Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day!

I know so many people hate Valentine's Day. To be honest, I'm slightly one of those people.

I don't hate Valentine's Day. But it does seem a little strange that there is a single day designated to showing your affection for your significant other.

So I decided to jump of the WWW and look up the legend of St. Valentine:

There are various theories on the origin of Valentine's Day, but the most popular dates back to the time of the Roman Empire during the reign of Claudius II, 270 AD. Claudius didn't want men to marry during wartime because he believed single men made better soldiers. Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret wedding ceremonies. For this, Valentine was jailed and then executed by order of the Emperor on February 14. While in jail, he wrote a love note to the jailor's daughter signing it, "From your Valentine." Sound familiar?

Other fun facts:

• More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.
• Over $1 billion worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine's Day in the U.S.
• 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
• The red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
• Teachers will receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.

(All facts and the story of Valentine's Day were found at http://www.sheknows.com/holidays-and-seasons/articles/807655/fun-facts-about-valentine-s-day)

I hope that when people show their significant other's love/affection/appriciation, I hope they are loving them in their personal love language.

The Five Love Languages is an exellent book. I highly recommend it, to everyone! Now having Hadley, I really really want this book:

There's just no point in showing love to someone, especially your child or spouce, if that isn't how they personally feel loved... These books are very useful tools in relationship building.

Well, there is my "tid-bit" about Valentine's Day. Now I will leave you with these two last things:

Happy Valentine's Day to you, my love. We have had such a crazy year. We bought a house, had our beautiful baby Hadley girl, and you're finishing up everything with Paramedic school. I couldn't be more proud of you and I love you more every day!

Last fun fact about Valentine's day: I was supposed to be born on Valentine's Day. It was on Feb. 14, 1988 that my mom went into labor with me. It wasn't until 72 hours later, on Feb 17, 1988, that I was born. Talk about endurance!