I like this Hallmark holiday.

I was planning to write a post that caught you up on all the things that have been going on since I last wrote a post (such as our trip to American Girl, my addiction to Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter Crunch (but only in the retro packaging), my smarty-pants sister's momentous passing of her NCLEX, my first overnight shift at Lamont, etc., etc., etc.), but instead I'll write about Valentine's Day.

I don't know if I ever really cared for Valentine's Day before I was married. I think Doug and I gave each other cards each year, or maybe he got me flowers and chocolate and I gave him something meaningful and touching, like socks, or new Fruit of the Looms, or something like that. But because we married so close to Valentine's Day, I feel like Valentine's Day is a great way to get in some early celebrating of us. It's a great lead-in to our anniversary-celebrating, and plus I like the excuse to give cards. I don't think we give enough cards anymore. Real cards. With real hand-written messages and stamps and stuff. We as a society. I could be generalizing, but I rarely get cards in my mailbox; just solicitations from charities or credit card companies. Hallmark must not be pleased.

But Doug and I try to do our part for Hallmark on Valentine's Day, this year included. We started our celebrating on Saturday night, when we went to Modern Apizza on our way back from visiting Doug's grandfather at Bridgeport Hospital. Look at this thing: It's a gift from the gods, really.

On Sunday, Doug and I spent our morning at the grocery store, where I was faced with this as soon as I walked into the store: I am proud to say that I resisted all of those mesmerizing treats, because I planned to stuff myself silly at dinner later that day. We had a Valentine's meal with my mother and aunt planned, who were up helping me quilt (more on that to come - such progress has been made!). That's my mother's borsh-casserole (really borscht, but on her recipe it's called borsch, and I keep that spelling consistent because it's not true borscht; it's definitely modified) that's in my bowl, and I made it myself! How festive it is, with its hot-pink hue (it's from the beets, not from anything I did wrong, at least this time).

This brings us to actual Valentine's Day, which was yesterday. Doug and I celebrated by giving our usual Valentine's treats - flowers, chocolate, and greeting cards - and skipping the gym to watch Watson go head-to-head with Jeopardy's two all-time greatest champions. I admit to finding this competition fascinating, but also a little scary. Watson, so far, is a tough competitor, and Ken and Brad have to put a little more effort in if they are going to do we humans proud. I am waiting for Doug to get home from band practice so that we can watch the second round of competition that happened earlier tonight. And tomorrow, on our anniversary, we will watch the final round, when we learn the winner of this tournament, and learn just where man stands up versus the machine. I tell you, I'm a little nervous about this. Watson is a smart cookie. If I weren't still under the control of a chocolate-induced coma, I might blog more about what this could mean for mankind, but instead I'll just go have more chocolate. I have to get rid of yesterday's candy before I can make room for tomorrow's.

And we're off!

This past weekend marked the beginning of the whirlwind that's become the holiday season. It begins each year with Doug's birthday celebration (though it's unfortunate that his birthday has become lumped in with the holidays) and it ends with the trip back from Connecticut and the unpacking of all the stuff that we acquire while there.

To kick things off, Doug celebrated his 34th birthday in true adult style - working and eating take-out from PF Chang's. He had to work on a release until about 10pm (you'll see that in the background in the photo below), but we managed to squeeze in some excitement with a quirky animal card. This year it was squirrels (the cat cards took a break this year). Squirrels scream excitement.

Then I continued the celebration with a chocolate bachelorette brunch on Saturday in honor of the very near end of Marieke's single status. In only nine days Marieke and Curt will be married, and we marked this occasion in style at Cafe Fleuri, stuffing ourselves silly with chocolate. This was my (first) plate of sweetness. Isn't it just beautiful? Marieke topped hers off with a giant cotton candy drumstick, and as the bride she was allowed to do that, but I stuck with the chocolate. I told Marieke that we should celebrate the anniversary of her bachelorette each year at the chocolate brunch - I'd just need a week's notice so that I could fast appropriately before all that indulging.

So, sweetness on Saturday and then sweetness on Sunday, but of a different variety. On Sunday we went up to Maine to celebrate birthdays and Christmas with all of our favorite Mainers. We saw our new Falmouth contingent, Julie and Brian, and got to see their great house (I can definitely see why they chose to rent there). We also saw our Portland contingent. Ruby was a jolly little elf that day, full of smiles and babbles. She enjoyed the blocks that Santa Doug and Rosanne brought to her, at first giving them careful study but then quickly realizing that it's more fun to eat them. If that block were chocolate I would have been right there with you, Miss Ruby!

And now all we have to do is get through this week. Tonight I'm sewing Christmas presents, and then tomorrow I'm wrapping, Wednesday I'm wrapping, Thursday I'm packing and baking cookies, and then early Friday morning we're off for forty-eight hours of Connecticut Christmas. Ah, the holidays - the most crazy (but wonderful) time of year.

Chocolate Revolution

This week I played around a little bit with my new cell phone, the LG Chocolate 3 in baby blue. Apparently this phone was new and exciting last July, so I guess I'm a little behind the Chocolate times, but I still find it to be exciting. It has a lot more canned ringtones available than my last phone, and it takes really good pictures. I also enjoy the click wheel on the front of the flip-up face, as it's much easier for me to navigate to the camera this way. And I may actually use the calendar feature on this phone because it's also available as a feature via the click wheel, and if I can save myself the trouble of flipping up the phone and navigating to the calendar then it may be worth my while (Doug and I are also trying out Google calendar to keep track of vacation days and holidays and weekend activities and appointments. Doug has been bothering me for a few weeks now to get onto Google calendar, and so I finally did the other day. Now I'm waiting for him to create a calendar and share it with me. Come on, Doug! Get with it! Get Google-ized!).

Tomorrow is theRevs home opener and there will be a group of about ten or eleven of us braving the (possibly) rainy weather to cheer them on. The great thing about soccer is that the games don't last long at all, and they aren't very crowded. Plus, the fans are cool and the pre-game and post-game hanging out is just as enjoyable as the game. For this game, because it's the first home game of the season, the first 5,000 fans get a free scarf: Don't these look like candy bars? Anyway, I hope we all get one of these scarves, but even if we don't we'll still get a schedule magnet, as all fans get one tomorrow. Our refrigerator definitely needs another magnet, so I'm excited. I knew I made a good decision when I decided to have my birthday celebration at the Revs game. See you all there!