy and he said yes. All by fax. 🙂
My Worst Valentine’s Day, by Susan
The first Valentine’s day after we were married, we came home from work to find our apartment door smashed in. We had a deadbolt, but that’s only as effective as the strength of the door. The police were pretty sure someone had used a sledge hammer. We spent the evening with the cops, and I had to go count my underpants and make sure they were all there. In the end, my birth control pills and a jar of vaseline were missing. Ew. The landlord couldn’t replace our door until the following day, so we had to shove the couch against the door since we couldn’t lock it. We slept VERY poorly that night, especially since we were pretty sure the very angry teenage boy living downstairs was the one who broke in- the locked outer doors were not tampered with in any way. His mother had come by that morning to use our phone because he was sick and she needed to call the doctor, so he was home all day. It was all very bizarre.
So, yeah, we ordered a pizza that night, since we couldn’t leave. And we didn’t feel particularly amorous, either. I’m sure we watched a couple of Simpsons reruns or something.
Love. I thought I knew what love was when I got married at age 22. Seventeen years and two kids later, I know otherwise. I have been lucky enough to find love again. The most amazing love. A generous love, unselfish, not jealous, beautiful and full of light. Some mornings I arrive at work and find a hot cup of Starbucks waiting on my desk. I get surprise visits to give me a kiss and hug in the middle of my work day. We share books, and share the newspaper in companionable silence. I knew it was love when he gave me first dibs on his New York Times! Every day is Valentine’s Day, thanks to my loving B-.
That picture of you and the hubby is sooo cute!
:o)
My most memorable Valentine’s Day is four years ago, the first one I ever spent with a boyfriend! We went to Guerneville for the weekend and it turned out to be the rainiest weekend to go. We almost got stuck there because the roads were flooding all over the place on the day we left!
HI Cara!
You were in my neighborhood and I didn’t know it… *sigh*. It IS beautiful, isn’t it?
My best Valentines Day… will be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after…. You see, after years of heartache and bad relationships, after I swore that I would never be in a relationship again (‘never say never’ said the people at work, and I would reply ‘read my lips… NEVER’), I’ve met a man who I think is from another planet! Kind, funny, gentle, thoughtful, sincere, loving. Tomorrow will be out 3rd Vday together. We are getting married on 7-7-007 and playing James Bond Music and having a pot-luck reception. Our barefeet will be in the sand of one of those beaches you just came back from visiting when we say ‘I do’. Like you, we don’t ‘do’ Vday, but every morning he tells me he loves me, and every evening we embrace to get re-focused on what really matters to us… each other, and we leave the work-world behind.
I am a lucky woman. Every day is a Valentine.
The best Valentine’s Day was when my boyfriend sent me a humongo bouquet of flowers at work, complete with a small teddy bear that talked. When you pressed it’s hand it said ” i LOVE you”. That was enough to melt my heart, all this public attention, but it didn’t stop there.
When I got home from work, he had strawberries and champagne and a new digital camera to take photos. And he was taking me out to dinner. I couldn’t believe it. I really didn’t think he was capable of being so into Valentine’s day. I was pretty impressed. He took a heap of photos of me, with the flowers and drinking champagne.
Then we went out for dinner at the Italian restaurant next door and the whole time he was looking at me like I was about to die. I asked him about it and he said he was just happy that I was so happy. But we drank a bunch of wine, I had a marvelous risotto and a delicious creme brulee and we finished a bottle of champagne.
The next day I was rather hung over, but he insisted we go to the beach. Now I’m sure you’re all pretty confident where this is headed, but let me reassure you that I HAD NO CLUE. NO CLUE. I seriously thought that is was just a romantic weekend.
So here we are at Baker Beach, the one just south of the Golden Gate Bridge with the beautiful views. We have a seat on the beach and he says he has another surprise for me, and I think to myself, “great, maybe he has some candy” and out he comes with a rose and a ring and a proposal and I was totally shocked. But I said yes and we celebrated by going to a David Gray concert that night.
And I’m still shocked that I didn’t see it coming.
Silly me,
GG
Freshman year. I got dumped. In bed. After.
My first love… sigh.
It’s so much better when you finally find the one you love. Thanks for the beautiful photos.
Sigh – worst Valentine’s Day was when my then boyfriend broke up with me to avoid having to buy anything!
My husband and I are not big into Valentine’s Day, but we are big into LOVE. Every day is a day of love for us! This year, for Valentine’s Day weekend, which also happens to be my birthday weekend, we’re heading to Monterey, Pacific Grove and Big Sur (just like you)! How special is that? Looks like you & G had a super romantic tiime of it. I’m counting on some of that with my man too!
Don’t know how to classify this one – most embarassing VDay? It was university and I was living with 5 other girls. One of the girls had the most attentive boyfriend who lived about 4 hours away and always sent her flowers, cards etc. My boyfriend lived across the bridge and wasn’t as attentive. I came home from class, checked the mailbox, picked up other girlfriend’s big VDay card and nothing for me. I was soooo mad. I came inside, everyone was home and I began to VENT. Why couldn’t he just send me just one stupid card, something, anything?! I mean, make a little effort. I went on and on for what seemed like an eternity to my caring roommates and then stormed up to my room. Only to find that the entire room was full of balloons, flowers and a big “I Love You” banner. Did I ever feel like a loser.
What made me feel like an even bigger loser? Was that my boyfriend was hiding in the kitchen during my rant and heard the whole explosion. Oops.
Here’s my worst Valentine’s Day story:
I’d been dating “T” for almost a year. We had a fabulous Christmas and New Year’s together, he drove to Indiana from Alabama to spend the holidays with me and my family. For his birthday in January, I threw him a surprise party with special guests from Atlanta and London! Things were great, right? I was CRAZY about him!
“T” managed a Cookie Company store in the local mall, and Valentine’s Day is traditionally very busy for them, with the heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies and all. So I knew he’d have to work late on Valentine’s Eve and that was fine. When I hadn’t heard from him by 11:30, I decided I’d surprise him. I put on some sexy lingerie (god, I hate to admit this), black leather high-heeled boots and a long trenchcoat, got into my car and drove to the mall parking deck. I was going to be waiting for him by his car when he got off work, all Sophia Loren and Bridget Bardot-like. But his car wasn’t there. He didn’t answer his cell phone. His car wasn’t there. It wasn’t at his house, either. Yes, I did a drive-by.
I found out the next day he’d gone home with a co-worker (who he claimed to dislike immensely) and was cheating on me with her. We broke up.
And that’s my sucky Valentine’s Day story.
I figure with so many comments, there’s no way I’ll win, but after reading some of them I feel like I should contribute.
Years ago, the second valentine’s day we were married, my husband was unemployed and I was completely pregnant (daughter was born in early march). To make ends meet my husband was working at a tux shop in a mall. He was working late and closing, so I stayed up so I could wish him a happy v-day and we could at least chat for a few minutes… so I opened the door for him, and he was wearing a tux. He had used his employee benefits to dress up and brighten my day. Just the knowledge that he had planned it out for days (as he is a tall guy, so he had to order the right size in advance), to do the little bit that we could afford to do, that he had thought of me… made it the best valentines so far.
I think the most romantic gift I’ve ever gotten is a roll of duct tape. I had been through a very difficult divorce and was feeling pretty cynical about relationships. I got to be very close friends with a guy named John and once I jokingly said “where have you been all my life? you’re the kind of guy I’d want to get stuck to” or something along those lines. A day later, a package landed on my desk at work with a copy of XTC’s album Skylarking, a roll of duct tape and a card proclaiming that there’s no one he’d rather be stuck to. We’ve been together for four years and he has completely restored my faith in romance and relationships. We don’t really do much for V-Day, though I always get chocolates for my kids.
last weekend, my boyfriend proposed to me. it was super sunday, manhattan beach looked stunning at sunset, and all of a sudden my sweetheart of 3+ years pops the question.
we’re not an uber romantic couple. we never celebrate valentine’s day really, we never had a candle lit dinner – no roses, diamonds, violins or sunsets for that matter. and all of a sudden, he asks me what i think about getting married.
if he got down on one knee in the sand and asked “would you marry me?” it would not be “us” (too cliche, way overused). luckily, he didn’t. the downside is, that i completely blacked out. i don’t remember what he said and what i said. luckily, somewhere in that haze, i said yes.
happy love day!
love the pics, cara. great great shots, as always!
i don’t celebrate v-day anymore (we just decide to purchase something frivolous instead of spending money on a fancy date or gifts – this year we’re getting a nintendo wii) but in the past i’ve had a fun one or two.
i met an ex about 10 days before valentine’s day at a party where he was the dj and i immediately fell an attraction towards him. he was playing some great music and we were all indulging in lots of keg beer and shots of whatnot. by the end of the night the house was trashed and there ended up being pictures from dirty mags thrown all over the floor. by this point we had hit it off proceeded to make out in the hallway for far too long. (i was all of 20).
move to 10 days later – he shows up with a picture that he drew (in full color)and placed on a magnet of us wearing the exact clothes we had on the night we met making out in the hallway with little bitty dirty pics splayed out all over the floor. (sans any too graphic poses – if you looked really close you could just see some boobies). i loved that pic and had it up in on my fridge the entire 2 years we were together. now it’s boxed up and a part of my past but still fun to think back on.
