Valentine's Day 2013

I pride myself on not being high maintenance, but I guess you'd have to ask Kyle if I'm high maintenance or not.  In my opinion, I'm not high maintenance.  Yesterday, I felt high maintenance.  It all started last Thursday.

Kyle and I were leaving Kroger after doing a little grocery shopping trip.  As we exited the building I asked him if he wanted to do anything for Valentine's Day.  He said, "I don't know...do you?"  I hadn't really thought of it until that point, which seems pretty weird because usually I'm very excited about the prospect of a special day that society says I get to possibly receive a gift and spend extra-special time with Kyle.  Last year he was in Mexico for work so we obviously didn't do anything special.  This year it was more like "we're married, this day is no different than any other day of the year".  I've always thought of Valentine's Day as a "Hallmark holiday"; I dislike receiving flowers because they just die.  Kyle knows this about me - which is why he doesn't buy me flowers.  To not be super lame, Wednesday night I decided I was going to do something nice for Kyle - make him a chocolate torte that Jaleh had made for him over Thanksgiving Break which he really liked.  I thought that would earn me some more "awesome wife" points.  Kyle & I decided that dinner on Thursday would be cheese fondue at home.

Then Thursday came.  And the Twitter/Instagram/FB posts of everyone doing something lovely with their special someone or being single and making fun of the faux holiday.  A twinge of jealousy overcame me.  I wanted a box of chocolate and a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  Or a poem.  Or a pedicure.  Or breakfast in bed.  Or cupcakes.  Or a giant chocolate shoe.  There was an article about male vs. female spending on Valentine's Day and as well as the number of workers who count on Valentine's Day as one of their biggest days of the year.  The latter part was something I'd never thought about.  Who was I to deprive them of this potential revenue? ;)

I told Kyle in the morning about my jealousy and then quickly told him that I didn't want anything.  "Don't let me be silly.  Today will pass and everything will be ok."  A big box arrived from Amazon later in the day and I wondered if he had surprised me with a special Valentine's gift.  Nope - it was an Ayyám-i-Há present from a family member (which we are really thankful for!).  He had to stop at the store on the way home from work to get cheese and bread for our fondue dinner.  When he arrived home I was secretly hoping that he had seen all of the overdone pink and hearts and gotten me a gift.  Just some chocolates.  Maybe a rose.  Anything.

Nope.  Kyle was loyal to me, through and through.  He listened to my request not to get me anything.  Not to indulge my irrational desire to have something on this particular day of the year.  I tried to play it off cool but he saw right through me.  He felt bad and gave me a big hug.  He said "you say you don't care but you obviously do" and topped it off with "I'll do something for your next year".  What more could a girl want?  A+ for caring, my love.

So how did we spend our Valentine's Day?  We had to run back to the store to get some ingredients to make bread with our new bread maker.  We then ran to TJMaxx to try to find better mixing bowls (the ones we have from IKEA are almost 3 years old and little pieces of plastic come off when stirring now).  We found better bowls but determined we could get a better deal on Amazon.  We then came home and set to work: Jasmin grating cheese, Kyle preparing our first loaf of bread.  Grating the pound of cheese took me twenty minutes.  It was painful.  In that twenty minutes, Kyle had the opportunity to make not one but two loaves of bread.  And by "make two" I really mean Kyle put all the ingredients together, popped it in the bread maker, turned it on, and while cleaning up realized he hadn't put the stirring paddle in the bottom of the container.  This meant he had to throw out the first batch and start over again.  It was cute.  Very endearing.  This also meant that he did not take over the grating like he was going to originally.

Kyle prepping the bread; wearing the apron I made him
for the "Chopped" competition over Thanksgiving Break.

After the grating was complete, I set to work creating his flourless chocolate torte.  I decided to put the mix into ramekins instead of a bigger pan in order to make it easier for me to not eat a gigantic amount in one sitting.  While I baked, Kyle figured out how to make cheese fondue without wine.  We enjoyed our cheese fondue with apples & bread (because I was too cheap to invest in broccoli [$2.50 per bunch], carrots, and cauliflower) while listening to some chill music.  When the tortes were finished, we watched several episodes of House of Cards but Kyle didn't feel well - he thinks it was due to cheese overload.  We split a torte, topped with raspberries, since Kyle wasn't feeling in tip-top shape and it was so good (I ate one for breakfast this morning).  When the bread was finally finished at around midnight, we passed out.  What a long day!

May not look pretty, but it tastes heavenly!

I'm very thankful that we were able to spend the evening together.  I realized that exactly two years ago on Valentine's Day, Kyle started his job.  February 14th marks the day that he was able to move here; it marks a moment in time which enabled us to finally get married.  So really, we have more to celebrate on Valentine's Day than a social holiday.  We can celebrate one of the steps that allowed us to begin our life together.  And next year we will celebrate, but only because Kyle said so. ;)