Celebrating Valentine's Day

We delayed our Valentine's Day 'celebration' until the 15th. They were finishing up the concrete work at our little house down the street, and Tim is always very interested in concrete work. He wanted to watch them at work, see what they did, pick up some new techniques. 

We also know that this fix is going to be extremely expensive. I cashed out a small 401K and that money is in the bank, but we don't know if it will be enough, so it makes sense to be frugal right now. Between Tim's medical bills and the new build, which we are (so far) funding as we go, to avoid incurring debt. We are both about to turn 67 and we believe in living debt free. 

We mutually decided to skip any February 14th nonsense. He used to buy roses, but really, it is something that always made me feel bad. They are expensive and die so quickly. Chocolates? I sure don't want them. I've lost 10 pounds since the beginning of the year. I've been very disciplined about this, and I'm pretty proud of that. I still bake cookies for Tim every week, but I don't eat them. He has some Reese's cups in the freezer. I think he has forgotten he has them. I see them every time that I open the freezer door, but for whatever reason, I'm perfectly able to shut the freezer door without grabbing one. So no. Don't bring me any chocolates, thanks. I was really clear on that. 

We were headed to Erie for a therapy appointment for Tim on the 15th and so we decided that we'd just stop at two thrift stores on the way home. A friend was trying to get rid of a lamp she'd bought, a 6 ft tall floor lamp. She loved it when she saw it at an auction. When she brought it home, it just looked out of place in her perfectly decorated house. 

I said we'd take it. We have a floor lamp in the corner of the our livingroom, behind the glass topped steamer trunk that serves as an end table between the two couches. It does not give off enough light but the chandelier in the center of the room is very bright. I'm a lot like Goldilocks. 'This light was toooooo dim....this light was tooooooo bright...this light is juuuust right....'

And picky-pants me justified it with 'oh look...we were able to give the old floor lamp away to someone who was happy to get it. '

And while it was right, light-wise, she had a shade on it that is too small for the massive size of it. I'm not even sure it should have a lamp shade. I think it is a torchiere. To be honest, I woke up in the dead of night, with the conviction that I'd seen that sort of light before. In a funeral home, usually in sets of two, one at each end of the coffin. 

Anyways, so for Valentine's Day, we needed to figure out what we were going to do with that light, and as per usual, we hit up the thrift stores first. We did not find what we needed. We stopped at Tim's favorite diner on the way home. 

And that was our celebration. It suited us just fine, even if we did not find what we were looking for, 

I did have to go out on Valentine's Day.  It made me smile to see huge roughneck bearded burly men with their giant stuffed teddy bears and gorillas and their boxes of chocolates. They were everywhere, crossing the parking lot, holding their balloons and stuffed animals and flowers, getting into well used vehicles. That is sweet, isn't it?

We are off to work on the new build today. It is cold, but thank goodness the wind has died down. Last night it was so strong it sounded like heavy traffic on the street. We will be working on the inside. We have plenty of work to keep us busy until the end of the month without buying more supplies.