Heart

I'm one of those, I-kind-of-hate-Valentine's-Day-but-I-love-the-candy-and-dressing-in-festive-colors-anyway kind of gal. I don't care that it's (completely!) a Hallmark holiday or really that it "forces" people to show/declare their love one day rather than throughout the year. I just refuse to make plans OUT on Valentine's evening because it is so crowded everywhere, full of awkward people who never go out with each other the rest of the year and it costs double what it normally does.

Today, PJO and I got away and had a lunch date at a restaurant near the halfway point between our offices. Other than the fact that work made me late, it was perfect. Quiet and romantic, outside in the beautiful sunshine. We don't normally do gifts, but he surprised me with flowers and cupcakes from the best bakery EVER. I surprised him with concert tickets to a band he loves and I ...don't. Tonight we have plans to eat heart-shaped pizza and drink champagne, like we do every year.

Timmy loves Valentines day too. He had a party at school today and we brought valentines to give to his classmates. They were the perforated Toy Story 32-to-a-box cards, which PJO helped him write "To Friend, From Timmy" on and tape a candy to. Timmy painstakingly put a heart sticker in the perfect place on every single one while eating his oatmeal this morning.

Ellie is wearing her heart ruffle-butt leggings and that is the extent of her participation in the holiday, but that's enough.

The best part of today, though, is related to shoes. I realized Sunday that Ellie has no shoes to wear for her baptism, which is this coming Sunday. I looked online and found a pair at Nordstrom that I loved, but they didn't have them in stock anywhere local and I didn't want to chance the timing of shipping. So then I found them on Zappos. While I was there, I got a pair of dress shoes for Timmy that were on sale. And then the suggestions on the right side of my screen flashed a beautiful pair of pumps that were only available in my size and were about half off. So I closed my eyes and figured it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Placed the order Sunday afternoon and paid $7 to upgrade shipping to 3 days just in case. I noticed that I hadn't received an email saying "your order has shipped!" this morning, so I called Zappos to see if they knew when it would ship. The Customer Service rep said, let me refund you that $7 and upgrade you to next day UPS. Oh, and here, let me invite you to VIP membership, so you will always get free next-business-day shipping. So even though I didn't complain, I got all sorts of perks. Talk about amazing customer service. Now I should get the shoes on Thursday! WOOHOO