VALENTINE'S DAY

Hello, friends!  Here it is almost the end of the month and I am just getting around to tell you about Valentine's Day.  I am so behind on everything!

It was a really low-key day.  So much so that I don't remember a lot about it.  The biggest thing about it was that we had our new dishwasher delivered.  And that was a big thing.  We have been without a dishwasher since the end of October, so this was a wonderful thing.  I'm going to do another post about that.

I had asked for a tea kettle for Valentine's Day.  Ever since Joe got the new Keurig, all of my tea was tasting of coffee.  Joe came through with it and I got a beautiful whistling tea kettle that I had been looking at on Amazon.  I am so happy with it and my tea tastes so good.

The other thing he gave me was this pretty little silver heart necklace.

It is tiny but just right.  I have worn it every day since I got it.  He got it at Cracker Barrel when we were there for Carole's birthday.

We were going to go out for dinner (my gift to Joe) but it got later and later.  We ended up just having dinner at home.  I made pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans.  We are still waiting to go to dinner.  Maybe tomorrow?  We want to go to Yamato's.  We both love that place.

I want to show you some of the decorations I put up.  I do not have a lot of Valentine's Day decor.  And it was so cold that I didn't even get the garden flag up.  But here is what I did do.

I kept my star candle holder on the shelf but put up a love picture and a little stuffed red gingham heart.

My little cupid.  The only Valentine's figurine that I have.

Every year Joe gives me one red rose.  Something he has done ever since our first Valentine's Day together.  Each year it is different.  If you look back through my posts, you can see all the different red roses he has given to me.  This year it was this one.

Isn't it beautiful?  Look closely.  It is made out of crepe paper.  It looks so realistic that unless you get up close like this, you can't tell.  I love it and best of all I can keep it forever.

This is the wreath on the front door.  Joe bought it for me last year.  It is so pretty, and I love it.

So that's about it.  I hope to get a few more posts up this week.  Can you believe it is the end of February already?  I am so looking forward to March and (hopefully) better weather and warmer temperatures.  This has been a cold month!

Before I end, the world events lie heavy on my heart tonight.  I follow two YouTubers in Ukraine and one in Russia.  I am keeping on top of everything they post.  It is sad and frightening what is going on in the war.  None of them want the war.  They all believed that war would never happen.  Now it is on their doorstep.  One of the Ukrainians (Olga) has two little children is trying to get to friends in Poland.  The last post she had up she was leaving and trying to find gas.  Pavlo has decided to stay in his apartment right outside of Kyev.  He is definitely frightened.  Vinca in Russia is in shock and can't believe it is happening.  They all ask for prayer.  I am praying all day and night for this situation.  I hope you will join me.

Until later...

Kathy

VALENTINE'S DAY

 

Hello, friends!  I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday.  It is still icy around here but this week it is supposed to warm up and hopefully everything will be gone by next weekend.  Even the stuff that we are supposed to get tomorrow.

Joe is giving the message today in church.  Because Pastor was sick Joe was supposed to preach two weeks ago.  But the weather was so bad church was cancelled.  Then he was supposed to preach last week.  But it was icy out and we were warned by our news stations to stay off of the roads.  So church was cancelled again.  Finally today he will get to give the message.  I will tape it and link it here if any of you want to see it.

But let me tell you about Valentine's Day.  It really started on Friday when I got a phone call from a man who asked if I was Kathy and where did I live.  He had an address of 4723 and we are at 4722.  So he was looking across the street and there are no houses across from me.  Just the Vietnam Veterans building and two parking lots.  No wonder the guy was confused.

I went to the door and he handed me two packages.  One was a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a balloon and the other was a box of chocolates, a white teddy bear and a beautiful card with another balloon.  You can guess it was from Joe.

The chocolates were so good!  They didn't last long.

On Sunday (Valentine's Day) Joe gave me another box of chocolates.  This was a beautiful heart shaped box.