We’re one of those couples people love to hate too. We don’t celebrate Valentines either, we both agree that we don’t need one day mandated for us to show each other how much in love we are. Last week I got flowers because it was Tuesday, on Friday I called and had lunch delivered to DH’s office knowing it was a busy day and he wouldn’t get out to get something for himself. We do little things all the time rather than one grand gesture on Vday to show we’re still in love. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I love your pictures of Big Sur, especially #8 and 9. I still haven’t been there and your pictures are going to make me get off my ass and go. And those pictures of you and G are so sweet. You look so happy together.
I’m not entering your contest because I don’t have any VD memories to share. We don’t do VD around here.
Hmmm…..best Valentine’s Day. I guess that one of the best would be the first with Mr Fix-it. We were so young–19 and 18. We had shared our first kiss the week before, and on Valentine’s Day he gave me a diamond necklace that I still cherish lo these 25 years later.
But the very best would have to be 2003. He gave me a Lionel Richie cd of love songs. I made shrimp scampi for us……and our three kids. We spent the evening dancing–with the kids–to the melodious strains of LR’s love songs. Have video. Can’t beat a family slow-dance to Truly or Endless Love. Yeah, we’re big cornballs. But we got love!
We’re like you — mushy all year and nothing special on Valentine’s Day.
When I was a kid, Valentines Day was a big event at school, and the teacher would have a specially decorated mail box. I loved to get home with my bundle of cards and study all the pictures, sort them into piles, pick my favourites. One year when I was about seven, I was running home with my Valentines clutched in my hand when the wind seized them and blew them all away! I watched in tears as the bright, pretty paper scattered far and wide. Heartbreak.
Obscured by the stack of bills, flyers and assorted junk mail that a young career girl, paying off college loans and living on her own is likely to get every day, was a letter with no return address. My heart beats faster just remembering how my hands shook as the ornate Victorian valentine opened and I realized that my entire future – if I should choose it – was unfolding as well.
I chose that young grad student who had been interviewing me for his thesis on my industry and all the possibility that lay ahead. Standing alone, dripping rain in my studio apartment, the bills forgotten, is one of my most romantic Valentine memories.
We have been together 30 years.
What do you do when the love of your life has the worst case of mono ever (complete with an enlarged spleen)? You take an hour to walk the 5 blocks to a local restaurant (resting every 5 minutes or so), order a bowl of soup (or maybe it was chili?), take an hour to eat that soup, and another hour to return home. And you don’t take no or a raincheck!
Ten years later, we no longer celebrate Valentine’s day, but we always have a good laugh over our first one.
Even though it’s the day before Valentine’s Day, I think it’s safe to say that this is going to be the best V-Day that I’ve ever had! In the almost three years that I’ve been with my current love, we have had 11 months of a long distance relationship, moved to Iowa together which was a semi-unhappy time due to not wanting to be in Iowa, and have now moved to Chicago where we plan to stay and are happily settled. Unfortunately, those moves have led us to be a little financially strapped, but my love surprised me with tickets to see one of my very favorite music groups ever and took me out for sushi (also a huge favorite!) as an early Valentine’s surprise. As if that wasn’t enough, we have started to discuss buying a home and starting a family in the very near future which is the realization of several of our biggest dreams and makes a celebration on Valentine’s Day that much more meaningful and special! Yes, I can safely say that this is the best Valentine’s Day that I’ve ever had and I am so grateful to have so much love and happiness in my life…
What incredibly sweet stories, everybody!
I had a very special Valentine’s day that helped me fall in love with my true sweeti–over a medical thing. Either I met him when he doctored my appendicitis, or we met parents over a brain tumor, or the boyfriend sweater curse led to a knitting needle injury. I promise to share the whole story on Friday. I hope you’ll consider this entry, even though I can’t give you all the details yet (I am having a little contest about it on my blog. Feel free to stop by!)
Hi Cara – I’ve always enjoyed Valentine’s Day, even though up until this year, it’s usually been celebrated by eating a box of Malley’s Chocolates (a local Cleveland, OH chocolatier) from my parents, which was great and all, but of course, I’d always been hoping for something more.
Last year, I had just temporarily broken up with my boyfriend and so I had the card waiting for him which I was able to give to him 2 months later…we got back together and are still going strong, and so I’m not sure what he’s got in store for me this year. I’ll be happy with chocolate!! I’m not the best romantic, though, I guess…I plan to get him a Shop Vac.
not just for valintines day,,,,since i was diagnosed in 1999 with colon cancer, and a recurance in 2000 i thought i was cured having no trouble since, but last monday, i now have another recurance. i don’t know if thats the right term or not for a third time. but i try and make holidays and any time i can think of special for my family. doing things that they will always remember, just in case there aren’t any more to come. you never know, do you, not really, my middle child is off at college, so we are making a special trip to go see her to make her day special, my youngest is almost done high school, and i think her being the only one home it will be the hardest. seeing every day. so i try and make sure i tell her i love her every day and give her a hug. and try and do the little things she likes. my son, the oldest tries to be a man and not show his feelings but is always willing to take a hug and an i love you, my husband is the greatest. taking on a wife with at the timewith 3 small kids plus his own 3 and then me getting sick, he has been there all along. i guess i just wanted to tell you to remember to tell your loved ones they are loved!
My husband and I don’t really celebrate V-Day. It’s more of an excuse to just have dinner at a restaurant. Although, come to think of it, Thursday is a good reason to eat at a restaurant.
Anyway, here’s something I find pretty cool (I’m really not a romantic)…my husband changed the oil in my car the other day. And he placed one of those “reminder” stickers in the window and he wrote “I love you” on it. I think that’s pretty sweet.
My best v-day was when my best friend, my sister and, myself whent to barns n noble and splurged on books and Godiva. No sappy cards, no worrying about what to get him, no cooing over the ugly teddy bear he nabbed from the doller store. Just me, my best girls, chocolet and books.
Pure bliss….
Valentine’s Day isn’t really a big day around here, beyond an excuse to eat chocolates, make cupcakes with pink icing and cinnamon hearts, but that isn’t to say love isn’t important. I have a love who fills my heart to overflowing. I have a love who has always, always believed in Us. Hard times test love. And our love, his love, has passed those tests over and over, for 21 years.
Our first year together was fraught with family deaths that could have broken us, individually and as a couple. We made it. Having children could have broken us – being new parents is hard on relationships – but it didn’t. During a wretched pre-midlife crisis (mine), he stayed strong. He kissed me every morning even when I didn’t know if I wanted them. But those kisses … those kisses meant so much. They symbolized his belief in Us. Those kisses gave me strength. And last year when we discovered that I wasn’t just lazy, I was anemic, and that the debilitating pain I was having wasn’t normal, I had a lump on an ovary, he stayed strong for me. He hovered over my bed in the hospital, holding my hand, trying not to cry in relief that it was “only” an endometrial cyst, telling me that he didn’t care what anyone said, he was going to get a tattoo of my name. And this winter, when the weather and the constant power outages broke me, he was willing to move for me, change our lifestyle for me, until I came out of my own fog and met him halfway and we came to compromises that would be best for us and our family. It was a momentous shift in perspective and bonded us more than ever.
It’s taken me 21 years to really believe, the way he does, in Us. He knew when we first got together that we were going to grow old together. I had my doubts. I’d never know of any couples truly happy together for years at a time. Every time we fought, I thought this was it, it’s over. But no, over and over again, he’s proven that we’re in it for the long haul together, baby!
Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your love.
erg. My worst Valentine’s Day was a *first date* with this guy who quite obviously later just wanted to get in my pants. Anyway, we were out at a restaurant and apparently he must have forgotten it was V-Day because he picked the day and we were surrounded by lovey, kissy couples and we, most definitely, were NOT.
My best Valentine’s Day was the first one I spent with my husband. We were so dirt poor. He was living in a basement of a house in Arlington VA and I was sharing a room (!) in an apartment in DC. He dragged a card table down in his basement, put a sheet over it, made dinner (veal w/proscuitto and fontina) and then came to pick me up, sweating. We ate dinner in the basement by candlelight. We still have that meal every Valentine’s Day (married for 10 years on April 19), but we eat it at the kitchen table. 😉 We are not big on Valentine’s Day, either…no presents, but he does cook this dinner every year for me, which reminds me so much of how we started and how we had almost no material things but so much looooooove. and we still have it.
Wow. I LOVE your photos. They are beautiful – all of them.
As for Valentine’s Day, it’s just never been my thing. I’d rather pamper the people I love all year round.
You would think that as a STR virgin (still) I might have been tempted into telling a magnificent lie, but no. Good luck to the rest of you! I’m enjoying the stories.
usually we are broke before valentines day, so we make our own restraunt at home, the kids make menus, tie on aprons and we set up a card table in the living room. they serve us dinner, fill our glasses. last year he brought home breakfast at tiffany’s and presented me with a tiffany blue paper clip twisted into a ring with a plastic bead for the gem. he gave it to me just as the plastic cracker jack ring was given in the movie. very romantic 🙂 who knew he could plan it out so well? 🙂
the most extravagant valentines day was when he took me to vasil’s euro grill in denver, we spent $250 on dinner and didn’t have to worry about how we were paying for it. the food was worth every penny, too!
Lovely pictures of you and your love!
Although I’m hitting 50 on Febr.25 I have never had a Valentine.
I like those reported ideas of inviting some (girl)friends over for a nice dinner. I will consider it for next year. 🙂
Take care
Tally
Since I detest Valentine’s day due to the fact that it forces someone to ‘show their love’ with gifts (at least from my point of view), I’ll tell you about the man who showed me how to love again (corny I know).
