Valentine's Day

Came home last night to find these great Valentine's Day creations hanging above the window in our kitchen, courtesy of the girls, we're all ready for the holiday this year. Madison has a concert at her school this morning, I'm planning to slip out of work for an hour or so (one of the major advantages of working so close to home) to experience the performance and, notably, to use various digital devices to capture it for all posterity.

And I actually planned ahead and got something for Gwen this year, too. My typical Valentine's Day drill is remembering I have no gift or card as I'm driving home from work, and then scrambling to find a florist that is still open and has something left to bundle up that doesn't look like it fell off a truck three days ago. A card at that point is a total nonstarter, so I'm forced to quickly develop messaging along the lines of: "You know I love you, right? No real reason to pay Hallmark five dollars for a place to write it down, is there? I just want to make sure we're on the same page with this... I'm really talking about fiscal responsibility here. No? Not working for you? OK, I think I have a pen, hand me that napkin."

At some point someone sent me a link to a terrific Web site called Planet Mom that sells "Mommy" shirts, sweats, and other items. Nice high-quality stuff and some well-placed humor, mostly self-deprecating, which is the finest kind. I got Gwen a "Chicken Nuggets or Pizza?" T-Shirt and a pair of yoga pants with the words "Kids Are My Workout" embroidered in a fairly, umm, interesting spot. I also got her a cool necklace from this great jewelry designer. Here's a link to the actual piece.

I can write about these things on here a day early because Gwen doesn't read this blog, has no idea how to find this blog and her encounters with my brilliant pith are limited to the moments when I print out a post, hand it to her and say, "what do you think?" And, since she has no way of knowing that I'm speaking for her, I'm pleased to report that her reviews are always overwhelmingly positive.