For lunch Joe made me chocolate chip pancakes.  I had never had them before.  He said he used to make them when he was in the Marines and everyone loved them.

He really does know his way around a kitchen.

Here's the stack of pancakes he put in front of me.  We shared them, of course.

I don't have a lot of Valentine decorations.  I got this little heart picture a couple of years ago from Rite Aid after the holiday.  I think I paid only $2 for it or so.  I know it was really cheap because they were trying to get rid of the Valentine's stuff.

At Target a few years back I got this Valentine's bowl.  It is such a pretty robin's egg blue inside with a gold XOXO on it.  I put M&Ms and Dove chocolate hearts in it.

Here you can see the outside of it.  There are lots of little hearts with sayings on them like the candy conversation hearts.

Joe bought a Valentine's wreath for the front door from a lady in our neighborhood.  She makes them and this was the last one she had.  It's so pretty.

And I have a large foil heart in the window.  That's the one that was usually on the door.

And that's about it for my decorations.  I bought a new garden flag for Valentine's Day, but it was too snowy and cold for me to get out there to put it up.  Oh well, there's always next year.

And then the day got interesting.  I started getting a nagging headache.  As the day went on, it got worse and worse.  Then my stomach got upset.  And I ended up with a full blown migraine.  Great!  I had planned a great meal for Joe and I ended up on the sofa (didn't even make it to the bed) in the dark trying not to throw up.  It was not a nice end to the day.

The next day, though, I did manage to make the dinner I had planned.  We had a pork loin that was so good and juicy.  And some green beans, wax beans and carrots mix.  For dessert I had made an apple cobbler.  Everything was good and we both enjoyed it.

So that is my Valentine's story for this year.  It all turned out OK in the end, but what a time we had.

And now here's an extra for you.  I always talk about my fried rice and how good it is.  Some people have asked me for the recipe and I put it on my YouTube channel.  Here is the link so that you can watch it and see how it is made.

Now I have to get off of here and get to church.  Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Until later...

Kathy

VALENTINE'S DAY

Hello, friends!  I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day.  It was one of the best days I have had in a long time.  I have lots to tell and show you. 

First of all, when Joe went to his Veterans' Meeting on Wednesday, one of the ladies there sent me a plate of Valentine's goodies.  That was so sweet of her.  I would like to say I still have some left, but that would be a lie.  Hee, hee!

Joe had to go to a doctor's appointment on Thursday at the V.A. hospital.  I drove him down in some horrible weather and even more horrible traffic.  I just left him off and came home.  After his appointment, he took the train home.  When I met him at the train station, he had the most beautiful flowers for me for Valentine's Day.  He always makes sure to give me one red rose, and there is a red rose in the mix.  I put them onto the stove to get the photos of them because the hood light is so good.  And I took a lot of pictures.

First, I took pictures of the entire bouquet from different sides.  If you turn it around, it looks different.

You can see my one red rose among the mix.

I'm trying to remember to turn it a little each day so I can enjoy all of the flowers.

Here is the red rose.  I love roses.

I don't know what these are called, but they are so pretty.

A light yellow carnation.

Some pretty yellow and pink freesia.

A red carnation.  There seems to be one or two flowers of so many different kinds.

A light yellow daisy.  The flowers all seem to be pink, red, purple, yellow or white.

Right in the middle is a big sunflower.  I love sunflowers.

A purple lily.

A purple daisy.

I had missed this pink rose in the beginning.  It's so pretty.

And finally white daisies.

The flowers Joe got me last week didn't last very long and he was disappointed.  I put these in a bigger vase and since it is glass, I figure I can keep an eye on the water level.  So far, it is still beautiful.

Yesterday we were going to go to Yamoto's for lunch.  Yamoto's is our favorite Japanese restaurant.  I love the vegan sushi they have there made with mangos.  Joe wanted to get a chicken bento box.  We started out about 1:00 p.m. and found we couldn't get onto I-95 to get there.  The on ramp was blocked and cars were lined up in both directions for blocks.  I-95 is only two blocks from my house and it took us 10 minutes to get there.  So we decided to just eat at the restaurant at Shoprite instead.

