Happy Valentine’s Day

I love to love Valentine’s Day.  I am so extremely fortunate to be happily married* to the love of my life.   One of the most fun and simple things we’ve done for each other is to leave notes around, throughout the year, especially when our busy schedules keep us from seeing each other much. When I have deadlines, I tend to go back to work after dinner, leaving traces of my work and tools around until I pick them up in the morning. Sometimes those traces evoke notes from Bruce like this:

or this:

My all time favorite note and Valentine is from 21 years ago. Bruce woke me up and told me to look out the window in 5 minutes:

Best. Valentine. Ever. Though, he came up with a pretty close second this morning. I walked out of our room to see his iPad propped against the stair railing with Dean Martin singing, “That’s Amore!”  It’s like I have my own private “Valentine Bandit.”  Somewhere we still have one of the bandit’s fliers from 1978 that proclaims: “It’s not only ONE day!”

Hearts are everywhere in nature, reminding us to open up our own heart and spread some love. Little gifts from the universe. Keep an eye out! Just yesterday as I was driving away from my mother’s assisted living facility,  this white snow heart in the middle of a gravel pit called out to be noticed. Such a simple thing, but it made my day.

*happily married is not perfectly married. Thank god there is no such thing. Just so you don’t think we’re so full of schmaltz and sticky sweetness that you would gag if you ever met us, here’s a little piece of reality from my most recent Cranberry Report in the “Working Waterfront.”