His name is Chris. I first met Chris when I was 14 on my first week of Grade 9. I was little, terrified by the big school and this very very tall Grade 12 who was introduced to me by an exboyfriend. I don’t know how much we talked in school, but we knew each other enough to remember.
Chris graduated shortly there after and I didn’t see him for 5 years.
Over the years I had been badly abused by a few boyfriends and a stepfather, making me very distrustful of men. I had locked myself behind a facade and forced myself not to allow anyone close to the ‘real’ me so that noone could hurt me again.
Then, I was reintroduced to Chris. We had a mutual friend, and after I dropped out of college, I went to hang out with this friend, and CHris showed up.
He took one look at me and decided that he wanted nothing to do with me. He saw through my shield and figured I was a fake person who had nothing to her. He was as tall as I remembered, in a relationship and male, which was enough to make me know I didn’t want anything to do with him.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the best start, but we were civil to each other.
At the time I was jobless, and my debts were running very high. Chris had offered jobs to some of my other friends at the factory where he worked, and, out of desperation, I asked him if I could work with him, even for a weekend.
He flat out told me no, and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything there because I was too weak.
I took this as a challenge.
Over the next six months I pestered him to the extent that he finally gave me a chance. While we were grocery shopping for a party, he pointed to a 50 pound bag of potatoes and told me to pick it up. Me being barely over 100 pounds, he figured he could end my pestering because there was no way I could pick up the bag.
I grabbed the bag and lifted it to my shoulders, resting it there and looking at him triumphantly.
Next week, he took me into his work and I started working full time with him.
Chris wasn’t the most pleased with this, especially since he had to drive me to and from the factory since I had no other transportation. At first, the drives were less than pleasant, the two of us silently brooding in the car, thinking our own thoughts.
Then one day, I had a bad day. I had a fight with my mom, my brother was being nasty, and then I got in trouble from my boss at work. On the ride home, I broke down, I bawled my eyes out and poured my heart out to this guy who I thought couldn’t care less, and figured that whatever happened happened.
Rather than just driving me home and shrugging it off, Chris took me to a coffee shop near our house, bought us each teas, sat down in a corner booth and listened for the next two hours.
This became a regular event as he helped me work through my past, get through my troubles and fight off my demons. He realized that I had more to me than my shield, and I realized that he was a deeply caring guy.
Over the nearly four years since that first breakdown, Chris has been by my side helping me through every stumble. Our families mentioned that we seemed to be stuck at the hip, but we maintained that we were ‘just friends’.
Finally this past summer we decided, “who are we kidding” and started openly dating and having a relationship, and this past December, Chris and I became engaged.
Had it not been for him and his caring and understanding I would probably still be alone with my demons, scared of any man who came into my life.
I’m so glad that he found me and I look forward to every day I have with him.
-Saff
Awww-Nice pics, especially of you guys:) My story would be boring and I never win contests anyway, so I’ll just lurk around the comments.
My man/partner/boyfriend/common-law spouse and I don’t really do the whole V-day thing. Heck, we can’t even decide what to call eachother. (Though he really likes to introduce me to his friends as “partner” if I’m not in the room because then he can watch people’s faces curl up and wonder if he’s gay – not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
Anyway, Jon had to go for a trip to Florida last month for only about 3-4 days. Come on, I can handle that. At first I was kind of excited. The whole apartment to myself! What to do! What to do!!! But as he was leaving, it dawned on me that for almost 6 years we have barely been a part for more than one day. I started to crumble. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was without him.
The last time we were a part for over a week, he had to go for knee surgery and I couldn’t leave my job that I had *just* started. So he took a ferry and stayed with family and I was alone and frightened. That was the exact day when 9/11 hit. I was so consumed by missing him and for wondering “what if”… Heck, we lived all the way on the other side of the coast, it’s not like we were even in the area, but that day made me love him more than anything.
I’m not normally a sappy kind of gal, so I’ll just leave it at that.
In 2002 my then boyfriend flew into Norwich (UK) from New York to hand deliver me a box of handmade choclates on Valentine’s Day.
Two years later I flew in to New York from the UK to find him in bed with another woman.
Whichever way you look at it, I got the better present!
The first Valentine’s Day after my first preemie son came home I think was the most precious day! Eric was 11 weeks preemie born in July. Being a mom just completed me and knowing he was well and thriving on such a wonderful loveing day made it so special:D
My best Valentine’s Day was 8 years ago tomorrow, when my then-boyfriend asked me to marry him. We had gone to dinner at a lovely restaurant, and when we finished we went back out to the car (he likes old cars) and the car wouldn’t start! He fiddled under the hood and said “I know what the problem is…this was stuck in there!” and showed me my ring and got down on his knees and asked me to marry him. I said yes and the rest is history 🙂
My husband and I just eloped and got married in Big Sur on February 10, 2007. Our intention was to get hitched at Pfeiffer Beach, which is our favorite spot in the entire world, but the rain and wind were too much. We ended up getting married in the forest, on the banks of the Big Sur River, which was perfect. So my best Valentine’s Day will be tomorrow–my first Valentine’s Day as the wife of the man I am utterly in love with. 🙂
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
I haven’t particularly acknowledged Valentine’s Day since I got out of elementary school classes where they made you participate, so I’ll just tell a little story from back then.
We used to have to decorate Valentine “mailboxes” as a homework project. Traditionally these would be lacy red-and-pink things with lots of hearts. One year we couldn’t find any red or pink construction paper (in our craft box; we were too far from town to make it worthwhile to go there just for paper), so my dad and my little brother helped me design a Valentine’s box that was green and orange with black Sharpie illustrations of something other than hearts – I don’t recall exactly what, but knowing them it was probably hockey players or something.
I got teased a lot that year, but the teacher complimented my creativity. It was better than the year that somebody told me my homemade cards weren’t real cards because they were flat and didn’t open.
Ohh, I feel so much less alone after reading all of these stories!
I’m so very lucky to have a person in my life who also believes in every day romance. February 14 is just the precursor to the 15th…when all of the chocolates go on sale!
My best V-day ever was the year I was an actor in the Vagina Monologues at the university I attended. I gave a 12 minutes monologue (in an accent not my own!) referencing the vagina as a metaphor for a womean’s spirit. All of my roommates and my entire family (one sister, two brothers, mom and dad, and grandmother) came to watch. My brothers brought me pink and purple flowers, which they picked because they were ‘vagina-coloured’! It was the most terrifying role I have EVER taken on, and while I didn’t have any epiphanies of feminism or meet my bff working on the production, the atmosphere both in the green room and the audience was electric.
Valentine’s Day! I never see DH (married 14 years) on Valentine’s Day, he’s busy serving romantic dinners to all the lovers who go for a meal at his restuarant.
One year he and 2 brothers gave the 3 wives/girlfriends 3 red roses each, when asked he admitted to ‘acquiring’ them from the wholesale order for table decorations. Romantic he is not.
You look like you do have a romantic partner, luckily. Have a lovely Valentine’s Day 🙂
gorgeous, gorgeous pictures cara… thank you for the virtual vacation!
a little v-day story for you. i knew within 2 months of meeting e that i loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. he knew the same. we talked about it but kept it secret from our friends and families for another year because we didn’t want them to think we were crazy… both of us thought that if a good friend said she was going to marry this guy she just met we would think she/he was nuts! 🙂 and it worked perfectly, and i feel blessed every day.
257 comments already! I can’t imaging being so popular!
Those last 2 photos take the cake! Fabulous! BigSur9 should be an entry to Project Spectrum!
My guy and I don’t really celebrate holidays. We know how we feel about each other and don’t really need a day to remind each other with over commercialized holidays. (not meant to be a downer), but frankly, my idea of a perfect holiday is a day I can sleep until 11am and not have to worry about going out.
But, hey, for those who enjoy a holiday, I do hope you all enjoy yourselves! And, just think of how much good chocolate I can get the day AFTER Valentines at 50% off! 🙂 Now, THAT’S a holiday!!!!
How about the sweetest thing my love ever did for me? There is about a 14 year gap in our ages – he being the older. Our musical “days” gap about that much, too. Now, my man is very subdued, very non-demonstrative, not a celebrator of “commercial” holdays. When he brings me a gift it is always unexpected and from the heart – as this little story shows.
One Saturday he was driving home from a radio show that he does each weekend when her heard the golden oldie “Love Potion Number 9”, made famous by The Searchers in 1964. He got it into his head to present me with my very own bottle of Love Potion No. 9. He spent the remainder of the afternoon driving from grocery store to grocery store (there are millions in the Dallas area) until he found the perfect item to show his love. There in a cart of $1 sale items he found a soft plastic bottle full of an orange colored drink with a plastic twist off tip, very popular with school children of the time. He bought a permanent marker and wrote “Love Potion #9” on it and presented it to me when he returned home as a token of his feelings for me. I still have it – it lives on my desk, where I can see it and feel the warm fuzzies it generates. It is much smaller, having shrunken in upon itself, but it is just a powerful today as it was when I received it 15 years ago. This year we celebrate our 25th anniversary.
best valentine’s day is all the ones with my man david! no one else even came close to being as romantic as he is!
My best Valentines Day was in 1996. I found out I was pregnant with my first child. My DH and I celebrated by going to our “Honeymoon” Bed and Breakfast. It was the most memorable valentines day for me. Love the “smootchin” pics.
