valentine

Valentine’s Day, Now

February 14, 2019 by Gindi 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned it before. I never loved Valentine’s Day. In fact, for years, in active protest, I wore black.

Ah, the humor of youth.

I love Valentine’s Day now.

Not because I’m married.

But because I have kids.

Kids who come running into the kitchen table in the morning to look for their little chocolates and stuffed animals, which we are still doing even now at 9. (And which I hope we’re still doing in another 9 years.)

Valentine’s cards and bags or boxes for school parties.

Napkins and paper plates with assorted colored hearts emblazoned.

I love celebrating love in the big picture sense instead of some overhyped romantic sense.

The day used to bug me because I figured people should be showing their significant other love all year and not just buying overpriced crap on a commercialized holiday.

But now, the break in the ordinary to do a little something special for those around you, well, that I appreciate.

Cards and hearts.

A bear with a football or overstuffed marshmallow cat. Seriously. It’s awesome.

Plus, we try to find others who might need an extra dose of love.

The kids will make cards for senior citizens at their party today which we will deliver to a nearby senior living center this afternoon.

We’ll all pile into the kitchen, I’m sure, to make Will’s/Kidstir’s fancy French chicken and roasted root vegetables (our now go to V-day dinner).

I didn’t spend much money. (Remember, I can’t!) Just a quick trip to Wal-Mart during my evening errands last month. But an excuse to remind my sweet family how bananas I am about them.

The morning looked different than all those rose-colored Hallmark movies.

I woke up early to set everything out and make lunches. We raced around making sure they had all the cards for friends, flowers for teachers, and paper goods for the class party. It was free dress for our little uniformed private school so that takes an extra level of parental review to make sure shirts are unstained and skirts are long enough.

I had to be on a work call with Europe at 7:30 am so instead of going into the office extra early, I just loaded all the kids into Bray’s truck by 7:29 am in order to take the call from a quiet house at 7:30.

Dishes were everywhere.

Mayhem landed on the table.

The only pic I snapped of the kids is the one above as they loaded into the truck.

But I’ll remember this sweet morning. Even with my terrible, can’t-remember-anything, memory.

The hugs and kisses and sleepy-eyed excitement.

Turns out, a Valentine’s Day Grinch can be reformed too.

The Better Valentine

February 14, 2018 by Gindi Leave a Comment

It was a dimly lit, upscale Chinese restaurant on Post Oak. He’d picked me up in his mom’s new Jag. We’d been dating just over two months.

February 14, 2004.

Hard to believe, fourteen years ago.

I fell in love with him that night.

It probably sounds Hallmark-y and made up, but I did. I already liked him A LOT and the food was fine and the car was fun, but that had nothing to do with it. He had been babysitting his nieces earlier. They were nine, six and three. I’d just met them the week before. He had these funny stories, especially about the one who was in throes of the terrible threes.

As I listened to him, I fell in love with him.

We are, on the whole, a particularly un-Hallmark couple. I’ve written about it before. And I don’t write about “us” a lot because he’s intensely private and never signed up to be married to a blogger. (That’ll teach him to have triplets with a woman who loves to write… no telling what you’ll end up with.)

That’s why it’s important for me to remember that Valentine’s Day night all those years ago.

And when contrasted to tonight’s super-romantic offerings, I’d take tonight over a dimly lit restaurant on Post Oak every single Valentine’s Day.

What could top that night you fell in love, you ask?

Well, we woke up early and the whole lot of us opened our Valentine’s Day cards and candy. (The kids also got Legos but Bray and I will settle for a funny card and piece of chocolate – you know we’ll end up having to do the Legos though…)

Then he helped the kids get ready for school while I raced out the door for an early morning meeting at work.

We’ll both race home tonight because the boys have their first basketball playoff game this Valentine’s Day evening at 5:45. Their team has been really good this year, so we just found out this week we have two more games. One on the “most romantic” night of the year, and the other one Saturday morning right in the middle of a retreat I was supposed to have attended.

I cooked up some ground turkey last night so we could throw together some tacos when we get home, after 7. We’ll need to read with the kids. Luckily ONLY read because we did all their homework last night in advance for the week.

A kind executive gave me some really good wine for a deal I negotiated, so I have big plans to open a bold red wine when the kids go down (highly likely close to 9 pm, between basketball and being hopped up on Valentine’s candy). I know my challenge has no sugar, including alcohol, during the week, but I’m making an exception.

We’ll probably drink one glass before falling, exhausted, into bed.

I will take this night over that night 14 years ago any time I’m given the choice.

I’m so glad I have those butterflies from 14 years ago.

They got me these triplets today.

