Valentine's Day 2009

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, in case you didn't know. My supervisor said it was a financial ploy made up by the card and candy companies to make money. Poppycock. From what I read it has to do with Christian martyrs named Valentine and gets associated with love by none other that Chaucer -- long before greeting Hallmark or conversation hearts were invented...

I really wanted to celebrate so I had three parties. On Friday we got the girls in our ward together to eat food and tell bad date stories -- the equals of which I have not heard. Our merriment was interrupted by the announcement that some of our cars had been defiled by Saran wrap and toilet paper. The perps are still at large and considered to be stinky and have stale food. 

On Saturday afternoon I hosted a fancy-schmancy Tea Party. We drank tea, had little sandwiches, scones, and chocolate covered strawberries.

That evening I went to SLC with Kate, Rhiannon, and Julia for a night of fun and adventure. We ate at The Dodo. Can you say yummy? We told secrets, laughed, and really, really enjoyed the eats. We stayed at the Little America where we fully embraced the hot tub, tried to embrace the indoor/outdoor pool, and wanted to marry the sauna. We stayed up late for a flick and fell into the deep sleep of the worn-out. In the morning we took in Music and the Spoken Word and sauntered back to reality. 
I felt the love!

Pleasure in the Written Word

I should be reading all about DBT in preparation for a group I'm in. I have a lot of motivation to do this because my supervisor, on a number of occasions, has said, "That Marsha Linehan could have used a good editor. The first two chapters are really wordy." So you can understand haste I feel to read it.

So instead I realized I have time to read something I am interested in -- Girls in Pants, the Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. I love the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series! This is where Kate roles her eyes and also tells me I can also watch Step Up 2 alone. 

The books are well written as far as those types of books are. By those types I mean books that have no other agenda other than pleasure. 

I love my Great Gatsby and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and A Separate Peace -- but those books are thinkers; you are supposed to be edified or learn something or something like that. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, less so. No English teachers will feature these books but I think they are completely enjoyable.

Other enjoyable books are as follows:

Are You There God It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume. While entertaining, I must own that it changed my life.

Fifteen and the Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary. I've read these over and over.

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. Although it was magical (no pun intended) and emotional.

Catherine Called Birdie by Karen Cushman.

All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor . Never wanted to be Jewish more in my life.

What are you "pure entertainment" picks?

I want that too

Not sure what brought on this post. Just a random thought, not to be taken too too seriously.

Telling a single person, such as myself, to get with the program and fall in love is like unto:

Telling an infertile couple to try harder

Telling a starving child to go get a sandwich

Telling a teacher to make a million

Telling William Hung to win American Idol

All of us want what our advice givers want. We're doing all we can. But it's just not like grocery shopping. Some things are out of our control when it comes right down to it. I wish the focus would change from convincing people they should do what they already want to do and just focus on things that are in our control and are going well. I'm dealing with it in my way. Please do your best, dear friends, to not point out how out of control it is by asking me to control the impossible-to-control. 

Some unhelpful, well-intentioned things:

"I don't understand why you aren't married" (yeah, me neither)

Depending on who it's coming from - "I have someone to set you up with" (says to me, "You must be doing something wrong so I'll fix it)

"You need to get with the program" (is that what I'm supposed to be doing? never occurred to me)

"I just wish you could get married" (yeah, me too -- what are you expecting me to say?)

Some helpful, well-intentioned things:

"You look hot"

"What's up?"

"Did you see The Office?" (no seriously, it was hilarious)

"I love you"

I don't want this to be a wo-is-me post, because that is not how I approach life -- see below. This is just a random post about a fact that's kind of a big deal to me. Like, I'm doing and thinking about other stuff, but, yeah, I'd really like to be in love and even married. And I'm not weird for wanting that because I was built that way. But, like I said, I'm not, like, sitting around waiting for Prince Charming (because, with a name like that, he's probably gay) so don't get the wrong idea about this post. 

I'm going to go to bed now. If nothing else, we all can sleep -- medically induced or otherwise. :)