Hearts and flowers and all that crap

Well, happy Valentine's Day I suppose. I am assuming that you are over 10 years old, which is why I am less than effusive about it. I grow increasingly fed up with Valentine's Day as it pertains to adults, probably because I am turning into an old poop. The little kid part I can cope with (especially since I am not a little kid and also not responsible for any little kids) because they mostly seem to enjoy cutting and pasting heart-shaped things, and they like the candy, although these days they probably serve carrot sticks and celery at the school party instead of chocolate, which is the only proper Valentine food. Even kids' Valentine's Days are fraught with peril, though. You spend all that time making and decorating a little basket of some sort to hang on the back of your desk, hoping that it will be filled with Valentines, and unless there are exactly the number of cards as there are students in your class, you are going to have a crappy day. Even if you loathe and despise half of the kids in your class, they damn well better give you a Valentine. Or die.

So, since I already mentioned that it's the kids part of V Day that I can tolerate, I probably don't need to say much about what I think of the adult version. Let me just say that I am in favor of romance as much as the next person (who happens to be Maggie (Not Her Real Name) next door right now, since Rick the husband is a couple hundred miles away at the moment. (Now I wish I had called Maggie Gloria. I wonder what the rules are for changing fictitious names.) No, romance is fine and dandy, and I'm for it. I just don't like being told when and how to celebrate it. I don't want to feel like a failure if I forget to scatter rose petals through the house, and who picks that stuff up after, anyway? I don't want to make heart-shaped pancakes or wear a thong. Or if I do, I want to do it because *I* want to, not because a magazine told me to. (That rebellious streak runs deep and wide. I had to keep smoking years longer than I wanted to, because my father-in-law sent me newspaper and magazine clippings every week about the perils of cigarettes.)

So, if you go for that sort of thing, Happy Valentine's Day, and to Rick, I love you every day, not just February 14.

Once again, if you are in a frozen part of the world, avert your eyes, because this is the view I had from my hammock swing today. I don't know what the temperature was, but I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and the sun on my back put me to sleep.


Oh! I also have a picture of one of the Darling Linen Bags I made for my Etsy stuff. I made a pocket for the front so I could put in a thank you note and one of my Moo cards.

I have been working on other projects too, but I will save that for later, being that I am overcome with emotion about the holiday today.