And I’m also fully aware that a decade from now we’ll have the chance to go out to high end, dimly lit restaurant on Valentine’s Day evening. We won’t, because we both agree it’s a ridiculous waste of money. Maybe I’ll cook. But the house will be empty. And we’ll only have had playoff games for Valentine’s Day for such a brief time. I’ll probably cry and wish for it all back. We won’t have Legos to set out on the table in the morning. And we won’t have little faces upturned with excitement.

So you see, I’m in love with our Valentine’s Day. And I’m praying we’ve got several more in store just like this one.

Seeing Red

February 16, 2015 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Happy Monday! I didn’t know how to capture all the good, and less good, from the past few days and seeing red seemed to sum it up.

First up, drum roll please, a NEW FRONT DOOR! I have wanted a new front door since I moved into this house in May 2006. We have a gray house with black shutters and less than inventive landscaping. Our black door with an inset glass middle featuring a 1980s style etched palm tree drove me bananas. But new front doors are expensive. And my dream door was impossible to find. Why my darling hubby finally agreed to a new front door this Christmas, after years of asking, I’ll never know (though I think that his father may have helped), but I sure am grateful.

I found the slab at a home building company that was the style I wanted. From there, I selected the black hardware I wanted for the door as well as the cherry red I’d wanted all these years. It took several weeks for the handyman we hired to sand, paint, and install the door but HERE IT IS (molding still to be finished)! And just in time for our fourth neighbors table; literally, he was cleaning up the porch as neighbors began to arrive for our Valentine’s celebration!

Next up, while Bray and I had a nice dinner out Friday night, the gift card I had for the restaurant was declined! I was furious and seeing a whole different kind of red. A company here in Houston owns several high end restaurants, and I was told the card could be used at any of their establishments. Yet when we went to pay the bill (I’d picked this particular restaurant because we had the card), they said that it could only be used at the place it was purchased. What!?!?! Yes, I’m on a mission with their corporate headquarters today to fix what fast became a dinner pricier than we had budgeted.

Bray headed out Saturday morning, and we woke to a festive Valentine’s Table.

The festivities didn’t last long; the eldest took a serious turn for poor health. Every symptom you could have, he got it. Fevers and shakes all day, throwing up to the point of dry heaves on the way to Texas Children’s Saturday night, headaches, back aches, stomach aches. The doctor was wonderful. She ran every kind of test and saw how pitiful he was just laying there. We couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but she got us on zofram for the nausea and called in Tamiflu because he was so flu symptomatic even though the initial test came back negative.

This was my Valentine’s date:

I joked that I spent Valentine’s Day like I did when I was 16 – at home with my mom, except this time I’m 30 pounds heavier and have three kids 🙂 Thank heavens she came so that the other two weren’t completely neglected.

Finally, we decided since Valentine’s Day was such a bust, we’d celebrate on the 15th. We couldn’t go to church since the eldest was still contagious, so we did church at home and then made a big yummy lunch (the big guy had so quickly improved my Sunday morning that I never even started the Tamiflu), and we baked a cake and the kids decorated it. We were seeing red with our big red sugar heart in the middle. We played outside before the rain hit and ate well and redeemed the weekend.

How about you? How was your weekend?

Fashion Fridays: Valentine’s Two Part Special, “She Said”

February 13, 2015 by Gindi 2 Comments

I hope you joined us last week as we launched Part 1 of our “He Said”/”She Said” Valentine’s Fashion Friday special. Well, now it’s your turn girls.

I asked and you responded. What do wish he would or would not wear? How would you dress your man if you got to choose? Now I might say that just like the He Said post, She Said was more consistent on the “what not to wear” responses than on the “what you love” responses. What a woman wishes her man would wear was all over the map and depended on the event and the type of woman. Nonetheless, I’m going to try.

First up, The Don’ts (guys, take note):

1. Denim on denim – it’s out. It went out sometime around 1989. Don’t pair denim shirts with jeans. Which takes me to…

2. Certain jeans – women like their men in jeans, but not SOME jeans. These fell into several categories but the “don’t do” jeans included baggy, acid washed, too worn, dated, short, etc. You get the gist. Just consider buying new jeans and cleaning out your old ones fella.

3. Ugly shoes – with all the fabulous women’s shoes out there, why are there so many ugly men’s shoes? I actually think it’s harder to find cool shoes for men than it is to find ugly shoes.

4. Pleated pants – now most men are still clinging to their 1990s pleated pants. However, it really is more flattering if men wear flat front pants. As I noted though, there were a few women that preferred the classic look of pleated pants, so it just goes to show you to talk about it.

5. T-shirts with messages that are not actually that funny or that are gross or insensitive. Consider ditching the message shirts.

