oh my word, it has been more than 2 weeks since my last post.  i hope you’re still with me, i’ve missed our little chats:) i can’t even really account for this major lapse in time, except that sometimes, we have to “prioritize.” so what’s been up?

on february 11th, i, along with the rest of the world took a collective gasp as we learned about Whitney Houston’s passing.  since i know much has been written and said on this subject, i’ll only share that i sang, “greatest love of all” for my 6th grade graduation and we truly believed we were the future, because that song was so powerful.  also, the hairs literally stood on my arm the first time i heard “i will always love you,” and still do today.  i continued to be huge fan of her music well into my adult life and even got to see her live, in concert, once.  my friend, and fellow-blogger, audrey griffin summed it up well in her post: we will always love you.  rest in peace, Whitney…

on a lighter note, i also missed talking with you about valentine’s day.  with hubby working, it was pretty much business as usual in my house.  with the exception of the 42 custom valentines, the xo door wreaths and the heart-shaped pancakes i made for the kids, there really weren’t too many signs of cupid around here, and i’m okay with that.  although i love love, i don’t really rank v-day high on my favorite holiday list.  it could be either that i am blessed to have a husband who does random things year-round to show love or that i need some therapy to reconcile my issues with my valentines of yesteryear. if i’m being totally honest, it’s probably both.

in lieu of therapy, i’ll share with you guys… holler if you hear me (or just comment below:). in seventh grade i left the comforts of my little neighborhood school and bussed over to ginormous, walnut hills high school in my hometown, cincinnati, oH.  initially, i had very few friends and was terribly, terribly shy.  okay? so that’s the scene.  well every year at whhs, the upperclassmen would have these darn carnation sales leading up to sweetest day and valentine’s day.  and on those days, two seniors would show up around 3rd period or so with their buckets of carnations and call out the names of those kids, who were lucky enough to have had someone spend a buck to fill out a heart-shaped piece of construction paper with their name and some sweet message.  i’m sure that you can tell from my tone, that i was not the recipient of too many carnations, at least not in the early years, and i think it has scarred me.  at the time, it seemed like it was such a public quantification of how much you were loved by your peers: whether you had lots of friends or whether you had admirers.  some kids would get entire bouquets of carnations, while some us of would get one, or even none.  it may seem silly, but at the time, not having your name called was a really big deal and extremely hurtful!

i talked about this with my friend kenya, by phone.  she and i met in 8th (? i’m not exactly sure, but she’ll forgive me because she knows i’m bad with details) grade and would go on to be best friends and send each other lots of carnations. she remembered those early years too and says that, while she has made peace with valentine’s day (and wrote very sweetly about her little valentines here), she still hates carnations.  that was funny to me, because i am pretty much the opposite.  i have made peace with carnations (in fact click here for more fabulous carnation creations) but i’ll still take a pass on valentine’s day! i’m old enough to know now that what you receive on this one day, is no true indicator of the amount of love in your life.

so i guess that’s what’s been up with me. oh! … and yesterday was my 37th birthday!  xoxo