Pampering Day 5: Valentine Comfort

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you are all doing something today to make yourself feel loved and pampered. I have been enjoying a day of sunshine and kids. We decided to ditch homeschool this morning and head to the park instead to savor this warm weather we're having in North Carolina. I went for a run on the loop that circles the playground and then spent a few hours playing with Will on the equipment. It was even nice enough to nurse Lily on the park bench rather than having to go back to the car and turn on the heat. Bliss!  We came home afterward and enjoyed a heart shaped Valentine's lunch before the kids went down for their naps.

When they hit the hay, I set out to figure out some pampering. Today is the first holiday without my Mom and when that hit me, I started joyfully remembering all the good times we had on Valentine's Day when I was little: filling out school valentines, making valentine boxes, playing with sparkly red heart stickers, eating nice dinners together, watching funny movies and the Peanuts special on tv. As an adult, Mom always wanted me to have a romantic and wonderful Valentine's Day (romance was high on her priority list!) and would be waiting by the phone the next day hoping to hear all about what Allen and I had done, joking that she didn't call to check on us in the middle of it. LOL! I am going to miss filling her in on the fondue dinner Allen and I are planning to enjoy at home this evening. She would have loved to hear about that.

My pamper mission today was to enjoy a little bit of comfort. I made myself a nice cup of Aveda tea, one of the few teas I'm allowed to drink with my kidney stone issues. Sometimes I like to make mine in milk instead of water and that's what I did today.

To make my extra special cup, I heated some milk on the stove and poured it in the cup. I filled the tea ball with one or two teaspoons of Aveda tea, dunked it in the hot milk and let it steep for five or seven minutes. Pure comfort in a cup.

Once I made my tea, I settled onto the couch with some knitting that my Mom had started several months ago but never had a chance to really work on. She got as far as casting on and I got as far as adding a couple of new rows today. Mom taught me how to knit when I was in the 6th grade and came down with the chicken pox at Christmas. I've never finished a project, though. Maybe one day I'll fix that!

As I was knitting away, I had "Amelie" on in the background. Mom loved foreign movies, especially that one and I think it was just what she would have watched on Valentine's Day.

Not long after my 15 minutes of pampering was up, Ms. Lily woke up hungry, so she enjoyed most of the movie with me while playing on the couch. I took a video of some of her adventures and posted some pictures to facebook. She's now out like a light again and I'm waiting for my valentine to come home so that we can get ready to spend a quietly romantic evening together in the comfort of our own home.