#39 He Recognizes Valentine's Day for What it is--and spoils me regardless

I love my husband every day of the year.

We both choose spontaneous moments to show our love through food, love notes, food, gifts, and more food.

We both also have our share of authentic 'I love you' moments. These are moments when we are together doing something totally random like driving to Wawa at 11:38 pm and one of us blurts their declaration of love out nonsensically. And when asked in return, "Why?" we come up blank because it's almost impossible to put words to a feeling that bursts within just because your spouse doesn't think you are crazy for wanting a donut at 11:38 pm.

(And I often want donuts at 11:38 pm).

Valentine's Day is not among my favorites. In fact, I would ignore it completely if I didn't feel that by ignoring it everyone I know would look at me like I am a two-headed, heartless dragon who roams about the land feeding on hopeless romantics gushing over with sappiness.

Valentine's Day has always felt to me like a forced day, made to make people feel either that they need someone to love romantically or that they must overwhelm their lover with an abundance of cliche gifts in order to spell L-O-V-E.

Then the rest of the year love is hardly ever mentioned.

I know I'm loved, I feel it greatly, so I don't need this day.

But to save myself from the dragon persona, we celebrate.

When we first got married we set some Valentine's Day ground rules.

1. No presents, unless something strikes your fancy and you want to label it a "Valentine's Day gift" rather than a "Surprise, I love you, gift".
2. Every other year, you are responsible for dinner plans.

My favorite year so far was when it was Lance's first year to plan dinner. He said he would be cooking dinner, yet didn't show up home from work until 7:30 pm. Meanwhile, I had been ferociously roaming about the house (I'm a Valentine's Day dragon after all, I might as well roam about ferociously). I was so hungry that I was ready to kill the first living thing I saw and cook it up for dinner. He walked through the door, calm and relaxed, and told me to go upstairs.

I stomped my way upstairs, sure that I would not be eating until 9 pm, if then. Ten minutes later I was called downstairs to the dining room to come upon the realization that he had called ahead our dinner order at a local steakhouse and brought it home.

Life was good. Life was so good.

This year may have topped that experience.

Do you know the beauty of jumbo sized sea scallops?

Gaze upon it:

I never liked seafood before my husband. While I cannot say that I am an enthusiast today, I can say one thing, I love me some scallops. They are, to me, the filet minon of the sea.

And he bought and made them just for me.

I didn't mean to make those last two sentences rhyme, but they did, deal with it.

I requested the side dish when I knew he was making me scallops. See, the first time I had jumbo sea scallops was at a hibachi grill.

So naturally, I needed some hibachi grill-esque rice to go with:

De-lish.

This part was a surprise:

Crumbs cupcakes are gigantic and filled with delight. We first had them in NYC when we accidentally stumbled upon their shop. Actually, it was more like, we walked by, then retraced our steps backwards and had to wipe the drool off their window. Then, we proceeded to walk into the shop and buy all their cupcakes.

All in all, I'd say I had a fantabulous Valentine's Day, but then again, Saturday will be just as great. And so will Sunday....