My best Valentine’s Day ever was just after I divorced my (third) husband. I was friends with a guy at work and we had just started to date when he got a job out of state. We were keeping everything so low key that nobody knew a thing. That Valentine’s Day I got a dozen long-stemmed roses delivered to me at work, plus a box of Godiva chocolates (complete with a mysterious card). I am not usually the roses-and-chocolates kind of girl (OK, chocolates are always fine!) but I felt so loved and it was fantastic to watch everyone’s jaws dropping all day trying to figure out who had given BETH, yes, BETH such over-the-top romantic things. They knew it wasn’t my ex, that was for sure.
And oh yes, I married that guy. Fourth time’s the charm!
My husband of 8 years is not a very overtly romantic kind of guy. And since our anniversary is also in Feb, that usually is the big romantic event rather than 2/14. In any case, every Valentine’s Day he tells me that he doesn’t need a special day to show me he loves me. And I believe it too. We have a one-car garage in our 1950’s house in St. Paul. I work at home but guess what, he won’t let me park my car outside. Every day in the winter he’s out there in the bitter cold scraping the windshield of his car to go to work. So that when I do need to go out to run an errand or whatever, I have a warm-ish, snow and ice free car. There’s lots of other examples like this one. We got married in a Hindu ceremony that links a man and woman together for 7 lives (you know, reincarnation and all). I’d marry my guy in every lifetime. 🙂
Well, we do not do Valentines either, but one of the last years really stands out. My sweetness had been having some medical issues, one particular surgery over and over, not getting blood to his right leg. The Doc said if they had to do it again he would probably lose the leg. This for my motorcycle riding, bike riding, overly active husband…. Well, the vein plugged again, 5th time for the graft going bad and of course on Valentines day. Driving in to meet the doc, my sweetness was doing some deep breathing and all I could think of was “please let him be pain free”, not my usual, oh please let him make it, I want him with me forever. In that weird moment in the car, I really just wanted HIM to be okay. I really wanted him to be pain free. Of course, I would like the leg to remain and realized it was not my call. PAIN FREE< PAIN FREE. And, guess what… that time they finally fixed it for good and he was…. okay, say it with me… PAIN FREE. We went home the next day from his sixth fem/pop redo and it has been great ever since. We have been married 23 years, never do Valentines and are still ridiculously crazy about each other. I am so grateful for every moment I have with him. So, that was best and worst Valentine’s ever.
My best/worst Valentine’s Day in one story…
Mr. Pink & I had been dating for a while, and he decided to take me to visit the town of his alma mater, Cornell, in Ithaca, NY. He’d always had a soft spot for the place, and we’d never really been able to take a long weekend together, just the two of us. Plus, Valentine’s Day out of town sounded perfect, since we both had nutty roommates.
The downside? Uhm, ITHACA in FEBRUARY.
It was snowing in the mountains of Western MA, where we were living at tht time, and a blizzard was predicted, but we pressed on through it, probably quite stupidly, given the whiteout conditions.
When we pulled into town, I asked what hotel we should head to. Mr. Pink said, “Err, well, I didn’t exactly make reservations, but there’s always vacancies at [whatever semi-posh generic chain hotel].” Of course, they were booked. So was every place else in town since, apparently, there was a hockey tournament that weekend.
This was before everyone had cells, so Mr. Pink dropped me off at a bar that an old friend of his that I’d never met managed, and he went to make some calls at a pay phone across the street to check on more hotels. I was left with the friend, who I inadvertantly offended when I blurted out, “OH! You have a WOODEN LEG!” (Well, he did. And you’d think Mr. Pink might have mentioned it in the ten thousand times we’d discussed this friend!)
Two hours passed, with me slowly nursing my beer, wondering where Mr. Pink had gone. When he finally showed up again, he had a hotel room about 10 miles outside town in the hardcore redneck country. Fine. Back into the blizzard.
Got to this hotel room, after navigating treacherous roads, and found a variety of things “scurrying” about the room and the heater in the room was broken. Back in the car, obviously, and into the snow again.
After another hour, we found someplace about 20 miles from town that seemed reasonably clean and got a room. We unpacked the bags from the car, and walked up hill to the guest buildings, with me falling in the snow two or three times on the way. But when we got to the entrance with our card key…of course, it didn’t work.
That’s when I kind of lost it. I had been really calm — an usual achievement for me with my notoriously short temper — but that was really just IT. I started screaming in the parking lot, enraged that he hadn’t made reservations and we had come to this stupid snowy town and almost died in the snowstorm and there were rats in the hotel he wanted to stay in and his friend with the wooden leg and and and…all the way back to the hotel office to get the new key, all the way back up the hill, I threw a fit about what a terrible Valentine’s Day this was.
But when we got into the hotel room, he put down the bags and turned around and said, “I love you. And if you can deal with this trip, I figure you can deal with whatever else I do down the road…” And out comes the ring box…”And I wondered if you’d marry me!”
So that’s how we got engaged. The next day we were, of course, snowed in at the little chain hotel in the middle of nowhere, and we had to eat our celebration dinner at the in-house steak restaurant that gave you your meal free if you ate an entire side of beef.
Awesome.
I grew up in a town called Loveland, CO, aka “The Sweetheart City”. ::makes gagging noises:: I mostly hate VD with a passion (that’s Valentine’s Day, not, you know, itchy personal bits) because every freakn’ February, it looked like the VD fairy had come and vomited pepto colored crap all over town. Enormous candy hearts on the light and telephone poles. A Miss Valentine contest. Pink and red and white all. Over. Town.
And every year they have this valentine’s remailing thing they do. People semd in cards from all over the world to get a special hand cancellation stamp applied to their cards. This is different every year, but it always has some nauseatingly adorable Cupid in assless chaps and a cowboy hat with a four or eight line poem written by some intrepid schoolchild.
I loathe VD for this reason, but the single small spark of romance that hasn’t been stomped on, snuffed out, buried, carved out, squished or otherwise mutilated in my black, black soul thinks that it would be super cute for some person who didn’t live there and didn’t have to read about and/or live through the Pink Horror to get a card from some random town with an unfortunate name on the Front Range of Colorado. …That was just about the biggest run on sentence ever, but you get the idea.
BTW, more info here: http://www.loveland.org/files.cgi?category_id=19
Hi,
My best VD is every day that I get to spend with DH. We have been married for almost 24 years and I still enjoy his company very much. He is funny and witty and he’ll massage my feet when I come home from working out. He gives REAL good foot massages – YUM! Love him dearly!!
I haven’t really had a worst Valentines Day that I can remember. My best, though, is two Valentines’ ago, when my beloved came home with Sunflowers for me, because he knows that I love them even more than roses, and that I had been going through some down times because of the winter, and he said I needed something to bring sun into my life. It was just the fact that he knows me so well to know how to cheer me up with a simple thing like that .. it just reaffirmed how happy I am to have him in my life.
it’s strange, but my most memorable valentine’s day is one that involves very little love or typical valentine-type things.
a friend’s girlfriend had mono and was stuck in bed. so the friend + me + two other people ended up eating at a random pizzeria and walking around town. there were dozens of couples coming and going into nicer restaurants all around us. we took pizza to the sick girlfriend and each went home.
there’s no real reason it was so memorable – nothing really happened, it wasn’t amazing or disappointing, it was just a dinner with friends. but it has been the one that has stuck with me.
This Valentine’s Day, my husband is miles away in Iraq and I’m home with our 20-month-old son and 36.5 weeks pregnant with our second child.
But that makes this one of my best Valentine’s Days yet.
I’ve never been one for the holiday, falling into the camp of those that “don’t want to be romantic because THEY tell me to.” And my hubby is pretty wonderful about showing his love in other ways: cooking gourmet meals and bringing back jewelry from his trips.
This Valentine’s Day I’ll be able to say that I know what true love is from a husband who makes me feel treasured even when he’s miles away, a kid who breaks my heart each day when he smiles and giggles, and a soon-to-be-born baby who gives me kicks and wiggles to remind me of his innocence and potential.
That’s love. And that’s why this is my best Valentine’s Day yet.
this valentine’s day, even though it hasn’t happened yet is going to be the best ever because last year was the so very bad. my dh and i had just separated at his request and we met for lunch where he basically gave me a card, roses and the cold shoulder. after we said our goodbyes, he left to go visit his affair partner and presumably gave her a better valentine’s greeting than he gave me. this year, she’s gone, he’s in therapy and we are doing the hard work of sorting through it. however it works out, anything is better than the horror show of last year.
we’ve never really been big Valentine’s Day celebrators, so no big romantic stories from here.
but i do have to say that the best Valentine’s Days i’ve had have been since having the kids. after they grew old enough to understand Valentine’s Day is a day people use to publicly celebrate love, that is.
i have never had better Valentine’s Day kisses than the wet slobbery ones my son gifts me with on Valentine’s Day morning.
i have never had a better Valentine’s Day card than the hand made scribbles my daughter creates in red and pink (granted, she’s 10 now, her handmade cards are lovely and no longer scribbly but just as heart warming).
i have never had a better Valentine’s Day embrace than chubby little toddler arms doing their best to wrap around my neck in a squeeze.
and i’ve never, ever heard the words “I love you” mean so much as when they come from one of my kidlet’s.
my SO and i just kind of smile at each other over the kids’ constantly present heads and know we still care deeply about each other even if we don’t manage to get in one kiss the entire day and our hug is interrupted by a glass of juice tumbling off a surface somewhere.
This year’s Valentine’s Day will be a bummer. This will be our first Valentine’s Day as Husband and Wife we had reservations for dinner at the resturant were we had our first date over five years ago. However my husband will be working late, 11pm or later that night and his boss told him to cancel any plans he had. This is right after him being away for a week in Chicago and working the weekends. I will be eating a meal for one when I should be sharing this meal with my new husband.
