The Gift of Time

How was everyone's Valentine's Day? I hope you all had a blast!

We certainly did! It was such a lovely weekend! We had a couples massage and then ate dinner at my most favorite restaurant ever, Wild Ginger! (Seriously, if you live in the greater Nashville area and can make it out to Franklin, it's the best restaurant I have ever been to. And their sushi is on point! And no, I'm not getting paid for advertising. That would be nice though *cough cough*)

We even got an extended weekend! I don't know where all you lovely readers are, but here in the general area of Nashville, TN, we have just had constant ice! I don't know how all you people up north deal with it! That cold is just awful. But at the same time, it was nice. MTSU cancelled classes and Blake's law firm closed for a couple days so we got to enjoy the days together! We even took Addy out for a second but she was NOT impressed.

Family Fun idea: Playing outside in the ice. Just don't forget your rain boots!

Anyway. I realized something over the weekend.  It seems to us that Valentine's Day has become more about buying gifts for your SO than appreciating the love in the relationship.  Now, don't get me wrong. I love gifts.  I love buying gifts for Blake and I love getting gifts from him. And I can't really speak for him, but based on the frequency I receive gifts from him, he loves giving them too.

But. Here's the thing. Flowers die.  Memories don't. We're the type of couple that would rather give something small and instead invest the money on doing something together.

For example. Our anniversary is a short FOUR MONTHS away! (Happy 8 months of being married, sweetie!) Usually, according to tradition, the first anniversary gift is supposed to be something made of paper. As I just learned, in addition to the traditional paper gift, the more modern take is clocks! How interesting! Thanks, Hallmark! Anyway. We could go out and buy each other gifts made of some nice, snazzy paper or even a huge grandfather clock that could take the office from drab to fab, but what would be the fun in that? Instead, we are planning a nice little getaway to Universal for a few days since we didn't get to go there as we had planned for the honeymoon...

Not that we have to spend every waking (and sleeping) hour together.  First of all, even if we wanted to, it's not possible! It would be mighty hard for us to find jobs that would allow us to be together every minute, plus there's classes!

Another thing we enjoy: Hockey games! Looking forward to those box seats!

Which leads me to an interesting thing.  In my romantic relationships class, we were given a scenario that went a little something like this: "Your friend Juliet loves her new boyfriend.  They are together all the time- she goes to school sporting events with him, hangs out with him every weekend, and even sometimes goes to his classes with him.  But this past Saturday night, when her boyfriend was going to the football game, she decided to stay home and watch a romantic movie and have "girl time". Her boyfriend is concerned that she's starting to drift away from him. What does this illustrate about Juliet?"

All I could think was "I need to take a bubble bath!" Don't we all have those times where we want to be alone, if only for like 10 minutes? While I don't like to be apart from Blake too much when we do get the chance to be together, I also recognize that he needs his time to play one of his video games and I need my time to relax in a bath with a good book.

And despite what most of the people in my romantic relationships class think, there doesn't always have to be an extreme. It's called moderation. Gifts are nice, but I wouldn't want to be in a relationship where I was given tangible items instead of time.

Even if I do have a nice long list of things I want from Tiffany & Co.

The first gift he ever gave me. Not from Tiffany's.