Happy Valentine’s Day!

~ Laura

Whew! I just hit you and everyone else with lots of content related to a study skill book. Typically, about 95 percent of the work I put into an article ends up on the cutting room floor. Sometimes the content isn’t right for the publication or sometimes the information is tangential. Most often, cuts happen because I produce 4,000 word drafts than have to get cut back to a more internet-friendly 1,400 words for people who read content on the cellphones. Luckily, I have newsletters and blogs where I can write what I really wanted to write. Makes me happy.

You know what also makes me really happy? Selling books. I just sold two first edition Dickens books that I found in a hoarder’s stacks. I paid less than $1 and sold them for $1,200 to a nice gentleman from Florida. Yay.

Here’s another happy thing. After I take those books to the post office, my work responsibilities are done for the day. I’ll go for a run and get my nails done for tonight’s date night with the hubby. I might even go Full Girlie and put red hearts on my door. I’m actually really psyched for this afternoon. I’m going to buy myself flowers, and then let Steve buy myself flowers.

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

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Published by Laura

15 thoughts on “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

  1. “Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?”

    Yes, but I categorically refuse to set foot in a restaurant on either Valentine’s or Mother’s Day.

    It’s always a little bit different, but yesterday I bought a mocha tres leches cake (tres leches is a Mexican sponge cake soaked in sweet milky goo), two boxes of strawberries, bananas, and some of those melting chocolates for dipping the fruit in.

    If all goes well, my husband will get me a large, gaudy helium heart balloon, which should last for the next two months.

    The 4th grader addressed her Valentines by herself last night (YAY!).

    In other years, we’ve had heart-shaped homemade double chocolate muffins.

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    1. Tres leches cake is so good!

      We had out of town guests so we skipped V day this year except for sending heart emojis.

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  2. I also refuse to go out on valentine’s day, but am not quite as doctrinaire about mother’s day.

    We have decided it doesn’t make sense for spouse to buy me flowers because I have become an amateur enthusiast about flowers (ie I judge). So I bought flowers last Wednesday (from Poppy flower, online, arranged them and photographed for today). I also bought myself art (painted sculptural daffodils).

    Spouse gets cranky at having to perform for official holidays and I can live with that.

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  3. oops, that was me, bj.

    Last year, nest emptying kid’s senior year, I was asked for supplies to make valentines for his 30 person class. Valentines used to be a big deal in our house — one year he folded origami yoda for everyone in his class. So I was pleased to supply for a final time.

    I had plastic monster finger puppets in my still extensive supply closet. He pasted hearts with names on their plastic hands. And, most impressively of all, his class all put on the puppets and lip synced “Pump it up” and shared the video. My valentines mom journey seemed perfectly completed.

    Same kiddo decorated his dorm room for Valentines because he went to Target and the deco followed him home, as happens at Target.

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  4. Last year, nest emptying kid’s senior year, I was asked for supplies to make valentines for his 30 person class. Valentines used to be a big deal in our house — one year he folded origami yoda for everyone in his class. So I was pleased to supply for a final time.

    I had plastic monster finger puppets in my still extensive supply closet. He pasted hearts with names on their plastic hands. And, most impressively of all, his class all put on the puppets and lip synced “Pump it up” and shared the video. My valentines mom journey seemed perfectly completed.

    Same kiddo decorated his dorm room for Valentines because he went to Target and the deco followed him home, as happens at Target.

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  5. No Valentines Day here (well, some people in romantic relationship celebrate it – but that’s not me).
    Also NZ is in the aftermath of a major cyclone (flooding, landslides, etc. – so most people not really in the mental space for romance). I’m fine, and so is my extended family – but the constant doom-laden media is mentally exhausting.

    Sorry, Laura – have skipped over the study posts. I’ll come back and read them later, but right now, I am a Bear of Very Little Brain.

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    1. Sorry for the doom-laden media, which can have a huge impact, even if we’re personally all right.

      Everybody take care of themselves and each other, as we can.

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  6. OK, I have to take a second to vent about the lamotrigine study headlines:

    “Scientists ‘switch off’ autism symptoms using $3 epilepsy drug: discovery”

    “New Study Finds $3 Pill May Help Turn Off Autism Symptoms in Mice”

    “Drug Shown to Alleviate Autism-Associated Behavior”

    “Scientists ‘CURE autism’ in mice using $3 epilepsy drug”

    I also think I can kind of rank this set of headlines based on the reliability of the source (which I’ve stripped here). The 3rd headline would be the bes, if we added “in mice” to the headline. And, the main symptom alleviated was hyperactivity (which isn’t, usually, a core characteristic of autism).

    And, the press releases ignore a human trial of lamotrigine, a small study, but one that showed no symptom improvement compared to a placebo in pre-adolescent boys (Lamotrigine therapy for autistic disorder: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial K M Belsito 1, P A Law, K S Kirk, R J Landa, A W Zimmerman).

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  7. I made a nice salmon dinner in for Vday, with some excellent chocolate bundt cake leftover from our Superbowl party for dessert. A new recipe from King Arthur that I was very happy with. We also went out to dinner on Friday at a great Mexican place out of town, as well as drinks on Saturday, so we got our “going out for Vday” experience without having to actually go out on the day itself.

    You have to read this fake letter to the Slate advice column which I did not get was about the royal family until someone pointed it out in the comments: https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/02/sister-in-law-brother-fun-dear-prudence-advice.html

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  8. Here’s the best part: “recently, he’s been posting on social media saying how badly we’ve all treated him and that other family members said horrible things to his wife. We would probably ignore this, but my father recently received a promotion and he’s planning to have a bunch of his family and friends around to celebrate. My wife and I are worried that if my brother and his wife come, it will cause a massive argument.”

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