Finances & Money

V-Day Recap – What I did for my wife

If you celebrated the dreaded Valentine’s Day yesterday, I hope it was a pleasant one. I wrote yesterday how every day is Valentine’s Day and how I always have fresh-cut flowers for my wife. However, that didn’t mean I copped out and didn’t give Stacie an extra display of affection.

Although Stacie has said that she doesn’t really care about the holiday, I know that something little would brighten her day. I intended to get a card for her on my way home, but the Hallmark was picked clean and still packed. Surprisingly, though, most of the shoppers were women, not men. I decided I wasn’t going to pay $4 for a piece of paper that only said “I Love You”. I could make that at home.

That’s when I had the idea for a gift. At first, I thought of just making a card for Stacie, but as I was riding the train home, the idea grew into something better and even more personal than a self-made card.

I got home, got out a sheet of notebook paper and a red marker and wrote at the top of the page: “My 10 Favorite Memories of You”. I then numbered the page from 10 to 1 (with 1 being the best memory). Still in the red marker, I started with #1. I wrote directly from memory without marking it out. I figured the first thing to come to my mind must be #1, then #2 and so on, and that’s exactly how it worked out.

So what was my #1 memory of us? Our wedding day of course. How beautiful she looked. How I shed a tear or two as I watched her walk up the aisle (which was caught by the photographer). Having all the special people in our lives (except one unfortunately) there with us on that day.

On the list as well were meeting her for the first time (I always describe her as bouncing out to meet us, much like Tigger), our first kiss (yes, I remember it), free Dairy Queen Blizzards back in college, and her finally giving in to my persistence and agreeing to date me 🙂

She did notice I left our honeymoon in Ireland off the list. I realized that when I wrote the list, I was just thinking about single, specific events, not whole sections of time. But then again, much of my recollection of Ireland was driving and being cold every morning. Oh, and always having cold showers. You see, the first morning there, I took the first shower, and Stacie ended up with a cold shower. From then on, I was relegated to cold showers for the rest of the trip. At least the weather was beautiful!

Why did I write this post? Because maybe one of you will write your own list for your spouse or partner. Oh, and I’m so proud I thought of it all on my own and didn’t just go buy a crappy card from Hallmark.