Love Is a Fortune

Until my last breath, I won't understand the power of the calendar.  How it dictates our human interactions with one another. 

My personal spin on Valentine's Day is this:  please love me the other 364.  That's the best gift any man can give a lady...and any lady can give a man.  Plain.  Simple.

Hallmark, florists, and chocolate factories are the February profiteers, because the cards will be tossed, the flowers will die, and the candy will be eaten.  The gestures fade, and everything goes back to how it was on February 13th. 

In our home, we have always taken the road less traveled when it comes to gift-giving.  When we were first married and money was something we didn't have, on Christmas Eve we would each take a blank check out of the checkbook, write a check out to the other for $1,000, have a big-todo of exchanging them, and then we'd lovingly burn them in our fireplace.  Not only was it fun, each of us could honestly say we got $1,000 for Christmas!

The gifts that are given throughout the year, for no special reason, are the ones, from personal experience, that outweigh all others.  They don't have to cost a lot of money.  Women just need to feel the love.  Men need to feel the love.  We spouses and significant-others have the responsibility to make sure the other feels that love.  We can't assume the other half knows how we feel.  We have to somehow convey our feelings.  Plain.  Simple.

In these difficult economic years, if couples don't have extra money to buy a Valentine's present for the other, one sweet gesture can be made with an ordinary jar, paper, and pen.  Take the time to write 365 messages of love, put them in the jar, and each day of the year your loved one can be reminded of the love the two of you share.  (The effort itself will knock the socks off the recipient.)  On the outside of the jar, write/type something like:

To last throughout the coming year,

here is a jar of fortune cookies just for you,

365 folded up inside

to start the day anew.

Just choose one to read each day,

and know I Love You in every way!

Some examples for sayings could be:

Even when we're far apart,

you're always in my heart.

Wherever I go, whatever I do, I carry with me, a little part of you.

I love your smile.

Thank you for being you.

I love the way you love me.

Your are my greatest gift.

Please grow old beside me.



The sweetest messages are the ones that are intimate and hold special meaning between only two people.  Toss in some jokes, a tease or two, being careful to aim for only smiles or happy tears, and repeat messages are okay.  I swear the most loving gifts my matie ever gave me were picked in the woods, carved by his knife, or stemmed from his day-to-day tolerating my silly antics that I'm afraid only he would put up with.  Plain.  Simple.