I’m not opposed to Valentine’s Day, unlike other people. I know people complain that it’s a Hallmark holiday, or that we should be telling people that we love them a whole lot more than on a prescribed day, but I don’t mind having one day that is a reminder, just in case your significant other gets too sucked into work and forgets about the romance.

That being said, maybe it’s not enough to have red hearts hanging in every store you go to, and reminders on Facebook, and email newsletters and the like. It’s definitely very iffy to leave it to chance, especially if your husband can run the gamut from giving AMAZING gifts like motorcycles to forgetting every family member’s birthday. Year after year, after year. So maybe you specifically have to SAY EXACTLY HOW YOU WANT IT TO GO.

Or, at least, how you DON’T want it to go.

Of course, I didn’t do that. So we woke up on Valentine’s Day morning, in the small town of Magnolia, Texas, in a $59/night hotel because we were visiting cousins of mine. And as my husband is shaving, he says,

“What should we do for Valentine’s?”

This, the morning of Valentine’s.

In a small town, hours from home. I have no illusions about anything.

I’m all impressed with myself that I didn’t raise my voice at all, didn’t get upset, didn’t even think something was wrong. All I did was point out to him that one should never, ever, EVER come to the woman on the morning of Valentine’s and drop a little comment like that. I literally put my hand up (after pointing out that he should never ever EVER do that) and sent him back to think of what to do. And I even gave him a card that I had lovingly carried the whole way in the car ;-)

Just because I didn’t want to stress him out any more than usual (we’re not done with our logistical and accounting nightmares yet) I gave him a grace period of a year in which to come up with other, better way of reminding me that I’m awesome.

And, just to cover the bases, I’ll remind him with a week to go, with maybe a few Post-it notes and an alarm on his phone — that should do it, huh?