We usually do not celebrate Valentine’s Day because it comes at a lean time of the year. This year will probably be no different. But IF we had money I would request some topsoil, compost and manure for my new garden area. My husband is pretty much off the hook when it comes to expectations. Happy Valentine’s Day!
The photos from the beach are just gorgeous!
My story… my husband was joking this evening that for Valentine’s Day last year he gave me 25 acres of worthless swamp land. It’s true. Feb 14 last year we closed on some land that is just a few hundred yards from the Chesapeake Bay but since Hurricane Isabel is considered non-tidal wetland. No really, it was very sweet.
I have fallen in love 4 times in my life. Real love. First with my husband, then with the birth of each of my children. My oldest daughter passed away when she was 8 months old. Shortly before her death, I penned this poem. I read it today, and I feel the same way about my 2 living children. I am so in love with them. More today than yesterday.
Emma
I lay her down, she laughs, she cries
she knows what is coming
I lie down and offer my breast
she grabs it and smiles.
Here comes the milk,
drink up my baby!
I look at her face
so sweet, so innocent.
Rosy cheeks, tousled hair,
little bit of me,
and a lot of Jer.
She is my world,
she is my joy,
I can’t believe I wanted a boy!
I love her dearly
and pray
she will be happy, hopeful and
know she is loved, everyday.
Goodnight my Angel
Sleep tight my love
I’ll be here all night
So if you wake up, and get scared
or hungry,
roll over, I’ll be here for you
always.
Goodnight my Angel
Mommy loves you.
My sweetie and I don’t really do much to celebrate V-day. I think we both view it somewhat skeptically, and we tend to be lowkey about the whole thing…but then there’s that one Valentine’s day, one of the first….
We had just gotten engaged, and because C and I had known each other since age 10 when we began writing to each other, me in North Dakota, C in Ohio, a friend who worked for the local newspaper insisted on featuring our story for the V-day edition. Our little story about penpals turned sweethearts was picked up by the AP, and less than a month later, our photo and story was in the National Enquirer: Mr. and Mrs. Write. (Are you sick to your stomach from all the sweetness yet?) We were quite shocked to read about ourselves in the tabloid, although the story was completely accurate. Now, almost 14 years later, we still look back and laugh.
My sweetie and I don’t really do much to celebrate V-day. I think we both view it somewhat skeptically, and we tend to be lowkey about the whole thing…but then there’s that one Valentine’s day, one of the first….
We had just gotten engaged, and because C and I had known each other since age 10 when we began writing to each other, me in North Dakota, C in Ohio, a friend who worked for the local newspaper insisted on featuring our story for the V-day edition. Our little story about penpals turned sweethearts was picked up by the AP, and less than a month later, our photo and story was in the National Enquirer: Mr. and Mrs. Write. (Are you sick to your stomach from all the sweetness yet?) We were quite shocked to read about ourselves in the tabloid, although the story was completely accurate. Now, almost 14 years later, we still look back and laugh.
Hubby and I don’t celebrate this “holiday”, we never have in 30 years of being together.So, no sappy,romantic stories. Sad, maybe. But true. I’d like to be entered in the contest anyway.
Other than in school, I’ve never really celebrated Valentine’s Day. I got married here in Finland and my ex never understood why he should bother to remember it because it isn’t a Finnish tradition. I always give my son a homemade Valentine’s card but I’ve never thought to ask him what Valentine’s Day means to him. Finland now has what they call ‘Friend’s Day’ on February 14th. It is their version of Valentine’s Day and is becoming more popular (especially by the stores) every year. Happy Valentine’s Day!
My husband (of 11 months) just an hour ago mentioned to me that he needs to call his grandmother tomorrow (well, today, technically). It is the tenth anniversary of the death of her son, my husband’s father, Kris. He died early on Valentine’s morning in 1997 from complications due to AIDS. Josh and I had been dating for 11 months at that point. He was away at college and I was in my senior year of high school. Josh was having to leave his dream college after only one semester because they screwed up his financial aid. On top of that, he was sicker than he had ever been in his whole life. He was so sick his mom and step-dad had to drive nine hours to school and get him, move all of his stuff, and as soon as he got to his parents’ house, he got the call about his dad.
Josh and I never really got a Valentine’s Day. We started dating in March of the previous year, and ever since that Valentine’s Day ten years ago, V-Day has always been a day of sadness, guilt, pain, and some anger. We both try to brush it off as a day of no importance to our relationship – you know, “It’s just a day for Hallmark to sell cards, and for See’s to sell candy” – but there is always this underlying hurt; remembering how, in my 17-year-old naivete, I couldn’t help him, or really understand what he was going through; him trying to pretend that he had already dealt with it, because he knew it was coming.
I’ve never made a big deal of V-Day for his sake. How can I be thinking of chocolates and jewelry when my love is thinking of days he’ll never get to spend with his dad, and conversations they’ll never have? But for my sake, he always makes me a card (he is an amazing artist) and lets me know he is thinking of me, as well. We have known each other for almost our whole lives (we grew up together on the same street) and being married to Josh is the most wonderful thing in the world.
Today I think about my grandmother. This will be her first Valentines Day without my grandfather, who passed away six weeks ago. They had been married 65 (!) years last year, and have had seven children. Alltogether they hav been the reason almost 50 people exist today (24 grandchildren and so far 14 great-grandchildren). Tomorrow would have been his 87th birthday. Its a sad day this year.
Ill be cuddling up with my family tonight, call my grandmother and tell her how much I love her, and how happy i am being her granddaughter. And wish for as many years of marriage as they got.
I’ve decided that this year, today, will be my best Valentine’s Day ever because I’m going to spend the day loving ME. I will not wonder (as I usually do) if I’m not good enough, smart enough, or pretty enough. I will not read any magazines that make me obsess about the size of my thighs. Rather, I am going to be kind to me by taking a bubble bath and cooking a really nice dinner (with dessert!!).
On this day meant to highlight love, I will try to love me a little bit more.
Hrmmm. We don’t do a lot on Valentine’s day around here – the occasional flowers, jewelry, or card (though I’ll admit that I do use it as an excuse to buy each of us a nice piece of chocolate.) We are so lovey through the year that Valentine’s Day is a bit… well, redundant.
One of my best Valentine’s Days was when I was in college. I was without boyfriend – a state that seemed much more dire at the time than it does today. I was one of those computer geek girls that had a ton of guy friends. So, on this particular Valentine’s, my guy friends went out and got me a card; they all signed it. I have no idea which of them had the idea, but they really made my week.
I never paid much attention to V-Day and my husband hates the “commercial-ness” of holidays, so we decided when we started dating to make cards for each other, and maybe a meal, to celebrate the day. Well, the “cards” have included folded origami “candy” hearts, cut-out pop-up figures, knit “lovebunnies” (well, knitting _has_ to be involved, right?), a neon sign that says “smooch” and a pen with glass beads made by the giver during a torch class. It’s been a great excuse to be creative in ways for which we usually don’t allow time.
I have to say, though, our best Valentine’s Day gift to each other was our son – who was born last year a little before the holiday.
May everyone who reads this have a wonderful day, however you choose to spend it!
Many thanks,
Melissa
ps I found your blog during the Socks That Rock debacle and have been enjoying it ever since. Thanks for the opportunity to reflect on V-Day. These entries are great!
I can’t say that I have had a really great or really bad Valentine’s day. The last 3 have been slightly sad after going through a separtion and divorce. This year eventhough I do not have a man in my life I have discovered that I do have LOTS of love. My 3 daughters (ages 4, 5, and 6) give me all of the love I need right now. Maybe someday we will be able to share all of our love with a special man but right now we are happy together. (Today will be a great valentines as it a snowday from school and I don’t have to work. There are heart cookies to bake, books to read and games to play.)
Kelly
Great pictures!
My worst…my DH just got fired today!
My best…any year but this one, we would go out to eat, or I would make a special dinner and desert for the family.
evening cara and everyone else!
i’ve been reading your blog since the holidays and have laughed, cried and thought “get out of my head” on several occassions. i agree with many of the folks that love doesn’t need a special day. if you love someone tell them. it’s the last thing i say before i leave the house, the first thing i say when i come home, and anytime i speak with a loved one during the day, i tell them before i hang up. however – you knew that was coming right? – i think it’s true for many women, that we often forget to love ourselves. not love ourselves, but appreciate and celebrate ourselves. this VDay happens to fall on writing group night and b/c i’m applying to an MFA in creative writing (which i believe you did, cara) i’ll be spending the evening with a group of aspiring authors who are passionate about words. to let the group know how much i appreciate their support, suggestions, and thoughtful criticism, i’m making chocolate buttermilk cupcakes w/cream cheese frosting (a la martha stewart) and adding some red & pink heart sugar sprinkles – b/c one can never have too much sugar. well, except for the woman who left a comment and can’t have sugar…
anyway, wishing you all joy and love on Valentine’s Day and every day!
Tracy
Four years ago, Chris proposed to me.
Not unusual? Perhaps, considering how many people get engaged on Valentine’s Day. But our “back-story” made it special, as did the following month.
I met Chris at work. He was a good friend. When I needed it most (it’s a very dramatic, rather personal story of escape from a bad marriage), he opened his home to me, gave me a place to sleep, and stayed up all night chatting to keep me company. As my life calmed down, our friendship grew and, over the course of months, we fell in love.
