the Valentine's week

Sunflowers are my most favorite!

Just as every other girl has always done, I too have always dreamed of having the perfect Valentine's Day date with that Special Someone.  It would start with the perfect, handmade invitation-delivered by a beautiful Turtle Dove, of course-followed by the most perfect, romantic date where my new, perfect-fitting dress would be a glowing contrast against the ambiance of the private yacht, open ocean, & red rose petals that was hired for the evening.

Sounds wonderful, right?  You would be lying if you had never thought of something like that.  Whether or not you dreamed it up all on your own or saw it played out in your favorite Hollywood Blockbuster; it's all the same.

Honestly though, now that I've 'grown up' my idea of a 'perfect date' looks nothing like the one described above.  Sure it sounds wonderful but definitely not necessary.  I'm not quite certain I know what I think a perfect date should look like; I don't know that one idea even exists.  I understand now that it's not at all about where you are at but who you are with.  If you enjoy/care/love the person you are with than anything will be 'perfect'.

Who likes perfect & planned, anyway?!  This year our Valentine's Day-our first together-went anything but planned.  From past experiences I've learned that plans rarely go as you think they should; sometimes they turn out worse but more times than not, they turn out better than you could ever imagine.  And that's what happened this week; nothing went as planned but in the end of the day none of that matter as we were able to enjoy our time together in unplanned ways.  In fact, the multiple change of plans due to outside factors is almost humorous.  Our day went something like this:

plan:  I wanted to surprise Jeff by dropping off his favorite Starbuck's drink & a sweet card before we both went to work.
what went down:  He left for work an hour earlier than normal [probably only the 6th time he as done that in almost two years].

plan:  I was planning on going shopping with a coworker during the lunch hour.
what went down:  J had to do a work errand putting him very close to my office at lunchtime so I canceled on Stacy [she understood!] and he took me to lunch. This beautiful bouquet of flowers were in my seat when I got in his car :)

plan:  J ordered my Valentine's Day gift on time and was very excited to give it to me.
what went down:  The package was not delivered in time.  In fact, it's tracking status seemed to disappear and was 'In Transit' for much longer than normal.

plan:  I bought him two of Pampered Chef's Stoneware Loaf Pans to bake him some of his favorite desserts; I wanted to give them to him with two of his favorites baked in them.
what went down:  1) I currently reside in a hotel-the accommodations are nice but I have limited kitchen prep space [about 1.7 square feet] and zero oven.
2)  He was supposed to be leaving on a business trip on Saturday afternoon; I decided he probably didn't need two sugary sweet loaves to pound [pun intended] before leaving & I don't like things to go bad/to waste.
new idea:  I will have Banana Nut Bread baking in one of the pans when he gets home from work.
3)  I bought all of the ingredients on Monday night EXCEPT for buttermilk [grocery was out?!].  I wasn't able to leave work until late & then took a wrong turn en route to the store.  In trying to turn around I remembered the nice, new Whole Foods in our office complex parking lot.

plan:  We were going to go to Studio Movie Grill and use the Groupons that he bought a while back and were going to expire on Wednesday.  Neither one of us wanted to fight the dinner crowds and thought it would be a good time to go to a movie and use the tickets.
what went down:  The movie was sold out!  I got a back-rub instead :)

plan:  Because we had planned to eat something at the movies [the Grill part] we had nothing in the fridge for consumption.  Our choices were to go to the store, come home, & cook or McDonald's.
what went down:  We ordered Papa John's Valentine's special: a heart shaped, extra pepperoni pizza that we thoroughly enjoyed & a cinnapie that we did not eat.


plan:  I was going to bake him the Banana Nut Bread on Wednesday after work.
what went down:  His trip got moved up 24 hours; too much to be done in a very short amount of time to fool with bananas & bread.  This also meant that we weren't going to get to have our Valentine's dinner on Friday night [he was going to cook my favorite meal!] or our Saturday morning brunch/send-off date before finalizing the packing.

BUT.

My Valentine's gift was delivered on Thursday and Jeff had it all wrapped and ready for me by the time I got to his house from work: two new Vera Bradley items!!!  And we were able to squeeze in a nice meal at Macaroni Grill in between picking up his suit from being altered, a Wal-Mart run, and packing everything.

I had mentioned that I wanted a folder-sized bag that could also function as a purse during the work week.  Ok, 'mentioned' might not be the right word.  I guess I did sit and surf Vera's website for two hours last week comparing & showing him some of the ones that I liked :)  But he picked it out all by his own!

I am a Vera girl to the core; Jeff knows that.  Could have something to do with the average 9.3 pieces that Mom, Emily, & I have between the three of us.  Ha!  He also surprised me with this lunch box; one that I can carry Ziploc/Tupperware containers without them standing on their sides and spilling out.  'Sittin' In a Tree' is one of my all-time favorite Vera Bradley patterns and until this bag I have not owned a single piece of it.  And to be honest, I really don't remember telling him that it was my favorite.  He's really good like that :)

Even though nothing went as planned-thanks to two full-time jobs, current living conditions, slammed mail service during this month, and one surprise business trip-it really was a great Valentine's week.  The truth is there will always be outside factors changing and affecting our plans; you will always have to adjust and remember to be thankful for what you do have.  I pray that I always remember this fact.

Two tired peeps; not sure why my ear is so red here?!

I hope you had a wonderful week!