Valentine's Day

My husband and I celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday with brunch at The Hullabaloo Diner up near College Station. I ordered their special sliced-strawberry giant pancakes (I ate less than one-fourth of the serving there, and I still have enough of those pancakes in my fridge for five more servings-- they heat up nicely in the microwave).

Today, my husband and W the handyman are celebrating Valentine's Day by fixing the frozen pipes in the barn--- those are PVC pipes and my husband decided to do those himself rather than pay the plumber to fix them last Friday. My husband discovered pipe fittings called "shark bites" at Home Depot and he's in pipe-fixing heaven.

I was at WalMart bright and early this morning, doing a major grocery shopping. When we didn't have running water in the house (thanks to the deep-freeze that blew through Texas), and due to the fact that I pulled a muscle in my back during the same time, not much food was getting cooked in the kitchen. My husband was going into town and bringing cooked foods home from the little cafes in town, so all we had to do was pop things into the microwave.

But the water is back (thank goodness) and my back is just fine (three cheers to that), so now it's back to filling up a cart with groceries, taking groceries from the cart to the moving belt at the check-out counter, then back into the cart with the bags, then the bags go from the cart to the trunk of the car, then from the trunk to the back porch, then from the porch into the kitchen, then everything gets put into the pantry or the fridge. What is wrong with that picture?!?!?

During the week that I could hardly move because of my back, I spent the time reading and watching HGTV programs and cooking shows on the Food Network. There was a recipe on one of the shows for homemade ravioli, using pasta-strength wonton squares. It looked so easy.... and I found those pasta squares in WalMart today, so that's what we're having for dinner tonight: homemade ravioli with ricotta and spinach. My husband and I decided years ago not to go to a restaurant on Valentine's Day-- we either go the day before or the day after, to avoid the crowds. So we will have a nice dinner in our dining room, which is all decorated for Valentine's Day. As my friend J used to tell us when he came to our Valentine's parties at the old house--- It looks like Cupid went crazy in this house.

I will keep all the Valentine's decorations up till after our lunch-party this coming Sunday. Our friends here haven't seen our Cupid-crazy Valentine decorations, but our friends coming from Houston will feel right at home with all the red hearts and Valentine trees.