The divorce took months, then years. The ex disappeared, which made it nearly impossible. Then, on my father’s birthday (2/11), a miracle happened: The divorce was final. I received notice on the 13th, and on the Valntine’s Day 2003, Chris proposed.
We planned an April wedding–unwilling to wait any longer–but another dream suddenly came true: we both got jobs in Washington, D.C., where we’d been trying to move for a long time. So we bumped up the wedding and were married on Chris’ birthday (March 25). One week later, we packed up our car, drove to D.C., found an apartment, and started our new jobs…ALL WITHIN SEVEN DAYS! We figure any marriage that can withstand almost every major life stressor within the first two weeks will last a lifetime.
We were right. We are happier (and schmoopier) than ever. And we, too, are so happily-ever-after in loooooooooove that Valentine’s Day seems redundant.
Which is why I don’t hate you 😉
There is nothing better to me than the first school valentine that I got this year! Big Boy is 4 and this is his first year of Pre-K.
This might be the snowiest v-day I have ever had. All the more reason to cuddle up with my honey!
Last Valentine’s was defiitely the best I’ve had- it was my first Valentine’s with my daughter. She definitely is the love of my life!
Today is a great V-day! We woke up with a big snow, school was cancelled and Hub stayed home from work. The love of being together as a family on a rare and special day is a pretty great present.
Ok, I’ve had some bad ones, too, but why remember those today!
Okay, here’s one for you.
Our first Valentine’s Day together, just 4 weeks after we had started dating, we decided to go see Sam Kinnison. I didn’t think it was possible to laugh my a** off and be mortified at the same time! He was talking about necrophilia in the most graphic terms possible with pantomime thrown in for good measure.
20 years later, we’re still talking about that one.
Beautiful pictures!!
After reading other people’s stories, I have to tell you that mine isn’t a crash bang explosion kind of love story. The love between my husband and me is the kind that started with a friendship when we were young and in college, 19 and 20, and stayed constant for all these years. He is my rock, solid and patient, so kind and understanding. When I start getting antsy and unfocused, he anchors me down. He is simply the best husband and father of our children that I could ever ask for. We have been together 21 years now, and we still kiss hello and goodbye and say “I love you” everyday to each other. I am truly, truly a lucky woman.
We stopped doing anything for Valentine’s Day after he gifted me with an iron. I did actually get him something this year a card that says: “A penny for your thoughts… …a quarter for your boxers”.
I totally thought I wouldn’t be posting anything because I’ve never really had much happening in the way of Valentine’s festivities and I didn’t really want to bore you with the story of the first big love of my life and the sad, sordid ending there. However, today has been an excellent Valentine’s Day because my boy supported my yarn habit!!!! Not only did he not blink when I confessed I’d just bought six handpainted skeins of yarn (and would have bought more if they hadn’t been bought right out from under me), but he said he’ll never care how much I spend as long as it meets 2 requirements: 1) He wants it to be quality
2) It has to make me happy (which he said takes precedence over the quality if I fall for some cheap yarn for some reason).
Chocolate will never beat that! Especially coming from a man who I think still mourns gum going up from a nickel a pack.
Actually, I have another good story about him. I’ve always had a bit of a battle with my weight. I’m happy with how I look, but many clothes aren’t (know what I mean?). So anyway, he was with me one time when I went to buy underwear. There was a really cute pair, but they only had it in a smaller size or in a bigger size and he said, “Guess you’ll just have to gain some weight!” I swear I thought that was so sweet, I almost broke down right there in the store (because, you know, he could have told me I need to lose weight. Hw wouldn’t have survived much past those words, of course, but he could have said that all the same). Now that you must think I’m the biggest dork in the whole wide world….
I don’t usually have a boyfriend in Val-Day (I don’t know how I do it, but it’s true), though there were 2 years in which I had a boyfriend on that day: 1994 and 2006. So, a simple, 2006, story: my then-boyfriend was not a very romantic man, in fact he usually avoided every sappy romantic way of showing affection, so I was not expecting anything that day. What was my surprise when I received an email from him inviting me to have coffee with him, “irregardless of the date it was” (his words). I let him lead the activities the whole afternoon, and it ended up being a very romantic afternoon-evening (you don’t need the details, do you?…) I was really surprised, and happy.
How’s this for romance? An old boyfriend took me to our favorite French bistro for a romantic dinner. We ordered the baked brie with apples & incredible seafood bisque as appetizers, a full dinner and beautiful desert. Let’s not forget the bottle of wine we shared. By the time we made it out of there, I was so full I had to go to the ladies room because I thought I was going to throw up! I managed to keep it all down but it took ten minutes to compose myself enough to walk back to the car. Needless to say, that was the end of the romance for THAT night.
My ex boyfriend was the super-romantic type who would drown me in chocolate covered strawberries and yankee candles and flowers and the like, except he was not a great boyfriend the other 364 days.
My best Valentines Day so far is, I think, today. When we were getting off the bus downtown today on our way to work, he said he was going to Radio Shack and would see me later. Because I am an understanding girlfriend, I didn’t see anything strange about that whatsoever and didn’t give it another thought. Then a few minutes ago he came in the front door of my office with a bouquet of roses and stargazer lilies, plus not one but TWO boxes of chocolate (one was the chocolates filled with fruit goo, the other was a heart-shaped box, since he couldn’t find a heart-shaped box filled with fruit-goo chocolates, which was my special request. He’s a keeper.
Well at first I thought I would say that instead of celebrating Valentine’s Day my DH always gets me flowers and a card on the day that we first met…Jan 26.
Then I thought hmmm there’s the fact that this date gets called into question because he swears that we saw each other for the first time at the World’s Fair when I was in a stroller and had portions of a frozen chocolate-covered banana smeared all over my face (he was 13 on his first trip to New York and I was a toddler…hence a big age difference between us). He knew then that we would eventually meet, fall in love and get married.
But then last night an interesting thing happened…DH was at a work-related function so our 11yo son and I were on our own for dinner. We both love sushi so we stopped at our local Fresh Market and picked some up. We had a lot of things to take care of when we got home so we split up the items…I walked the dog and he would get the groceries in. Well when I got back in from walking the dog he had set the table for us for dinner with candles lit everywhere. He wanted to surprise me with something nice. I asked how did you know to do this…his answer was that I learned from dad that women always love candles and romance. I say that my eventual daughter-in-law will be one lucky lady but then he has a great role model in my DH.
First of all, I love the pics of your trip.
I would like to share the story of how I met and fell in love with my husband. I am a violinist and I went down to the Dominican Republic to do a two week music festival. I was fortunate enough to take 8 of my musician friends with me to play down there, so I knew it was already going to be a good trip. As I was warming up on stage before the first rehearsal, I was looking around at all the musicians, wondering if I knew anyone else. My eyes got to the French Horn section, and I set my eyes on the Principal. My mouth just dropped. I just stared. It wasn’t like I was thinking “wow he’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen” (although he is!), I just knew that I knew him from somewhere but couldn’t put my finger on it. Did we go to the same college? another festival? Nope, couldn’t think of anything. Anyway, his eyes finally came in contact with mine and he smiled. I quickly looked away. My friends and I got to know him, as he was another American who had been living down in the DR for four years.. He was happy to have other “gringos” down there and he became our tour guide. He took us on a trip to a private beach, and to a secluded restaurant on the beach. I remember being on the beach with some of my friends (and he was not anywhere around) and we were digging our feet into the sand. Kids of the restaurant owners were hanging out with us and I said, you know if we keep digging, we’ll dig all the way to China. After we ate dinner and we were all hanging out at the beach again, I was talking to Matthew (my future husband), digging my feet in the sand, and he said “you know if you keep doing that, you’ll dig all the way to China.” that freaked me out. A couple days later he took us on a beautiful hike to a waterfall. Although I didn’t know him very well at all, it felt like I had known him all my life. We totally fell in love, and two weeks after I left the festival, he moved to Chicago to be with me. That was six years ago. We got married 3 1/2 years ago, and now we’re expecting our first child.
I’m usually not sappy, maybe it’s just the day!
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
Having spent most of my life single. There have only been a handful of years that I had a Valentine to celebrate V-Day with. In ’98, I was seriously dating a man. We had been together almost a year by Valentine’s Day … he enjoyed spending time with me, but didn’t love me. It was disappointing on V Day while driving to dinner, that he told me that he had called his sister to tell her that he loved her. In the end, after 2.5 years, we broke up. It was obvious, his mother and sister were the only loves he was ever going to have.
Meanwhile, it’s been years since I’ve ventured back to the dating scene. (Maybe Cara can request comments on how to meet a good man). Now I get my love from my furry family … 2 dogs and 3 cats. They don’t tell me they love me, but they show it in all of their actions.
After being in an emotionally abusive and hugely dysfucntional relationship that I had to move across the continent to escape, I met the man of my dreams. I had just spent a year and a half really discovering who I am and learning to be comfortable in my own skin….learning how to be ME and be strong after being put down and let down for so long. Anyway, I met this guy at work. He worked in one of our satellite offices, and I had this huge secret crush on him. I figured nothing would ever come of it because
a.) I really wasn’t interested in being in a relationship
b.) he lived and worked about 2 hours away and I only saw him every month or so when he came by the office for work and
c.) I figured he was so cool he probably was married or involved.
To my surprise, he called one day out of the blue and asked me to dinner. Our first date was amazing……until, out of nervousness, I drank a bit too much and puked all over him, his new truck, and myself. Real classy, right? To make a long story short, that was almost three years ago, and we got engaged last May. We are deliriously happy every single day, and I’ve finally found someone who loves me for exactly who I am and doesn’t expect me to be anyone other than myself.