We both had California roll sushi and iced tea.  The Japanese man who works there had just made the sushi a few minutes before and handed it to us.  He's so nice.  He used to live in the same place that Joe was stationed in Japan so they have a bond.  😊

I took a picture of Joe but because the window was behind him, it didn't turn out so well.

The one he took of me was better even though my hair was messed up.  I forgot to say that the temperature dropped dramatically.  It went from 45*F (7*C) to 25* (-4*C).  When we went out, it was about 34*F (1*C) and very windy.  It went down to 17*F (-8*C) last night.  And that's without the wind chill.

Coming home, I took the back way into the neighborhood where I live to avoid the tie up which was still there.  We found out later that there were two major accidents, one northbound and one southbound.  That is why we saw no traffic on the overpass and heard a lot of sirens from police and ambulances rushing by on the empty highway.

Later on, I bought dinner for us.  One of the restaurants in the neighborhood makes a heart-shaped pizza so I got that.  Isn't it cute?

We had also gotten a few things at Shoprite while we were there.  If you read my post yesterday, you might remember I had forgotten to get olive oil.  So we got that.  We also got some cute cupcakes for our dessert.

Would you like white icing or pink?  I had one of each.  Today I will go back to eating healthy.

This morning Joe is going to a men's breakfast at church.  We have them every other month.  He got some Danish and some coffee to take over.  I have to go with him because I need some bulletin covers for this week and I will try to get a few pictures before I leave for our Facebook and blog pages.  If I do, I will share them with you tomorrow.

Have a good day everyone!

Kathy

VALENTINE'S DAY

(I am writing this on Saturday the 16th while I am feeling OK but do not have the energy to do too much.  Hopefully in a few days I will be back to real time.)

It is a few days after Valentine's Day but I thought I would tell you about it.  It wasn't the greatest day because I was feeling so sick.  I ended up spending most of the day laying on the sofa and watching TV.

On Wednesday Joe had to go to the bank.  I had to drive him because he no longer drives.  The bank he uses is in the Shoprite we used to go to.  I drove around for awhile until I found a parking spot and then sat there reading until he came out.  When he did, he had some beautiful flowers for me.  He made sure it included one red rose which is what he gives me every year since we've been together.  The one red rose is a very special symbol between us.

On the way home I had to stop for gas at Wawa.  Joe said he was hungry and wanted to get a sandwich so we drove over to the store and again I just stayed in the car while he went in.  He came out with a couple of donuts and one of them was just for me.

We had stopped at Rite Aid on the way to the bank and when we get home Joe puts a Rite Aid bag in my hands.  In it are Peeps!  You know I love those Peeps.  The large ones are regular flavor and the small hearts are strawberry creme.  Yum!

And a pair of Valentine's Day socks.  So cute!

On Valentine's Day morning Joe says to me that he forgot to give me something and hands me another bag.  There were two beautiful tops in it.

The first one is definitely for summer even though it has longer sleeves.  It is sheer and I will have to wear a camisole with it.

I love the cord around the neckline and the tassels on the end.

The second top was even prettier.  I love the Asian look to it.  Joe loved it too and that is why he got it for me.

This has shorter sleeves.  The sleeves have these sweet little pleats in them.  So pretty!

He also gave me a beautiful card.

I gave Joe a card and some of his favorite dark chocolate Dove candy hearts and a bag of Hershey kisses with conversations printed on the bottom of them.  Then I made him a dinner of hickory smoked ham, mashed sweet potatoes and mixed veggies.  He had a butter pecan gelato for dessert and I had a Klondike bar.

So even though I was sick, we still had a wonderful day.  Of course any day we are together is a wonderful day.

Kathy