Photo from Healthy Living NYC

This has been a very exciting pre-Valentine’s!

• My friend who wanted to go away for a while now was suprised with a card from her husband telling her to pack up and get ready to leave early morning yesterday.  They’re in Jamaica now!
• Another friend of mine just got engaged on the beach at Atlantic City!  Congratulations Maryrose and Arthur!

I, on the other hand, am spending Valentine’s day with John interviewing wedding vendors and meeting with our event coordinator.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about meeting our event coordinator to discuss the wedding details, but it’s not very “Valentiney”, is it?

Because of the wedding and the struggling economy, I’m getting more and more cheap economical.  I even told John to not spend anything for Valentine’s.

Has the economy or the wedding affected your Valentine’s day celebration?  How are you celebrating this romantic holiday?

So John was good and didn’t take me to McDonald’s to celebrate our 3rd year anniversary.  He knew that I love oysters so he took me to an oyster bar Friday night.

We met at Government Center in Boston after his work.  We walked to Faneuil Hall, strolled around, and had dinner at Salty Dog Seafood Bar and Grill.  The restaurant had an indoor and outdoor seating.  The weather was perfect so we stayed in the patio.  I ordered fresh oysters and John ordered spicy cajun calamari.  My oysters were more salty than I’m used to, but I still liked it.  John’s cajun calamari wasn’t very ‘cajun-y’ and spicy.  For the main entree, I ordered grilled catfish fillet with jambalaya rice which was good.  John ordered seafood creole and was disappointed.  It wasn’t spicy enough and he thought he could do better.

After dinner, we went inside the Quincy Market building for dessert.  We were full so we didn’t get any, but we did get chocolate milk tea for our walk down to Downtown Crossing.

It wasn’t a romantic date, but it was perfect IMO.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, we are not a fancy couple.  The walk around Faneuil Hall, the dinner on the patio as we watch people from all over walk around, the walk to Downtown Crossing with chocolate bubble tea in hand, a few laughs and the best company made the day unforgettable.

(photo from photo99.com)

John is from Boston, I am from NY.  John’s a Red Sox fan, ummm… no I’m not a Yankees fan actually, I’m a Mets fan.  But I find the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees a little interesting and I would love to watch a game between these teams.

For all three years John and I have been together, we have never watched a baseball game.  I think it’s time to watch one.  So I decided to just buy tickets myself, rather than waiting for John to do it.  I just asked my baseball fanatic friend how he gets his tickets.  He’s from St. Louis though and I think it’s harder to score Red Sox-Yankees tickets than St Louis Cardinals tickets.  We’ll see…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Take me out the ballgame
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack
I don’t care if I never never get back…

Yay!  Today is my 3rd year anniversary with John.  But we won’t be celebrating today since John is in Boston and I’m here in NY.  I’ll be going to Boston this coming weekend to celebrate.  I kept telling John to take me out on a celebratory date.  Then he thought it would be romantic to re-enact our first date.  Very sweet, right?  Ummm… not so much.

Our first date was a Spiderman movie and dinner at McDonald’s.  We’re not really one of those fancy schmancy couple, not very romantic either.  But I was hoping our celebratory dinner would be a tiny step up from McDonalds at least.  We’ll see how it goes…

It was the biggest and sweetest surprise I’ve ever gotten.  He made me lunch and sent it overnight for my birthday.

I was working that day.  I ate lunch early because my co-worker was leaving.  John wanted me to wait, but I couldn’t.  Around 2pm, a heavy box arrived for me.  A pink lunch box was in it.  John cooked me clam soup and chicken marsala.  He sent with it chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert and chocolate bubble tea for me to drink.  I didn’t get to eat it until dinner.  But it was the best lunch ever!  They were all my favorites of course.

He’s coming to visit this weekend and I can’t wait to see him!  We haven’t seen each other for 3 weeks now .  In case you’re wondering, he lives in Boston and I live in NY.

Flowers and candies are very popular on Valentine’s day.  I got flowers on Valentines day which was totally unexpected.  Thank you baby.  Candies?  No I didn’t get candies.  I always get that from him anyway.  But come the day after Valentine’s, I received this at work:

The mailing box said “PERISHABLE.  When opened, contents may disappear immediately.”  LOL!  I decided not to open it until I get home.  But I had a pretty good idea what was in it.

John called.
John: Are you sharing it with your coworkers?
Gail: I’m too busy.  I don’t even have time to open it.
John: Are you sharing it with your mom?
Gail: Well, the box has instructions on it.  I have to follow instructions, right?

Thank you sweety!

When I got to work this morning, there were flowers in a vase on Jasmine’s desk.  And I told Jasmine I wish I get some too.  I just blurted it out, sure that I wouldn’t get any coz John is not a flower type of guy.  He’d rather give you something you can use.  Then the guy from the mailroom came with a box from ProFlowers.

“Oh more flowers.”

After I signed for it, I looked at the shipping tag to know who to give it to.  It was me!  The flowers were mine!

John totally surprised me!  I never even thought he would send it to my job.  He didn’t know my job’s address and apparently he researched!

I love you baby!  Happy Valentines day!

I didn’t remove the protective outer petals to keep them protected.  My mom told me to let them bloom first before I take a picture.  But I didn’t want to wait.  Again, I’m a dork.

A survey conducted by credit scoring company, Fair Isaac show that finances play a big role in relationships.  Two thousand and twenty two (1,022) American adults participated in the survey.

Q:  “Which two of the following five personal traits do you consider more important than the others in sustaining your relationships with a husband, wife or significant other?”

 

Q:  “Which two of the following six situations have put the most pressure and stress on your relationships with a husband, wife or significant other?”

 

I would love to believe that money does not matter as many people say.  But I can’t.  Unfortunately, it does matter.

(via MSN Money)

I’ve been telling John he is not romantic.  Then one time he fired back, “What’s the last romantic thing you did for me?”

(long pause)

“Exactly.”

I don’t know.  I guess it just never occurred to me to initiate something romantic with my man.  I just automatically assumed that it is the man’s job to do something romantic .

I found this article “What Do Men Find Romantic?” that had a list of what men find romantic.  And I’ve done a few of them!  I didn’t think it was romantic then (sweet, but not romantic), but I guess I was wrong.  I think John and I share the same idea of what is romantic, so I guess he didn’t find those little things romantic enough.  Oh well, I guess I’ll have to try harder or just give him this list and say, “See!”

• Compliments
• Dark chocolate
• Hard-to-find gifts
• You, in his clothes
• Funny movies
• A great memory
• An old-fashioned night on the town
• Tall buildings
• Surprise intimacy
• P.S. I love you

At work, one of our nurses told me a story about her friend burying his mother.  The friend’s father died before his mother.  When the mother died, she was cremated and her ashes were placed in the father’s casket then reburied.  After everything, the friend realized that he might have made the wrong decision and that his dad must be really mad at him right now.  How so?  After dying, the father was finally free of the mother.  After what the son did, the father is stuck with her again.

And here’s a joke Amanda emailed me that is similar to the story above:

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem .  While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land , for $150.”  The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.  
 
The undertaker asked, “Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend  only $150?”

The man replied, “Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead.  I just can’t take that chance.”

Are we so horrible that you guys couldn’t wait to get rid of us… yet so irresistable that you could only wait for death to do so?

How lovable are we? 

Read on…