I’m over #300 so this may or may not get read, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. This is the first year my Mr. Big has given me a Valentine’s present. As you may already know, he’s German and has for the past 13 years I’ve been married to him, told me Valentine’s Day is too commercial and only good for the flower shops. This year something must have clicked because I got a sheep for my desk at school, sheep salt and pepper shakers and a sheep key chain, not to mention the chocoalte hearts and kisses. He sure knows how to win me over. 🙂 Do you think I spend too much time talking about my next big purchase-a sheep for our balcony??
My sweetie was in CA, and I was in MI. We did the long distance thing for about 10 months before we got back together again, because of school/ work. He sent roses to my apartment, and a mystery box that I had to pick up at the post office. He sent me an Etymological dictionary, which I had been wanting for a long time. A true Valentine knows the weird, secret desires of your heart!
On top of that, he had my roommate take me to a romantic comedy, paying for both our tickets and all the snacks we could want. As I recall, he paid for us to go out to dinner, too.
We’ve been married going on six years now, very happily.
when i was a junior in college, i had a *huge* crush on this senior named dan: big, friendly, and clueless. his friend who’d introduced us, fred, had a bit of a crush on me, though i didn’t realize it at the time. i was chatting online with dan who was in a computer lab across campus on valentine’s day and was pretty sure he was going to ask me out, when i got a message from fred asking me to see a movie with him. i told him i thought i had plans–he knew i was crushing on dan. just then, dan asked me to see a movie! i was so excited–of course i said yes! we made our arrangements, and i giddily got dressed that night.
at my door that evening appeared both fred and dan. i was puzzled–turns out that they’d been sitting side-by-side in the computer lab. fred was totally good-natured about it, fortunately, and we all had a good laugh about it. happily, my two wonderful, funny dates had brought me gifts! no, no traditional flowers from these two clowns: from behind his back, fred pulled a magic mushroom air freshener, saying, “to sweeten your otherwise humdrum life.” then dan proffered a box of laundry powder: “to brighten your dull existence.” fred handed me a box of fabric softener sheets “to soften the world around you.” then dan gave me six pink carnations “to beautify an ugly world,” and fred gave me a six-pack of snickers bars: “sweets for the sweet.”
but dan saved the best gift for last. from his jacket pocket, he slowly pulled the last thing, slowly explaining, “i looked at all the cards in the store, but i couldn’t find anything that looked more like a real heart than this.” and very tenderly, he handed me a humble red potato the size of my fist. our eyes met, and it was the most romantic moment i had in my life until i met my husband in 1999, almost 13 years later. dan and i dated for a year and he was the first man i ever thought i’d marry or have children with. i adore my husband, but i hope i never forget that valentine’s day. 🙂
At 13 I met him. He was 16. That was 32 years ago. He’s still my honey and each day it just gets better.
Sheri in GA
Oh, GOD. I got nothing, really. Valentine’s Day didn’t even register on my radar until 2.5 years ago, when I finally found a boy that I deemed worth my time. But even with boy in tow, Valentine’s Day registers just barely as a dim little blip on my radar – much like a Lite Brite peg. I am happy with the love I get everyday from my boy (as it seems you get from your sweet G-Rock man)–Valentine’s Day is such crap. My Bloody Valentine… well, now yer gettin’ somewhere. I just had to leave you a comment, despite my Valentine-y misgivings. I mean, really, 307 comments just isn’t enough; it was clear to me that you needed yet another. Really, that STR was just calling to me like a siren song from your blog… I could no longer resist it.
Happy, Happy V-Day to you and your lover, Cara!
Now, I’ll get back to my own Happy V(itriol) Day.
I don’t really have a worst Valentine’s day – it didn’t really register on the radar when I was at school as my family don’t make a big deal about Valentines and I’ve been with my husband since I was 18 (I can’t believe how young that sounds to me now!) so I never really had to do the walk of a singleton past the card shops.
My best Valentine’s day is today, not because of any big fa la las or roses or posh dinner out but because today I am not sharing the day with a boyfriend or even a fiancee – today for the first time I am spending Valentine’s day with my husband and that for me is magic. To celebrate he is watching football while eating my present to him (kettle chips and a cadbury’s caramel) and I have just finished pinning out my first lace scarf on the lounge floor while trying not to get in the way of the telly – perfect!
My worst Valentine’s day was my junior year of high school, when I had been dating the foxiest guy (this was 1987, after all..) from the Catholic high school (I was a public school girl, so this was exotic for me). We had gone out for a few months, and I was *so* infatuated with him. I was working as a hostess at the Ram’s Horn restaurant, and I wasn’t going to get off of work until 11PM on Valentine’s Day, so I had extracted special permission from Dad to stay out until 1AM for my VD date. Dad dropped me off at work, so they my car wouldn’t be there when Chris came to pick me up. I was looking extra cute, and had a special gift in hand, ready to impress. So……11PM came and went….11:15 came and went…and at 11:45PM I had to call my dad to pick me up, b/c I had been stood up by my *boyfriend* on Valentine’s Day! Dad had probably been in bed for over an hour already, but he didn’t even complain, he just drove up in his PJ’s and took me home.
On the other hand, when I arrived at work this morning, a rose and a sappy card were waiting for me at my desk, b/c DH (not usually very romantic) left extra early this morning so he could stop by my office on his way to work. So, it all works out in the end. 🙂
Worst here, the first year we were married we both were ill ill ill, my husband had a pneumonia diagnosis and I was dreadfully close. But it was my senior year in college and I was determined to attend a night class in Religion and Psychology.
I packed up my bag with Hall’s, took a dose of codeine cough syrup and moped off to campus. Halfway through class I was called on, and I answered, a passionate answer that I felt needed clarification.
I elaborated by sharing with the entire class that my junior high days had permanently marred Valentine’s Day because no one ever bought me a carnation and on and on.
It wasn’t until the kindly professor cleared his voice that I realized my head was buzzing. I was high as a kite after taking 2 Tablespoons of narcotic laced cough syrup instead of 2 teaspoons. I had been talking for a straight two minutes about my carnation-less junior high angst in a religion class. NOTHING relevant there. Mortified.
Can I count this Valentine’s Day as my best V-day ever? Money has been really tight for my husband and I for the past few months, and we’ve both been working lots of hours to try and compensate. As a result we haven’t seen each other a whole lot and the time we have seen each other has been filled with bill-paying and money stress. We decided that even though money was tight, we needed to carve out some time and money for ourselves. So we scraped a little here and there and were able to afford a few days away for a ski trip. So we are here at Snowshoe enjoying some time alone and away from all the stress. This time together has meant more to us than usual and that’s why it’s my best Valentine’s Day ever.
I love these stories!
Um, my best was the first V-day spent with my husband. We were just starting to date and become serious. He invited me over. His room was on the 3rd floor of a 3 storey house. He left gifts for me all the way up the stairs- a card, candles, a box of chocolate, roses, a romantic video, etc. all the way up. When I got to his room he had a candle lit table set up for us to have dinner.
Never did get to watch that video though.
lol
Oh! What gorgeous pictures! I was just oohing over the pebbles and the water, and then there were the pictures of you and your sweetie. You two seriously rock together!
In high school I had a friend who “liked” me, but I didn’t “like” him back. On Valentine’s Day he brought me a huge box of candy. You know, the big red ones shaped like a big heart? I was mortified. I thanked him and stuffed it in my locker. On the way home I crammed it in my backpack and hid it in my closet when I got home. I wouldn’t even eat it, and I didn’t want anyone to know.
A couple of days later my best (female) friend came over and I gave the candy to her because I didn’t even want to look at it.
The funniest part is that my best friend and this guy later ended up dating! Maybe the candy sharing was to blame, I’m not sure. 😉
My husband has always said he doesn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day. Yet when I came home from work yesterday there’s a bag from our local chocolatier sitting on the counter. He said, “I was going to put it away, then I remembered I don’t do anything for Valentine’s Day and this is not Valentine’s Day.”
Wow, you have a lot of comments this time around!! We don’t celebrate V-day much. Why spend $$ on cards, when I can have his time?
So, one of the reasons though we don’t do too much, when we were first dating, I was stupid and did some stupid things. Like breaking up with him on V-day so I could stay with some other friends for the weekend. It lasted about 4 months, our break-up, then we were back together again and have been for almost 20 years. Like I said, I was stupid and 18 at the time. Later, I realized my mistake of course, but V-day has never been the same.
I also do not put much stock in Valentines day (and am glad to read many others who feel the same) – I think every day with your true love should be a little bit Valentines day.
My best V-day ever was last year. My true love and I had been together nearly four years (now five!), and we decided to take the plunge – and get a puppy! I know he wanted to get a dog from a breeder, but instead he took me to the humane society, and we fell in love with baby “frogger,” a black lab mix. His compromise meant more to me than any flowers or card or candy ever could.
The way to a man’s heart is with meat and beer. I made the hubby Beef and Guinness Pie for dinner tonight. He shoveled the driveway so I could get the car out.
No flowers or candy are needed here.
Love the pics of you and your hubby.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Three cheers for celebrating all year long!
I love contests.
Sweetest Valentine Day.
Today, when my hubbie made me french toast for dinner. (we were going to go out for sushi – but the snow and minus 30 temps kept us home)
Your photos are fabulous.
Today. Today is the best V-day ever. I have my baby and my babe next to me on the couch and I am in love with both.
xo – w.
