My Valentine

Yesterday was Valentine's day.  I've kind of always been one of those people who could take it or leave it, mostly because I don't like braving the crowds at restaurants or feeling like I have to out-Valentine all my friends.. (Yes, I know it's not a competition, but we've all felt that, right?  Or is it just me?)  What's funny is Dan loves Valentines day.  I think partially because he associates all the pink and red and hearts with his birthday (the 7th).  Even so, we’ve never really been a Valentinesey couple.

This year was our 8th Valentine's day together, and for the first time, I LOVED it.  I had a fantastic day yesterday.  I think because I didn't let myself feel pressured into doing what I thought I was supposed to do, like bake heart shaped cookies and paint my fingernails pink and whatnot.  I did cut out a lot of paper hearts because I remembered doing that in 1st grade, and it was fun back then.  It's actually even more fun now because I don't have to use those dull scissors we all had to use back in the day.  I think I cut out close to 100 hearts, just because.  I also wore a pink shirt to school.  Not necessarily because it was Valentine’s day, but mostly because the shirt was clean and long sleeved, and it was  a bit chilly yesterday.  The festivity of it was just a bonus.

We didn't go out to dinner.  What we did was even better- we ate leftovers at home and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off in sweatpants.  I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  And then after dinner and Bueller, we changed out of our sweaties and drove all the way to Little Italy for gelato.  I couldn’t get that amazing Gelato I saw on Saturday out of my mind, so we figured V-Day is the perfect day to drive a bit out of the way for a treat.  It was totally worth it.  Delicious gelato.  The walls of the shop even had pictures of Italy all over them, so we got to eat our gelato and look at pictures of places we went on our honeymoon.  (I’ll write about that trip another day!)  It ended up being the most fun, romantic Valentine’s day ever, and it cost less than $10.

My Valentine and I in Florence, Italy, in 2010