Love is a verb

Tomorrow is one of the more, er, celebrated holidays of the year. It’s Valentine’s Day. It could be said that it’s one of the more commercialized holidays exploited in the name of love. Red hearts exploding everywhere, sappy love songs on the radio, advertisements for roses by the dozen and enough chocolate candy on sale to stock a diabetic heaven. 

Hey, when I was single I didn’t mind the holiday; I lived for the extra sappy Hallmark-style made for tv movies, and chocolate, of course. Then I met my now hubby; a good, old farmer boy with a rakish smile and a rascal at heart. 

He set the bar high, let me tell you. He sent gorgeous roses in hues of the sun and a video he made just for me. In that video he climbed the highest mountain (a hill), the highest height (the bin) and sang love songs while groovin’ like the King. Yeah, I knew I was most definitely a goner by the end of that video. He even tramped out a large heart in the yard in the snow for that. 

This year I realized that I don’t want to only take on Valentine’s day (and make him feel compelled to ‘do’ something) but I want to give to him as well. Tough thing is, is he is hard to shop for AND his birthday is right around the corner as well.  Uff da. So I settled on a fancy meal and spoiled him rotten with baked delights. Cupcakes anyone? I’ve been working hard to make him feel appreciated if not a little spoiled this week. Since curling handily (or not) falls on Valentine’s this year, we’ve been celebrating early. (He did surprise with a beautiful, happy bouquet of daisies, mums, carnations mix. As well as flowers for his mom and his grandma. Aww.) Extra hugs, kisses and cuddles on the couch are hard to beat.

Challenge yourself this year and don’t only revel in the love but love on that love.

How to move to Canada

Step 1) Don’t go. Just don’t go. You married the love of your life (he’s so worth it, right?) but really no, just say no and stop the madness before it reaches the top of the rollercoaster. There’s no getting off then.

Step 2) *sigh* you did it, didn’t you? You agreed to move to Canada. Good luck, you’ll need it. And patience.  Lots and lots of it. If you did the whole ‘hurry up and wait’ thing in the military (like I did) then you’re good to go. Which means you’re probably really good at paperwork, a useful skill again for you, lucky you. 

Step 3) Find your favorite hamster and oil his wheel up good. Maybe four hamsters would better. You’ll need them to help you keep going on the paperwork. Those hamsters, they don’t stop running so keep up the momentum on that paperwork. (And when he says let him fill it all out for you, do some here and there for him, it makes crunch time a.k.a procrastination ‘I’m behind on filling these out’ go smoother.)

Step 4) Read the blogs, yahoo answers or anything you can about moving to Canada even that almighty, has-all-the-answers government website (it’s at least good for the uber generic information).

Step 5) Submit that paperwork. I’d mail it certified so you know it got there, because who wants to go through all tort- ahem, enjoyment again?!

Step 6) Celebrate with a glass of wine. You’re done!

Step 7) Thunk your head against the wall. The realization, you’ve just started (like the ice berg that the Titanic hit) has sunk in.

Step 8) Enjoy this blog :) It might actually help, or at least give some perspective on the hyphenated life.