Flowers die... donate so a child won't

"Mama? Why do you hate flowers?"

This question was posed to me by Elise just the other day. A neighbour had brought by a vase of flowers because she and her family were going away and she didn't want them to go to waste. Elise saw them and proclaimed them to be, "absolutely so gorgeous."

Apparently she noticed my indifference, because she then asked her question. I made some off-handed remark, then distracted her with something bright and shiny.
Because really, how do you explain to a five year old that flowers are stupid because they die, without sounding like the most heartless person ever?  It's just hard for me to spend a lot of money on something that just sits there for a few days, and then... Poof! They go to the great flower bed in the sky.

Give me chocolate any day.

So why the post slamming flowers? Because Thursday is Valentine's Day. And no doubt roses are in your future; either as the giver or recipient. Enter a very cool idea put forth by some very cool peeps in the DOC:

"We want to help the Life for a Child program, sponsored by the International Diabetes Federation, which aims to take “contributions from donors [to] go to established diabetes centers enabling them to provide the ongoing clinical care and diabetes education these children need to stay alive.”  Our idea was to take the typical “dozen roses,” so popular on Valentine’s Day, and save just one rose to spare the life of a child. “Spare a Rose, Save a Child” is simple:  buy one less rose this Valentine’s Day and share the value of that flower with a child with diabetes in the developing world.  Your loved one at home still gets flowers, and you both show some love to someone who needs it."
-Taken from www.sixuntilme.com

For the cost of ONE rose, you could donate to save the life of a child. Even though here in the U.S., I am able to keep my daughter alive with life-saving insulin, in developing countries, type 1 diabetes is a death sentence.

To donate, just click here.  Flowers for Valentine's Day might be nice, but saving the life of a child is even better.

He made me cheesecake

Valentine's Day has never been a big deal to me. I really, really don't care about it. I just feel bad for the guys and all the pressure it puts on them to make their woman swoon. I'll probably get kicked out of the Girl's Club just for thinking such things, but that's okay. I stopped paying my membership dues a long time ago.

This year, Fred told me he wanted to cook me dinner on Valentine's, but the meal itself was going to be a surprise. This made me a little nervous... Fred is not what you'd call a cook. The only reasons he usually comes into the kitchen are to forage in the fridge for something already made, or to get to the garage. I give you exhibit A:

Very early on in our marriage, Fred decided one morning to make me breakfast in bed. So he went into the kitchen while I was still asleep, looked through the cupboards and found some pancake mix. He thought that it looked rather simple, so he whipped up the batter, and then read the directions to see how to cook them. He saw that there was an instruction to turn the temperature to 400 degrees, and when he looked around the kitchen, the only thing that had a temperature control was our oven. So he commenced to bake the pancakes in a 400 degree oven. If you ever make pancakes "Fred-Style", you need to bake them for about 30 minutes. Just as an FYI.

Fred learned two very important lessons that day. Number one; his wife hates breakfast in bed, and would never, ever eat where she sleeps. And number two; a chef he is not.

Which is okay, I don't really mind being Commander-in-Chief of the kitchen, although some days I'd rather saw my arm off with a rusty blade and beat myself over the head with it than try to figure out what to make for dinner. But I seem to have wandered off topic; back to my point.

So Fred went shopping, bought all the ingredients (taking Elise to the store with him to give me a break), brought me home a red rose (I hate bouquets of flowers; it seems like such a waste when they die), an Aero bar, and a sweet card that Elise had picked out. It had dogs on the front, 'nuff said.

I was not allowed to enter the kitchen as he turned it in to a maelstrom of pots, pans, knives, and other such cooking utensils. I was tempted to peek and watch the impending destruction of my kitchen, but he threatened me with a slotted spoon if I dared try. I can tell you this, it smelled amazing!

A few hours after he started I was presented with grilled rib-eye steak, steamed asparagus, and oven roasted garlic potatoes. He did a great job and even cleaned up the entire kitchen. There was supposed to be homemade cheesecake for dessert (as alluded to in the title), but he ran out of time. He did make it the next night, and I was blown away by his culinary skills. I'm starting to get a little suspicious that he actually CAN cook, and the "pancake debacle" from so many years ago was just to throw me off.

So I may be changing my opinion of Valentine's Day... if it gets me an incredible home cooked meal (that I didn't have to shop for/make/clean up), then I say bring on February 14th! Thanks Freddie, for being such a wonderful, thoughtful, skilled-in-the-kitchen husband.

In case you're wondering what I got him... Office Space on Blu-Ray. That I made him go pick-up. And no card. Which I didn't even remember that I hadn't gotten him a card until the next day.

Yeah, I know. I suck.