What Valentine's Day means to me this year.

“To love others you must first love yourself.”

― Leo Buscaglia, Love 

Valentine's day is a day to remember that special love in your life in the words of Jerry Maguire  'that completes you'.  I do not necessarily think it has to be a passionate love of your soul mate, it can easily be others, like a child, a sister, friend or a dog.  I have that soul mate love in my life in my husband and I feel lucky that he is my keeper of my hearr. Well actually I have several people I love who complete my life, but Hubs completes my heart.

I know a lot of people hate this Hallmark driven day, for a few reasons...

It reminds those who are not in a place where they have love or simply can not give nor accept it due to anger, loneliness.  To that I can only quote me some Leo:

“Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.”

Others don't like this day as it is truly a commercialization kinda day, where advertisers try to guilt you into buying something to show your love in this particular day that involves spending too much money.  Well to that I say stick with the simplicity of a loving gesture, show not buy the person how much you love them.  

More Leo:

“Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.” 

Now for those who think this is a day to "score" versus loving listen to Leo: 

“Don't walk in my head with your dirty feet.”  

 

Are you a Hunter or a Gatherer?

I wonder how many of us are hunters and how many of us are gatherers?  

I am a gatherer, though I do love a good hunt for a bargain (I am my mothers daughter after all)!  I am a gatherer of everything from family history stuff...my dad's report cards...my grandparents marriage certificate...most of the family photos...etc.  I also have memorablia from my elementary, high school, and college years...I mean I still have news papers from high school football games and sorority and fraternity charms from college.  I have ticket stubs and t'shirts from concerts, long lost boyfriends love letters (note: Hubs has some of his!) birthday cards from grandparents now gone. I have several memorable items from when Hubs was wooing me, pressed flowers and cards. But what do I gather the absolute most?  Well it is something I am allergic to, and not a fan of at all, but I sure do have a lot of it.  I bet you would of never guess it...dust...I gather so much in this house even after I have dusted and I have dust...I do not enjoy dusting at all.  But honestly does dusting really ever ring someones bell?  

I wish I could say that I am good at hunting the dust down, but I have to be honest, it just reproduces too fast for me...I mean it is worse than rabbits which we have too, but I didn't gather those, they just showed up...one in our garage reeking havoc...but I digress and we all know how fast they multiply..I betcha didn't know they pop out those baby rabbits after only 32 days and average about 8 a litter...but again I digress.

When I come into my millions (still waiting on that winning Publishers Clearing House win) one of the first things I do in my new mansion, is hire someone to control my gathering habit of dust.  I would really love it if someone else did the housecleaning, but until those millions come in it is me.   So I will start this cycle over and over and over again writing my name or 'Dust Me' on the book shelves that need dusting or in hopes someone else in this household would just do it once. Normally I do my best Scarlett O'Hara imitation 'fiddle dee dee, fiddle dee dee' 'tomorrow is another day'...and go eat some bon bons.  Now when I win my millions I will also have the cabana boy fetch my bon bons in between fanning me by the pool, so I don't 'glow' too much!