Valentine’s Day at 46 years of marriage looks a great deal different from those first few years and before. Today went like this, at 8 AM:

• G: “Aww, you got me again!”
• Me: “Well it’s just a card, and you asked me so many times what I wanted, how could I forget?”
• G: “Well you said ‘I don’t want anything’ “.
• Me: “I said I didn’t want you spending on stuff I can’t keep and if you brought candy, I’d crown you with it!”
• G: “I’m sorry.”
• Me: “You have nothing to be sorry about; you always go overboard on Christmas and gave me my valentine, birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day gifts at one time. So hush.”

Out for breakfast, back home, took my doggie out and back in to find hubby, feet up in his recliner. I thought, no way can I listen to another episode of Gunsmoke! So, off to a nap. I have the luxury of that today, which is better than a whole truckload of gifts. Fast forward, post-nap, house is empty, sun is shining, I’m feeling pretty good, planning a little supper hubby will like – by the way, where is he?

Three PM, door bell rings. There stands G., holding a single red rose in a lovely vase of greenery, and said “delivery for my girlfriend.”  Zing! Boom!

You just can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Suddenly I remembered that I had started a blog post a few years back, Old Roses and Whine; I don’t think I ever finished it. In it I mention that I have a jar full of old rose petals from occasions I have forgotten. The point being that it is the intent of the heart that matters when it comes to men; not the timing, nor the gift; the heart.

Forty years ago I’d have thought the setting of the sun depended on my getting a valentine or not. It did not; and I did not. Watching all those sun ups and sun downs for forty plus years was the real gift! Those years taught me that the heart expecting something is nowhere near as happy as the heart that does not expect, but is grateful for what already is.

When the center of your heart belongs to God, and you already have Him, the rest is just fluff. Really nice fluff, for sure, but still just fluff.