Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

I hope your day is full of love, romance, and appreciation. 

Although love, romance and appreciation often go unnoticed, I hope today is the day that you take the time to feel all three.

And, to give all three.

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When I was little, Valentine's Day consisted of carefully tearing the perforated cards that my parents would buy from the drugstore, so I could give one to each of my classmates.  

As I got a little older, Valentine's Day consisted of me blushing when a boy would give me a card professing his undying love for me.  

Side note: I was none too thrilled with this.  Especially with the fact that he told everyone in the school (where my mom worked and heard about it before I did) that we had been secretly dating for a while.)

  Who said girls were the only dramatic ones?  Sheesh.

Then I got a little older and my Valentine's Day consisted of me getting a card at school that said, "I love you."  And I kept my classmates guessing at who the sender was.  Although, I knew who it was from.  My daddy.

Then came the teen years full of teddy bears, balloons, stuffed animals, chocolates and roses.

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Now Valentine's Day is still full of all those little sweet gestures, but it's more than that.  It's still a romantic day that we make sure to love on each other a little extra.  But, being married, it's not only chocolate and roses.  It's about loving the real stuff, too.  And, taking the time to really appreciate it.

This song I have for you to listen to is not about Valentine's Day, and it's not about romance.  It's about real life.  It describes me and Carl pretty accurately, and I'm sharing it with you because these are some of the little things that we appreciate in one another.  We do our best to not take them for granted.

And this Valentine's Day, I hope you, too, find the little things to appreciate in your relationship with your loved one.

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