Valentine's Day is coming

I don't normally talk much about Valentine's Day. It's typically not that exciting to me. But this year, I have a reason to post something about it. My friend, Summer, does Blogger redesigns. At a really good price, too. But it's not something I can justify spending money on, for a family blog. She recently held a giveaway for a free Blog redesign, and I knew my chances were slim, but I entered. And ... didn't win. ;)

However, Summer also pointed out the person who did win is now holding a giveaway of her own (click here to see!) - she'll pick a random winner and pay for Summer to do a redesign for the winner! How cool! How generous! So of *course* I have to enter, right? Just for the chance that I can get a nifty custom blog by my own friend?

Of course, one of her rules for her giveaway also includes me posting about it, as well as telling something meaningful to me about Valentine's Day. So, I will share my favorite Valentine's Day memory.

It happened to be one of the first Valentine's Days that Jesse and I shared as a married couple. I don't recall specifically if it was the 1st or 2nd, but it was around there. Jesse was a student at the University of Colorado, and I was working at my legal secretary job. That particular Valentines Day was not a lovely day. It was cold and dreary most of the day, and near the end of the day, the weather brought a decent amount of snow, along with the wind. I had a stressful day at work. As was normal those days, Jesse called me in the afternoon, when he got home from school, and I think he could tell I wasn't quite thrilled with how the day was turning out. But when I got home, things turned around quickly.

Jesse had cleaned up the house very nicely (we had left it a bit sloppy the night before), and set the table with a tablecloth and two candles, and plates laid out nicely, already dished up with our favorite Chinese Takeout. Now that is the amazing part - we only had one car, and the Chinese place was a good 15-20 minute walk each way. Jesse not only cleaned up the house and made the environment nice for dinner, he actually walked in the cold, blowing snow - both ways! - just to get some of our favorite food, so I also wouldn't have to worry about cooking dinner when I got home. It was absolutely perfect, to walk in on a scene like that, and learning what he did, simply to make the evening special for me.

Now, we don't really celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. In fact, last year, the only thing Jesse brought home was a card that he had printed while he was at work - it was a Simpson's-themed card, with the phrase "I choo-choo-choo-CHOOSE you!"... with a picture of one of the Simpsons characters and a train. And actually, he forgot to bring it home on Valentine's Day, and didn't bring it to me until the day after! I admit, I rolled my eyes a little bit, but him telling me how much he and his co-worker giggled about the card and the reference it made to the show did make me smile a bit. Personally, I just like the excuse that is Valentine's Day to eat chocolate. Not that I ever really need an excuse. But when you see all the pretty packaged candies....well, you know they'll also go on sale pretty quick, ya know? :)

Every year I think about maybe making a nice themed dinner or something extra special for Jesse, but every year I manage to come up with a reason for why I don't. I don't know, Valentine's Day doesn't usually seem like a big deal us, and it's sort of an unspoken agreement that we won't make it one.

BUT - that still doesn't keep me from secretly hoping Jesse will surprise me, every year!

Mommy's turn for the stomach bug

Sunday night, not long before bedtime, I noticed my stomach felt funny. It was one of those feelings where you can't quite decide if you're hungry, or too full, or queasy, or have an embedded burp, or what. And since my belly is getting pretty huge with the pregnancy these days, I also had the option to consider that maybe the baby was just pressing on my insides oddly. I ended up deciding to eat a couple slices of toast to see if that would fix anything. It didn't make any change, but I went to bed, all the same.

And then, yep, I woke up at 2:30am. Tummy still felt a little funny. I sat up, and literally had an internal conversation with myself, trying to convince myself that no, I was not, in fact, queasy. But telling myself so didn't make a difference, and soon I was running for the bathroom. Barely made it in time. Thank goodness we got our bed up off the floor, huh? Takes a lot less time to get from bed to bathroom these days. Perfect timing for that change, I guess!

Jesse had been thinking about calling in sick the next day, anyway, since his throat was feeling sore and his head was bothering him most of the day on Sunday. Those are his typical precursor symptoms for getting sick (even if "sick" only means a moderate cold). So when he heard me puking in the bathroom, he decided for sure that he'd be staying home on Monday. I threw up a couple more times overnight, and a couple times the next day, though I felt a tad queasy constantly until around 4pm on Monday. It seemed worse, for sure, if I stood up or sat up, so I pretty much just stayed in bed, unless necessary, all morning and afternoon. It was certainly a wonderful thing that Jesse stayed home. He took care of what the kids needed, and I got generally uninterrupted rest. When I finally got out of bed, I sat at the computer for a little while to catch up on email and things, and after a while felt very cold. Which was odd to me, since the entire time I was laying in bed, I was definitely on the too-warm side of things.

