Happy Valentine's Day!

It seems every year that Valentine's Day sneaks up on me....I know it's coming, but it some how catches me unaware. It's not like Christmas. At Christmas, I feel such pressure to get everything done: send out Christmas cards, purchase gifts, wrap gifts, decorate the house, make cookies, etc. There is so much to do, and I'm intensely aware of the looming deadlines.

Valentine's Day is just not like that for me...and so I'm usually unprepared when February 14th arrives! Take this year as an example. On Sunday (2/12/12), I thought about sending Valentine cards to my kids and grand kids....oops, even if I put them in the mail on Monday (2/13/12), there is no possible way that they would be delivered on time. So...no Valentine cards were mailed.

Yesterday at work, I remembered that I hadn't purchased a gift for my husband for Valentine's Day....oops! And, I didn't even have an idea of what to get him! Double oops....I decided that I could stop at the local grocery store on my way home from work and buy a card and some Snicker Doodle cookie dough. Baking cookies would be a good gift for him.

I arrived at the grocery store about 5:30 p.m. (Remember, it's Feb. 13th---the day before Valentine's day.) The Valentine card selection was quite picked over. I did finally find an appropriate card. Then, I went to the refrigerated section of the store. There was NO Snicker Doodle cookie dough...apparently the store no longer carries it! Rats! The idea of making cookies from scratch entered my mind, and I quickly rejected that idea. I knew my schedule that evening wouldn't allow me to make cookies from scratch! So, Plan B....what is Plan B? I looked over the choices of the cookie dough that the store did carry and found Peanut Butter cookie dough with chunks of miniature peanut-butter cups in it. My husband loves peanut butter cookies so I selected that flavor of cookie dough.

When I got home from the store, I found a lovely bundle of roses and a Valentine's card waiting for me. My husband remembered the holiday!!! What a good guy! :)  At least one of us was prepared for the day!!

After I got the cookies into the oven to bake, I set the timer and started supper. Waiting for the cookies to finish baking, I trimmed my roses and put them in a vase with water. The cookies finished baking, and I placed them on the cooling rack.

It dawned on me that I needed to decide how I was going to present my gift. Should I just put the cookies in a bowl? That idea didn't seem very appropriate for a gift. Should I somehow wrap them? Red saran wrap would be a nice way to wrap the cookies....but, of course, I don't have any red saran wrap in the house. I thought maybe I had some red ribbon so I went to the study closet where we keep our gift-wrapping supplies. No red ribbon, but I did have some leftover tissue paper with pink and red hearts on it. That would work nicely!

Cookies wrapped, card signed. Where to put the gift? We don't have a Valentine's Day tree to put the gift under. We don't have a "designated gift area" in our house. I decided to put the gift and card on my husband's bedroom dresser.

Then, I had to figure out what to do about no Valentine cards for my kids and grand kids? I decided to send a text message to them. So this morning before class (yes...before 8:00 a.m.), I texted them a Valentine's Day greeting.

Valentine's Day is now winding down....do I wish I had been more prepared? YES!!! Will I learn my lesson and get it right next year??? Hmm.........Based on previous years' experiences, I highly doubt it.

To all the readers of my blog, Happy Valentine's Day 2012!

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