Ten on Tuesday

This week's Ten on Tuesday challenge was to list Ten Ways to Celebrate Valentine's Day. I haven't actually had the occasion to celebrate Valentine's Day all that often, but I do have a few ideas (mostly low cost and hopefully, healthful) - and this year I AM celebrating! Happily!

1. Hearts and flowers are the traditional (along with Chocolate) means for celebrating this day of love, but my Sweetheart suggested this weekend that I probably wouldn't see roses on Valentine's Day. After all, he just did 4 dozen sweetheart roses at the beginning of the month for our 9 month anniversary, so more right now really is overkill. And he prefers to have them sent to the office when I least expect it. (hmm...I like that idea!).

2. Dinner out. Whether a trendy new spot or your favorite restaurant, having someone else do the cooking is delightful and then you can concentrate on each other...but that's not what I'm expecting...

3. Because we like to stay in a lot, so I have been told that dinner will be of my Sweetheart's creation on Friday night. (What with Valentine's Day being on Thursday and we both have to work all week!)

4. This year, I'm thinking that a romantic movie IN along with that dinner IN sounds like a wonderful idea. Perhaps something I've missed (well, that would be easy), or a classic? How about the last of the Raider's movies, which I know my Sweetheart hasn't seen yet?

5. He already knows, so I can share that I've managed to snag tickets to his favorite jazz musician's concert later this spring. We're both very excited about the event! But you could pick tickets to a play or sports event that you both would enjoy.

6. How about a moonlit walk? I know it's cold, but then we could come back and make hot chocolate - low-fat and gourmet style chocolate *raspberry?* would be delish...

7. I know some folks gift lingerie, and there's even the Pajama Grams thing. How fun would it be to receive a pair of pjs from your fella?

8. I also like the idea, since roses are soooooo expensive right now, of a full bouquet of chocolate bars! It wouldn't be the most healthful, but there's room in my diet for the occasional treat, and it's a cute idea.

9. A Valentine card a day, delivered to my mailbox. I love the idea of using old fashioned snail mail for flowery cards with lovely sentiments - I'm a Victorian gal at heart, so the more romantic, pink and pretty, lacy cards the better...

10. And what about a bouquet of ballons? Heart shaped, "be-mine" type?

Valentines doesn't have to be expensive. Pretty, fun, sexy, flirty ways to say I love you are worth far more than over-the-top restaurant meals and roses. And if you make sure that you do some healthful activity, you can easily absorb a bit of dark chocolate along the way, right? The most important thing? That you convey to your love that he/she is the most important person in your world. There's nothing more romantic than this. I've spent way too many years without a special person in my life, and now that I have one, I'm determined to let him know just how much he means to me...spending time together is the best part of Valentine's Day...

I think we're both feeling pretty darn lucky this Valentine's Day.