Next up, the fun part – The Do’s:

1. Layers/Sweaters – I think these have fallen out of favor because too many men get hot. But if you buy in lighter weight fabrics, you can accomplish the incredibly handsome look without sweltering.

While I am partial to the half zip sweater, you can do this in any number of styles or colors (one girlfriend specifically said, “MORE color”). Also note the jeans. One paired a great pair of charcoal jeans, and the other has a nice medium washed blue.

2. Nicer casual – one way to immediately dress up an outfit is to throw a blazer on. Even a button down with jeans automatically gets an upgrade when you don a sports coat. Or swap out a pair of jeans for a pair of neutral pants and presto you look like you made more of an effort. Finally, if you really want to make her swoon, try it all together (see this last example) – color, layers, a sweater with maybe, gasp, a tie!

(All looks but the next to last two courtesy of J. Crew. Next to last two courtesy of Nordstrom’s.)

For a few tips, regardless of where you’re headed or who you are trying to impress, check out menswear websites to get ideas. Look at this excellent J Crew Work Trip Cheat Sheet – https://www.jcrew.com/mens_feature/CheatsheetWorkTrip_sm.jsp

Or Nordstrom’s men’s landing page has great ideas on how to wear jeans or the latest shoe on the market – http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/men?dept=8000001&origin=topnav

(And I know this sounds nuts to a guy, but um, Pinterest has some great examples if you just want to send your wife/girlfriend on a quest for a fresh look!)

Run these ideas by someone first because sometimes what appears in vogue may not work well for your body type or your work/city environment.

Ladies, your turn: What do you love or hate to see?

Fashion Fridays: Valentine’s Two Part Special, “He Said”

February 6, 2015 by Gindi 10 Comments

My best friend came up with this clever idea for Fashion Fridays: a “he said”/”she said” issue of what you and he wish the other would (or would not) wear. So I took a very formal poll, you know, Facebook/Twitter/interviewing friends, and asked what my men friends wished their wives/girlfriends would wear more often (barring lingerie, we all know they start there). Then I did the same thing in reverse and polled my girlfriends/social media about men’s fashion.

Today we tackle what outfits or items of clothing he loves or hates. Next week, we’ll tackle what you wish your man would (or wouldn’t) wear. I’m sure I will get some comment that this is sexist. But I believe that looking nice for your husband or wife is really important. Especially since men are so visual and what they see can affect your love life.

Let me start off by saying this is the hardest Fashion Friday post I’ve ever written. Mainly because no one is the same and you get answers all over the map. So I think the two primary themes are this:

1. Make an effort. I had several guys say “just look nice” or don’t look “dumpy.” Which translates into making an effort. Wearing clothes that fit – not too big or not too small. Showing you wanted to look nice for your night out or your Saturday of running errands in town.

2. Communicate. When some of my friends interviewed their husbands after being pressed, the answers of what he liked were as varied as the couples. To keep a little sizzle in your marriage, find out what your husband likes you to wear and make an effort to wear those things sometimes (especially on date nights!).

With that said, I had a few specific items of feedback for Don’t Wear This:

1. Sweats. This was my most frequent response. As my girlfriend said when we discussed this, you can wear cut yoga pants and a little tee and be just as comfy but look much better than you would in sweats. Kill the sweats in your wardrobe.

2. Ugly shoes. This comes in all forms. I heard “don’t wear Uggs,” and my hubby doesn’t like it when I wear flats that, in his opinion, look like houseshoes.

3. Clothes that don’t fit. These responses were from both ends of the spectrum. I heard comments about bad underwear lines or tops that don’t contain your body any more. But I also heard men that didn’t like oversized “tent” dresses.

I certainly had a few specific items of Do Wear This:

1. What I give you. Men really like it when you wear what they’ve purchased you for your birthday or Christmas. Maybe this is a dress or maybe it’s a necklace, but wear your presents, especially around your man.

2. High heels. Now while I heard from my male friends that they like their women in heels, I also had a few married friends close in height to one another that would prefer no heels. Nonetheless, heels won the day overall.

3. Dresses. Again, this wasn’t not universal, but I think this goes to the point of making an effort and looking feminine. This can be as simple as a little day dress for Sunday morning or a cocktail dress for an event. Especially if you are married to man who likes legs and you wear pants a lot, consider donning dresses for date night.

(Dresses courtesy of Nordstrom.)

4. A top that shows a “little.” This was not for everyday wear, but for date night men responded that they’d like to see a little cleavage (not surprisingly). There are tasteful ways to do this. See these two examples which, if worn with the right bra, could be classy but also a little sexy.

(Blouses courtesy of Ann Taylor.)

5. Hair down. I got feedback about hair length, but I also heard “wear your hair down.”

What about you? Have you and your hubby talked about this? Do you know what he thinks you look best in?