Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Day of LOVE! I love this holiday! (And it's forty degrees!) We did store bought valentine's this year. Which felt odd at first... only because I use Valentine's Day as an excuse to be creatively cheesy. But this year I chose to decorate cookies instead. And being the human type of mother I am, I knew I'd actually only do one whiz-bang activity- and I wanted it to be delicious. (It was.) 

Two days ago, I spent all afternoon making the cookies, shaping the cookies, baking the cookies, and then cleaning the whole mess. We didn't actually decorate the cookies until this afternoon, when we had a couple friends over, and it lasted all of ten minutes. (They were pretty excited about the warm weather.) But it was fun. And when it was over, I  swept the floor, put saran wrap over the un-eaten cookies, cleaned up the mess, and went outside to enjoy the last bit of our warm Valentine's Day.  

It was liberating! It sounds odd, I know. But there's freedom in choosing to do something - doing it - and then being happy. Often I find myself choosing to do something, doing it, and then rather than enjoying what I just accomplished, I let my thoughts wander to all the things I didn't get done. Or how I could have done it better. Or yaddi yaddi yadda...

But this valentines I chose to decorate cookies with my pirates. And then I did. And I loved it.

Amen.