Valentine's this and that

Valentines is not my favorite holiday.  I'm single and tend to feel completely left out when it comes around.  I've referred to it as Single Awareness Day for a while.  I did get a few cards out to family members but didn't expect much of the day itself.  All day at work, I thought I'd swing by Target in the evening and see if I could find a pink frosted sugar cookie.  Singles Awareness Day just isn't the same without a pink frosted sugar cookie.  I managed to talk myself out of a sugar coma and went to the gym instead.

Imagine my surprise to come home from the gym and find this on my bed:

My sweet SIL A had gone out and got some balloons filled with confetti and covered my bed.  What else to we spy?  That's right a pink frosted sugar cookie with my name on it.  Bliss!!  SIL A also brought me a purple heart shaped Mylar balloon.  That silly balloon nearly brings me to tears every time I look at it.  You see, for Valentines day I used to buy two or three heart shaped Mylar balloon for Grandma S who passed away last April.  They were big and bright and something that Grandma S could see.  They also lasted a good while and when done, no ones feelings were hurt when put in the trash.  Anyway, my purple balloon is more special than SIL A had intended, I'm sure.

Grandma and Grandpa L sent a fun letter with this inside:

A certificate for 1 pound of chocolate.  Mmmmmm.... Chocolate.  They've given up on Christmas and send Valentines to the grandkids instead.  It's a fun and different tradition. I went and chose my chocolates today.  I'll admit that I wasn't very creative with my selections.  I chose half a pound of chocolate covered peanut butter discs and half a pound of chocolate covered caramels.  I thought about some toffee bits, but since Mom is buying supper yummy toffee bits from Costco, I decided I could fore go those.

And against the norm, I stitched a couple of smalls.

The first one is Be Mine.  A freebie that I printed off of someones blog.  Unfortunately the blog name didn't print with the pattern so I have no idea where it came from anymore.  I know I printed it off this year, though.  If you know where it came from, please let me know so I can give proper credit and a link.  I stitched it 2 over 2 on 32 ct. Picture This Plus something or other.  It's a little remnant of fabric from Crabby All Year.  The floss I used was DMC 99 that I found in the bottom of my floss shoebox.

The second one is a restitch.

This is Love a freebie from The Workbasket.  I stitched this last year to put in the casket with Grandma S.  I thought about her the whole time I worked on it.  I added a few more colors than what I did last time around and left off some of the other bits.  I've realized that I dated it 2011 even though I stitched all of it on February 12, 2012.  I'm such a dork sometimes.  I stitched this 2 over 2 on 30 ct. Angel Hair linen by WDW with the following WDW flosses: Camillia, Bayberry, and Plum.

So all in all, I made out pretty good for a holiday that I don't really like.  I wonder when the marketing guru's will come up with a contrived holiday for singles?  Something to sell anything, right?

Hugs and Stitches,
Kay