I Suck At Valentine's Day

Yesterday, Karen and I celebrated Valentine's Day. Now, I suck at Valentine's Day. Luckily for me, Karen and I don't really celebrate the day. I'm not a big fan of the commercialized aspect of Valentine's Day. Of course, I can say that because I also suck at buying presents for Valentine's Day.

This year, Karen and I didn't really do much in terms of presents. She gave me a crossword puzzle that she had created whereby the words in the crossword puzzle corresponded to personal details that I should (hopefully) know... like the color of her eyes. I thought that was a great present. It was creative yet embodied the spirit of Valentine's Day.

Sadly, in return, all I gave Karen was one of those jewelry boxes that rings come in... except instead of a ring inside the box, it was a conversation heart that said "I Love You". Conversation hearts happen to be one of Karen's favorite pieces of candy. She could (and probably has) eat an entire bag at one sitting. (It's almost like what gummy bears are for me.)

From there, we basically spent the day watching our wedding video. I would have liked to have visited my son (Braden) at the cemetery on Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I was cautioned against it due to the fact that Chinese New Year also landed on the same day. My mother, who I love dearly, can sometimes be superstitious. She thought it would be bad luck if I were to go to the cemetery on Chinese New Year because the day is supposed to welcome good fortune and all of that mumbo jumbo. (Luckily, Karen and I visited Braden on Saturday.)

Regardless, watching the wedding video was definitely interesting. A lot has changed in the course of almost seven years. My friend (Garv) had a poofy hairdo... unlike his current metrosexual hairstyle that has been known in our circle of friends as the "duck butt". My friend (Pam) is now married and has two (possibly three) children. It was definitely interesting. Unfortunately, the video seems to have been cut short by Ritz Camera, the company that converted our wedding tapes to dvd. Curses to Ritz Camera! (Truth be told, I'm definitely not liking Ritz Camera... with the shortened dvd and the horrible customer service.)

Also on the video was my friend's (Hot Amy) ex-fiance (Stuart). Stuart just happened to be sitting in the right spot in our wedding video because he can be clearly seen. The only reason why I even bring him up (aside from the fact that I like to get on Hot Amy's nerves) is because Karen and I were talking about him this weekend.

Before Stuart's untimely flight to the west coast of California where he currently lives, he had given Karen and I a set of dresser/drawers that were in his condo. The black dresser/drawers have been sitting in the baby's/my BFF's (Kerry) room for the longest time. I'm not sure if we even had any clothes in the dresser/drawers. They were pretty much empty.

Anyway, rather than get rid of the dresser/drawers, Karen came up with an idea to re-purpose one of the drawers for the upcoming baby. In essence, she wanted to create a place to store items for the baby... items that were not just clothes. I thought the idea was great because it falls in line with one of the three R's for the environment: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Like I say... what would Ed Begley, Jr. do?

Needless to say, Karen and I spent much of Saturday and Sunday re-purposing the drawer. We had purchased particle board from Lowe's to use as shelving. I then started cutting the pieces to fit into the drawer. I even reused the original screws that held the drawer together. While I was doing that, Karen worked on adding fabric to the back piece of the drawer.

Although I was hesitant, Karen even painted the re-purposed drawer with no VOC paint (another environmentally friendly product). Karen assured me that painting at her stage of pregnancy was okay. So if the baby (currently called "Squashy" again this week) has two heads, you'll know why.

Needless to say, the new storage unit for the baby came out nicely. We have not attached the new fabric backing yet to complete the transformation, but it still looks good. And we have Stuart to thank for the whole thing. So thanks Stuart!

All in all, it was a good Valentine's.