I ended up laying down on the couch with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Jacob decided he wanted to snuggle, with a blanket of his own, so I ended up with 2 blankets covering me. Jacob left when Jesse offered them some dinner. I fell asleep, buried by 2 blankets, and when I woke up, I knew I had a fever. My face felt incredibly flushed, the way it would feel if I were terribly embarrassed and blushing like mad. I didn't take my temperature until a couple hours later, but when I did, it was 100.5. Not a terrible fever, but enough to make me uncomfortable. I spent my evening watching movies and laying sprawled on the couch in a vain attempt to feel a bit cooler.

Since I went to bed still sporting a fever, I decided we'd better cancel our Tuesday morning plans. Melinda was so saddened by that. We were supposed to go to her friend Kate's house for "circle time", with rhymes, finger plays, and simple preschool type games. It's been on the calendar for a week now, and she's really been looking forward to it. But I couldn't justify possibly spreading a stomach bug + fever to other kids and mommies. I ended up sleeping pretty well that night (despite having slept most of Monday!), and I appear to be healthy again. As perhaps was manifest by my ravenous hunger this morning, hehe! I really ate barely anything yesterday - a container of yogurt, a couple nectarines, an orange, and a few handfuls of dry cereal. Otherwise I just tried to drink enough water (and eventually Gatorade, since the water became unappealing) to keep myself hydrated.

Jesse was just so awesome on Monday. I worried all day long that he wouldn't be feeling very good, himself, and then had kids to take care of on top of it. But at the end of the day, he said, "It sure was nice to stay home today!!" And I said, "Really?! Even with having to take care of everything by yourself?" "Sure!" he said, "I wasn't doing much anyway. Mostly playing video games all day!" LOL. But you know, he did all the diaper changes, all the feeding of the kids, ran to the store to get extra stuff for me, and did his best at keeping the kids out of my hair and relatively quiet. Plus, he did bedtime all on his own, and it was great fun to listen to that. He told them the story of the Three Little Pigs, in his own words, with voices and everything. Jacob was absolutely hysterical with laughter. I couldn't help but grin, from the other room. And when it came time to give them bedtime kisses, Melinda asked for Mommy after they got kisses from Daddy. Jesse told them I wouldn't be coming in, since I was too sick, and then proceeded to give them kisses "from Mommy", with a high-pitched voice. Melinda giggled and accused, "But Daddy, you don't look like Mommy!" I heard Jesse say, "Oh! But how do I look like Mommy? Do I stick my belly out really far?" Man, I almost burst out laughing at that one. I know Melinda did, a little bit!

Now, after all that chance to rest through an illness yesterday, if only House Elves really existed, and decided to visit our house. It's a little bit of a wreck, and I don't wanna fix it!

Winter didn't get the Memo

Winter is for snow!!! Right?!? Apparently, not around here. Last year, we got hardly any snow. I had all this snow gear for Melinda, ready to go, and it snowed less than a handful of times. This year, we've gotten all of 2 snows so far. It's been freezing cold since the last snow, but what happens in the last day or two? The weather warms up. Just in time for the clouds to roll in, and be too warm to snow. Definitely not snowing. Today it's a downpour of a rain. The last time it rained this much, it was a spring thunderstorm, and the kids splashed in the puddles. Like this:






































Now, here we are on the very first day of February. The day before Groundhog Day. And look what I see outside!! Just look!!
This is NOT snow!! This puddle is BIGGER than the puddle made by the spring thunderstorm that we splashed in last year! And this puddle is still growing!! It's still a downpour out there! No stopping in sight! Can you just imagine how much snow we would have right now if it were 8 degrees cooler?? Surely at least 4 or 5 feet! Oh the fun that would be, a good dumping of snow! But instead we get gray, wet, sloppy rain. *sigh*

Notice in this picture, you can even see the carrot in the foreground, the same carrot that was in our leaning snowman. The snowman that only finally melted, completely, a couple days ago. Because it was just that cold, even with days and days of sunshine. It was that cold, until a couple days ago, when, like I said, it suddenly decided to warm up enough to turn any potential precipitation into rain instead of snow. Bleh! It's enough rain to warrant a weather alert. And to close 21 schools and/or businesses in the area.

It's not that I *just love* going out in the snow. Or having my kids beg tirelessly to have me let them go out in the snow to play. Or even the cold that goes along with snow, or the scraping of car windows, or the slippery roads, or the ridiculous amounts of salt they cover the roads with at the first hint of snow. I just think it's pretty. And can be fun, if I'm in the right mood. But I just don't like rain that much. A good thunderstorm, sure! Love a good storm! But rain... gray, sloppy, wet, depressing rain.... Snow is so much better than that. Any day.