My best Valentine’s Day was a year ago – not because of the day itself as much as the days before it. My boyfriend s a tabla player, and part of the Hindustani classical musical tradition is the chilla – a forty day period of intense practice that’s done in complete isolation (no phone calls, no emails, no letters – nothing). He started his in the beginning of January, planning it so that it would end on Valentine’s Day.
Earlier this month, I posted the first part of a series of poems (and not-really-poems) I wrote during the chilla, from day 9:
http://knit.liquidgirl.org/?p=185
As for Valentine’s Day itself, here’s what I wrote about it:
41
the date doesn’t matter
there’s no calendar on the wall
because months and weeks are nothing
next to a simple count of days
since the 5th of january
but today that count has ended
and I wait instead
for the beats and shakes
of the phone call that never comes
replaced by a typed alert
of malfunctioning technology
but the filling words
are so much more intimate
and everyday
as if it were just any day
and not this momentous one
allowing the first embrace
outside a front door
he has never opened
it takes a few strides
to readjust to his height
how our paces work together
is still a mystery
but the ratio is there
and the polyrhythm brings us back together
faithfully
at any tempo
as we play toward the ocean
I’m silenced in distraction
simply by his face
comparing the memory I traced
with the physical form
fitting together seamlessly
we don’t make it to the water
but it was never really our destination
we’re already there
No really good story for ya, but I figure the only way to enhance my stash right now is to win yarn. I can’t purchase any yarns or spinning fibers right now as I found out today that I need a root canal and two crowns that’ll cost aprox. $5k (which the Husband and I don’t have), and I’m kind of screwed with one of the projects I’m currently knitting because my dog decided to sit on my DPNs tha I was using and break a few. It’s been a rather shitty day, and the only thing that’s made it bearable is the Husband got to stay home with the Wee Ones while I went to the dentist.
Does that work for a worst Valentine’s Day story?
I’ve been married for nearly 15 years, but my best valentine memory comes back to me from 1985, and my freshman year in college. I’d been “dating” Scott for a few months. When Valentine’s day rolled around, I really wasn’t expecting anything from him, but I had made him a card. Money was tight for us both. I was so surprised when he came to my dorm room, and brought me a single red rose. The card said, “A single rose for the single most important person in my life.” It was the sweetest thing that he’d ever said to me. I think that I still have that card somewhere. Sigh. Sometimes you look back at your life with fond memories. I often wonder whatever happened to Scott, and his red hair and sweet dimples. 😉
My best Valentine’s Day ever was the year I got engaged 17 years ago today. DH and I were walking on the beach on Cape Cod. It was very cold, but he insisted on going to the beach so we bundled up, got into the car and went to the beach. We walked and walked and didn’t talk much. He was very quiet and kept putting his hand in his pocket and then taking his hand out of his pocket and putting his glove back on. By now we had been walking for about an hour and I was very cold and cranky. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a ring. He threw it at me and told me to stop whining and marry him. He was never the most romantic person, but I will always give him an A for effort. He is the most wonderful person in the world and I couldn’t imagine the past 15 1/2 years without him. I know lots of people get engaged on Valentine’s Day, but no one gets engaged and then married to the one person in the world that is perfect for them.
Thanks for the contest and making me think of a special day while I am home alone looking at the snow while hubby works.
i love reading these!!
sweetest gift ever…several years ago my husband was laid off from a technology job…remember those days? anyway he found himself with a little more time on his hands than he was used to and decided he would make my vd gift. this in itself was a crazy idea, he’s just not the crafty type. anyway, he took polaroids of our big kitty, moe, and took them to one of those pottery places where you paint the items and they fire them. he painted a big piggy bank exactly like moe. all this was in secret. when he gave it to me i was speechless and so teary. i’ll post a picture tomorrow. the likeness is really amazing. still makes me smile when i think of him in that pottery studio. what a cutie!
Lovely pictures! I do miss the Pacific coast–living in Massachusetts I don’t get to see it much these days.
Valentine’s Day always struck me as just another excuse to do a little partyin’, and by partyin’ I mean sitting on my best friend’s second floor porch dutifully drinking my way through a magnum of wine and talking about everything under the sun until 2 a.m. As you can see, we’re unstoppable party animals.
One of the best Valentine’s Days I ever had, though, combined the giddiness of new love with the comfort of old friends. Several years ago, I was living in Georgia but my newly acquired boyfriend was in Boston. Valentine’s Day was on a Saturday, but he totally surprised me by FedExing me a dozen beautiful roses. I didn’t have a vase big enough for the arrangement so I went in to town and bought a lovely vase from one of my favorite little shops. Now that we live together, we use that vase a lot, with fond memories.
That night, my friends and I got together for one of the best dinners we’d had in a while, watched a fantastic indie film, and followed everything up with the requisite drinking and late-night talking. Because really, with close friends you always have something new to say.
Okay, I was gonna skip this one, but how about THIS being on the top-5 bad V-days? Happening right now, people, what fun…
We were going to cook dinner, pop open a bottle of something nice, just chill and be together…
So why amd I on the computer?
Cuz I came home and he was mopey and moody and hadn’t gone to the store yet and would I go? And he can’t possibly help cook, he’s feeling a little ill, food and germs don’t mix…
I gave up. Grahm crackers and Cran juice it is.
The Valentine’s days I remember most are some of the first school Valentine’s for my older son. I so wanted him to be accepted and befriended by his peers. Year one was original cards with a poem written by me. Year two was origami boxes filled with kisses, and year three was woven paper heart containers filled with candy. I gave up after that. He was never accepted or included. But I still remember those first hopeful, wistful years….
This is our family’s first Valentine’s Day since my husband moved out. I bought little presents for my two kids (son 11 and daughter 10). My son’s not big into lovey-dovey; that’s fine. But my daughter helped make this my favorite Valentine’s Day by buying me big, gaudy silver heart earrings and presenting them to me proudly this morning. Then she shrieked with delight at the 99 cent three-pack of lip gloss I got her from Target. She gave me the biggest hug and then sent me a Hoops and Yoyo e-card that is the cutest thing ever. I wore my earrings like a badge of honor today. She helps me to see that love comes in all shapes and sizes, and it’s all beautiful.
Best and worst, V-day always seems to bring it all out at once.
Once upon a time when I was young and in England and in love (although not necessarily in that order) I set up a series of valentine’s day clues and searches for my guy. One clue revealed a red flower. Another, a red bottle of wine. A third, a red covered book. The clues led him all around and about the college and he delighted in them and I delighted in his delight — except when he told me that he was hoping it wasn’t me but some mystery admirer.
And then, I revealed ever so cleverly (thought I) my identity when I wrote the last note to Paolo (who was in the second circle of Dante’s hell with his love Francesca — me). My guy popped off to the library to discover who Paolo was and came back all down in the dumps because 1 — the secret admirer clearly was his actual girlfriend and 2 — somehow I had implied that we were going to be damned for ever more because of our passion for one another.
I was not, as you might expect, well pleased.
I married him anyway. 😉 It’s worked out all right in the end.
Valentines day has been for many years the day of black. In college a group of us would dress all in black as if we were in mourning or Goth. Didn’t matter if we were in relationships or not. One year I even dyed my hair black.
Oh, I have a terrible memory – how about tonight’s celebration? My honey brought me my pajamas and sneakers, then took me by the hand and led me out of the house. Our place has a treehouse in the back – which I haven’t been in since we bought the place, since I’m terrified of the rickety rope ladder. After getting a sturdy extension ladder, he led me up there – where he had spread out blankets and pillows, our little s’more stove (with all the fixings), milk (can’t have the s’mores without the milk!), and had actually dragged our smaller TV and DVD player – he’d rented Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, my favorite romantic movies, and we just snuggled up and watched the movies (after I inhaled three or four s’mores, obviously.)
(And now he’s gotta haul all that stuff back down out of the tree. Eck.)
More than twenty years ago I met the love of my life, my dark-haired charming prince. He made my heart do flip-flops. I was breathlessly in love.
We met and married while in college, walked through our graduation together, moved to the Big City, got good jobs, and lived happily on take-out menus and weekend double-dates with our other couple friends.
Then we bought a house in the suburbs.
After more than a dozen years of couple-hood, we dove into the deep end of the gene pool to start a family. After a long while of waiting, we had two beautiful newborn babies in less than two years.
Now the babies are big kids and still beautiful. But my one-true-love is telling me that he wants a new life. He has moved on and moved out.
I have had more than a few months to realize that I was in love while he was simply flattered that I was attracted to him. It is amazing to think that 20 years of marriage were fueled by my love alone, but I’m seeing now that this is true.
So. My life to this point seems a cliche. But I’m not sad on Valentine’s Day. I have love in my life. I have my yarn and needles, my friends and my phone, my books and my words, and my thoughts.
I choose love today, not sadness, not hate, because hate corrodes the vessel which contains it.
Some people believe that the definition of love is wanting other people to be happy. I am determined to find out that this is true, and that this is the way to bring more happiness to my life.
We celebrate Velentinesday with our 3 dogs. We exchange presents between the three dogs, and they love it!
i couldn’t go to bed knowing my comment wasn’t complete without visuals, so a couple pics are posted at my blog.
this was fun!
My best Valentine’s Day was 26 yrs ago. My husband made me a heart shaped cutting board. He’s not a romantic sort of guy but I smile just thinking of him in his workshop cutting, sanding, etc to present this gift. Anyone can buy candy, flowers, or jewlery. This was a gift made by love.