St. Valentine's Day

Yesterday, Valentine's Day. Not really sure what to do with it. It's not a religious holiday unless you celebrate the Feast Day of Patron Saint Valentine (of which there were several), nor is it anti-religious like Halloween. It's just... sorta... there. Not as insignificant as President's Day, but not as important as Easter. Many people call it a "Hallmark Holiday". I tend to agree. Husband and I don't do much for the big V-day. We say "Happy Valentine's Day" to eachother, and I call him "my Valentine". Sometimes I get some chocolates, or maybe a card, though most years it's not in the monthly budget so I don't worry about it. Since my birthday is also in February, I'd much rather him spend our "fun money" on my birthday! :-)

This is how I spent my Valentine's Day... and coincidentally the same exact way I spent my birthday this year. (With the exception of the rice crispie treat fiasco.)

~Woke up extra early to make rice crispie treats for one of the boys' classroom parties. I had made one batch Sunday night, and wanted to make another batch so both boys could take treats to school. I used the pink strawberry flavored marshmallows. Drew has a girl in his class with several food allergies, so he is very concious about taking treats she can eat. She's allergic to egg and peanut and that makes a lot of treats out of the question.
I mixed up the melted marshmallows and rice crispies, then molded them in to a mini-muffin pan so I could have individual bite sized servings. (Learning about equal, individual servings in baking class.) I kept coming across these big lumps of hard white stuff. I had no clue what it was, but it was frustrating me. I used pink marshmallows, so it's not like it was unmelted marshmallow. I finished putting the mixture in the muffin pan and had some leftover that I was going to put in a small pan for the kids to eat after school. That's when I noticed my spatula! It was completely melted away! The hot marshmallow melted my spatula! That's what the big white chunks were. And I had eaten some of it. yuck. I threw everything away and went to wake the boys. I told them what happened, but I had a solution. I had bought a bag of conversation hearts for my gymnastics students, so I let the boys choose who took the candy and who took the rice crispies for their parties. Luckily there was no issue as Hunter was excited to take the candy instead.

~Baking class went very well. I made a cinnamon swirl raisin bread. It was tiring, though. Being in a cooking/baking class for 5 hours three days a week, then going to work afterwards is tiring. But it's no more than full-time working moms do.
There was an incident where a girl stormed out of class because she found something she's not naturally good at. I'm not good at a LOT of things. I'm lucky that I found a talent in baking, and a love for it. I hope I get to do it for a living some day. However, I'd like to think that if I wasn't good at it, I wouldn't storm out in tears every time something didn't go right for me.

~After class I had to go shopping. I had 45 minutes to get it done, get out of there, and get home. I got home at the very last possible minute. Just enough time to change and get to work. I felt bad because the boys had their Valentine's out and were waiting to show me what they got. I would have loved nothing more than to sit and look at their cards, make them dinner, play with them, and spend a nice Valentine's evening at home. But... that's not where I am at this point in my life. So off to work I went!

~I have four gymnastics classes on Monday nights. I'm the only teacher at my gym because it's a small YMCA and there isn't need for a large gymnastics program. I had Valentine candy for my students, and several of my kids had brought me boxes of chocolates. I love this job! Sometimes it's frustrating, but the kids make it so rewarding. I feel blessed that I get to do nothing but work with children. I was, however, very happy when no one showed up for my 7:00 class! (It was "icing" out, so not very drivable weather.) I got to go home a little early to see my munchkins.
Louisa had made the boys dinner for me. I finally taught her how to use the oven, or rather she had a crash course in it because she was babysitting one day (for other kids) and their mom had left a frozen pizza for Louisa to make them. She didn't want to tell the mom she didn't know how, so she called me! At the store I found DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies! So cool! Louisa was excited to make it.

~When I got home I was greeted with, "MOM!! Come here! I have a surprise for you!" Drew made me a scavenger hunt. I had to read each note and follow the clues to find the next note. At the end of the scavenger hunt I found a card. The card says:

Dear Mom, I am writing you a poem
I hope that we are both always in a nice warm home
I wish you a very, very happy Valentine's Day
I don't just love you on your Birthday.

Now *that* is just what I needed to end a long day.

Wait.... one more thing! Did I mention that my "Valentine" wasn't home? He's on a trip out of state. So the last thing I really needed? To finally sit and talk with him on the phone.
Ahh..... now that I've done that, I have everything I needed to end my long day.