Kiss Me, Baby!

There has been a lot in the paper & on the morning shows about Valentine's Day. It's Monday, FYI. I can't help but speculate that this is an attempt to jumpstart our economy, again. This little holiday that asks one to put a price tag on love....ah, fabulous, marketing for the insecure.

Maybe I'm a pessimist, but there are no flowers in the world that mean as much to me as scrubbing the kitchen floor. I'm not particularly fond of chocolate anyway, so that doesn't do it for me. Conversation hearts are darn cute, but they taste like chalk. (Get with it, Necco!) You want to get me some Jolly Ranchers? Awesome! But that doesn't tell me I'm loved. A foot rub? We're making progress.

I feel that my marriage is solid enough that I don't need an extra (commercialized) day set aside, telling us when to express it. If I didn't feel that I get it nearly daily, I don't think 1 holiday will make up for that. Besides, we have our anniversary for that extra special romantic day & we don't share it with the rest of the nation. It's pretty easy to get into a restaurant. Nothing is covered in hearts. The price of roses isn't doubled or tripled. I am far more pragmatic than romantic.

The things my sweetie does for me daily that far exceed anything money can buy- those are the things that are meaningful...

• When he rubs my headaches away. Even if he complains the entire time he's doing it, he's doing it. So much better than drugs!
• My Facebook friends will recall that he was recently out of town on business & I found 'makeshift meals' because I couldn't stand the idea of going to the grocery store. I hate it. I get irritable thinking about it. My husband does that on a regular basis. That's love & dedication.
• When it's late, & I'm ready for bed, but he isn't yet...& I see a spider. He drops whatever he's doing to come kill it for me & also cleans up the guts. Talk about endearing!
• If he goes to bed before me, even if he's sound asleep, as soon as I get into bed, he snuggles up & throws his arm over me, telling me that even his subconscious wants me around.
• When we're in the car together, he puts on preemptive music: He'll play classics he knows I like or 80's pop tunes so as to avoid my complaints of his 'angry' music or listening to me sing along to my cheesy 70's lite, or worse, the childrens' request for the current Disney pop star. (I'm still counting my blessings that they never liked the Jonas Brothers, nor do they care for Justin Bieber.)

I heard on one of the TV shows that someone did a poll & it turns out that what women really want for Valentine's Day is a real expression of love- the words 'I love you.' An actual love letter, a homemade card or a poem & the spoken words... I'm not going to hold my breath to see it in writing because I don't want to put that pressure on him. I know that's tough for a lot of men. So when he asked me what I wanted for Valentine's Day, I said a house! I told him nothing, a nice dinner at home is just perfect. You see, he went to culinary school. He's quite a cook.

But I don't know what I'm going to do for him yet. Maybe a big, fluffy teddy bear covered in lipstick kisses. ;-)

And thanks, Melissa, for the earworm:
  My baby he don't talk sweet 
  He ain't got much to say
  But he loves me, loves me, loves me
  I know that he loves me anyway....