Monday Mentions: Valentine's Edition (on thursday!)

Note: Monday morning, I was up till 5am, in the emergency room with my girl.  Hence the fact that it is no longer Monday for these mentions!  But because I like to keep some sort of organization around here, I'm going to go ahead and post.  

I believe this is the first Valentine's Day that I've spent in a hoodie, on the couch with shots of airborne and Aleve gelcaps.   The good news is that I ate chocolate for dinner (which must be great for fighting off sickness) and I have all my favorite tabs open on my laptop--Facebook, Blogger, Hotmail, and Pinterest--the perks of being sick.

Tonight, Husband spoiled the kids and I rotten.  Flowers, chocolates, a tanning gift card--he said "tanning goes good with Crossfit."  Hmmm...I'm down with that, along with a cap guns for the boy and a jumbo coloring book and markers for the girl.

Last night, Husband tucked me into bed, assuming all responsibility outside of the bedroom--meals, tending to our girl who is finally about recovered from her two separate flu cases in the last ten days, and even ran to the store to purchase Valentines for the kids so they could be part of today's festivities--even if it was a drop and pick-up order.  Such a love.

I loved that I could hear him and the boy talking about the kids in his class, while working on writing to's and from's on his Valentines.  Asher clarified to his uncle a few times, "I do not have a girlfriend!"  Oh, good.  Let's talk about that again in about fifteen years.

Now for some sweet Valentine mentions:

Isn't this Theo Classic Library of chocolates, charming?    The books come in Toasted Coconut Dark Chocolate, Salted Almond Dark Chocolate, Cherry Almond Dark Chocolate, Orange Dark Chocolate, Mint Dark Chocolate, Spicy Chile Dark Chocolate, 70% Dark Chocolate, 85% Dark Chocolate, Salted Almond Milk Chocolate, & 45% Milk Chocolate (3 oz ea).  I'd hide these bars away, for sure.

One of my favorite pastimes is to find love in unsuspecting places, whether it is in the backyard, in the kitchen, or on fabulous streams put together by other love seekers.

I recently became a follower of the lovely, Gala Darling, and learned about her Radical Self Love Project, and the amazing journals that women are creating in effort to promote self love.  Aren't these wonderful? Now I want to tear open my scrapbook supplies from ages ago, to engage in some paper crafting madness.

Speaking of journals, how sweet is this journal for couples?  I found it while reading this post on love and marriage, and I love the idea.  What I originally went looking for are these words that my friend, Erin, posted on Facebook recently.  Such a wonderful explanation of true love--that I would love to have framed.

There are no standing lovers: the only way to love is to lay down.

Lay down plans. Lay down agendas. Lay down self.

Love is always the laying down.

This is how to make love out of a marriage: Love lays down it’s own wants to lift up the will of another.

Love let’s go of it’s plans — to hold on to a person.
-Ann Voskamp 

If I were in NYC tonight, I would have made sure we had reservations here (the place we spent Thanksgiving on our honeymoon), enticed Husband up 86 floors to do this, and finished the evening with a nightcap here, to make it a seriously romantic Valentine's Day.  Note to self: order up some frozen hot chocolate mixes, stat.

What was the best part of your Valentine's Day?