Happy Valentine's Day, 2012.

You know, valentine's day gets a bad rap, I think. Lots of people complain that it's a fake holiday and a waste of time and money. But I say any holiday that gives me an excuse for a fancy dinner out (ALONE) with my husband is alright by me. And that's precisely what we did when we went out to dinner in Ohio City saturday night for a little early celebration.

Two things you should know:
#1 I apparently have a thing for shrimp and grits because I ordered it again at Soho after just having had it at Take the Cake when we were in Cincinnati. I saw it as my responsibilty, duty even, to see who did it better, ya know? And report back to you fine people with my findings. Well, the jury is in and hands down, Soho wins. And that's saying something because I thought my meal at TTC was mighty tasty.

#2 My sister has been outdone. We all know she's the pie baking champion of the world. She makes a better pie than anyone I know...that is until Saturday night when a certain slice of pecan pie with bourbon-brown butter ice cream found its way to our table. It was like, Whoa. Life changing, really. Josh and I talked about finding a way to sneak a piece out of there and take it home to Abby so she could reverse engineer it and then we could have it whenever we wanted. But we all know that slice would have never made it home.

Wes has been keeping busy grinding glitter and confetti into my funiture making a slew of valentines and helping me make these. We're having our normal Thursday night people over tonight this week and wanted to surprise them with a little valentine's day treat. We had to make the dough yesterday, because apparently you have to age chocolate chip cookie dough now? So yeah, Wes was eating the chocolate as fast as I could chop it. And I was in the fridge eating the raw dough straight from the bowl all night. By my calculations, we should have enough left for say, four and a half cookies tonight.

I hope everyone likes sharing!

Anyways, before I go and bid you all a very happy valentine's day I thought I'd share this post from a fantastic blog that I read, written last year. I may have shared it before, but it's one of my all time favorite things I've ever read (after the introduction). In the spirit of the day, it's super duper romantic and every time I read it, it still gives me goosebumps. I wish that kind of love for each and everyone of us, always. That is the stuff right there. THAT is what it's all about.

Happy Valentine's