Best Laid Plans

Julio and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. This harkens back to the year when we first started dating wherein I stood before him in a RIDICULOUS outfit and handed him Chris Rock concert tickets (whatev, it was an Awesome gift in 1997) and he handed me a spice rack. Yes, a SPICE RACK. He would argue that it was very thoughtful because he was "listening" to me when I lamented my lack of spices at Christmas time. I would argue that it was Valentine's Day. (Side note: I have asked him for a blog redesign for V Day this year since I am a little tired of the pink standard template. It will be unveiled when he finishes it in 2014. He's a pretty busy guy.)

Happily, Valentine's Day has been re-appropriated from Suck into Awesome by my friend Bergl. The two of us agreed to always cover V Day for each other after she had a disastrous experience wherein she told her boyfriend at the time how important V Day was for her and he bought her gas station flowers and a stuffed bear on the side of the road (or something equally egregious). Each year Bergl sends me more elaborate gifts. I am thinking of something like this for her this year:

I am also in charge of providing the craft for Butter's preschool Valentine's party. I am trying to figure out if I can pull off having the 3 year olds decorate doilies to take home to their parents that say "My Life Would Suck Without You." I might get calls.

I am so glad that the Montessori school doesn't celebrate ANY holidays. Sure, it might be a rite of passage to have in-school holiday parties (and Butter's siblings are already complaining that it isn't fair that he has a class party and they don't) but really, how much more evidence do my kids need that I am a complete slacker? The fact that Butter's "valentines" for his classmates are cards that I bought 2 years ago on sale at Michael's and found again in the bottom of our ottoman should suffice.

And speaking of slacking, Alexis awarded me this Stylish Blogger badge weeks ago and I am just now thanking her for it. Thank you, Alexis. My lack of immediacy in acknowledging this is not from a lack of gratitude but much more from a general inability to figure out (until yesterday) how to post this award on the sidebar of my blog. (Julio better not mess with this when doing the redesign of 2014).

Part of accepting this award involves telling 7 things that you may not know about me and nominating other blogs that I find Stylish. To address the latter, I have been sitting on this award for so long that there are very few blogs that I follow that haven't already been told they are Stylish. If, though, you happen to have a blog that has not received this award and you are interested in it, feel FREE to grab it from me. You are ALL nominated. (I love when everyone wins).

As to the 7 things...tricky, because after the sex/pee panel and "escort" story, there isn't much you don't know but I will try my best:

1. I was a volunteer rape crisis counselor in Chicago ERs for almost 10 years. If it didn't take me away from my kids in the middle of the night (with a husband who travels), I would do it again in a heartbeat.

2. I choose the Bad Boy 9 times out of 10. I married the Good Guy who looks like a Bad Boy. Win-Win for me. This is him:

Yum, right? He is surrounded by my scrumptious children. All I have to say is: "Look to the cookie, Elaine."

3. When I first started eating mangos, I ate the skin too.

4. I am not quite a Tiger Mom, more of a Tigger Mom (WASP-y pressure and guilt instead of emotional abuse). I send my 6 year old to school with binary code messages in his lunch. He loves it. So do I.

5. I taught kickboxing at Leo Burnett's company gym until I was 8 months pregnant with Jojo. Bad A-S-S.

6. I am the spider/insect killer in my house.

7. I have never loved a job as much as I love writing.