I have always loved Valentine's Day. Even before I was happily married or even had anyone to celebrate it with, I always loved the excitement and anticipation in the air--will someone send me a carnation at school? Am I going to dance with the love of my pre-pubescent life at the Valentine's Day dance? The answers to both of these questions was typically no, but any day where you are pretty much required to wear red is fine by me.
Nowadays, I wish that I could be one of those girls who when asked what their plans were for the holiday, would say "Oh, we don't really make a big deal out of it". I won't lie to you....I don't expect anything too extravagant, but I have come to want some sort of special gift! Luckily, I have a man who is willing to indulge me in a little bit of flowers, some chocolate, maybe some jewelry.
So this year, I was excited that the big day fell on a Friday, where we could enjoy a romantic dinner, drink lots of wine, and lazily wake up the next day. We looked into going out to eat on Friday night, but the restaurants were mostly already booked up and had extravagant expensive menus for the evening. Meh, no thanks. So Ian went ahead and made brunch reservations for Saturday morning, which is even better! I couldn't wait for a romantic weekend with my man.
Well, then we got a blizzard that snowed us in the day before V-Day on which I got sick. Like, nasty cough, runny nose, going back and forth from sweating to shaking sick. The gift I bought for Ian a week ago still hadn't arrived, and he wasn't able to go out and get flowers because our car was buried under a mound of snow. Friday night came, and after lying around all day feeling like my head was going to essplode, cooking the romantic dinner I had planned was the last thing I wanted to do. Ian sensed my disappointment, and next thing I knew I was banished to the basement with a glass of wine while he made us our romantic dinner complete with candles, mood music, and my man looking handsome in a shirt and tie. Meanwhile, in my yoga pants and fuzzy button up sweater, I was severely underdressed, but he wouldn't let me go change--he wanted me the way I was, red nose and all. Yep, I died. It was so sweet.
Turns out that celebrating a day of love with the one you love isn't about the flowers, or the chocolate that my stomach didn't even want, or even the cards and cute outfits. We sat in the basement all day, both on our computers and watching bad daytime TV. Even though I hardly had an appetite and didn't eat much of my dinner, the fact that Ian made sure it was still a special day just made my heart melt. We got dressed up for brunch the next day because I thought I was ready to go out into the world again, but soon realized I was still down for the count as soon as we got in the car and we ended up rescheduling. However despite being sick and feeling like poop, it really wasn't such a bad Valentine's Day after all and there is no one else who I would want by my side when I am feeling like a sack of potatoes.
The red chocolate chip pancakes weren't bad, either.
