Random Valentine's Day Thoughts

As I'm sure everyone knows, Valentine's Day was last Saturday.  If you're curious about the way we celebrated (or, more accurately, didn't celebrate), the day began with Criminal Minds on Netflix and bowls of cereal.  I later finished reading The Pilo Family Circus, then took a shower and got ready.  We went to Half Price Books for some book shopping (I had a 20% off coupon), and after spending about an hour or so in the store, I found 4 books and Eric found 1.  It was only about $32 for all 5 books, so I was pretty happy about that!  After the bookstore, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  Eric made some delicious bacon guacamole burgers for dinner, and I didn't take a picture because I'm a bad blogger.  We watched several episodes of Friends (somehow we're already on season 5!), and then I had a Skype date with a couple of my girlfriends who moved away last year.  I drank way too much wine (1.5 bottles, to be exact), and had a blast catching up for 6 hours.  I went to bed around 3:00 a.m., drunk and happy.

Eric and I aren't really fans of Valentine's Day, so this obviously wasn't treated as a special day for romance.  It was, however, a really great day spent with a few of my favorite people (even if I only got to see 2 of them via Skype).

The lighting is terrible in this picture, but it's the only one I took on Valentine's Day this year.  I took this right before the Skype date began.

I wouldn't say we're anti-Valentine's Day, but we've never considered it to be a special holiday worth celebrating.  I know that a lot of people love it, but we just ... Don't.

Eric and I made our relationship official in June 2007, so we'd been dating for 8 months by the time our first Valentine's Day together rolled around.  (You can read all about how we met here, if you're interested.)  Even then, we weren't really interested in making a big deal out of it.  Back in 2008, we agreed to just make cards for one another.  That's it.  No flowers, no candy, no special candlelit dinner, and, most importantly, no pressure!

Unfortunately, other people felt the need to make up for this lack of pressure by providing pressure of their own.  Every time someone asked what we were doing for Valentine's Day and I said, "Nothing really ... We're just making each other cards," I'd get a response like, "I would be so pissed if my boyfriend didn't do anything for me!"  I'd then explain that we didn't really want to make a big deal out of Valentine's Day, so we'd agreed that making something small for each other seemed like the best way to celebrate.  It's weird that other people cared so much about what we did (or didn't) do for Valentine's Day, but, for whatever reason, they did.

Eric put it best when he said, "Valentine's Day is supposed to be a celebration of love, but I think you can show love any day of the year."  I obviously managed to snag a smart man!

I guess my main point here is that Valentine's Day doesn't have to be a big thing, regardless of whether or not you're in a relationship.  I get that some people just really like holidays or enjoy any excuse for a celebration ... But some of us don't.  And that's okay.

I realize this post was mostly a bunch of random thoughts about Valentine's Day (and a selfie because, well, why not?), so I'll leave you with this very old picture of Eric and me.  This was taken in the summer of 2007, about a month or so after we made things official.  It was his first trip to visit me (if you've read some of my older posts, you may remember that we were in a long distance relationship for a little over 2 years before I moved to Omaha), and I'd taken him for a walk in my favorite park.  Aww, young love (and proof that I should probably always have bangs!).

Eric doesn't really like this picture because he's squinting, but it's one of the earliest pictures of us I could find so I wanted to share it in this post.

If anyone feels like commenting, please feel free to share your thoughts on Valentine's Day.  Are you a fan, or is it just another day for you?