Celebrate Love

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
- Plato

Today is a good day to be a girl. At least a girl with a significant other. Who doesn’t love a holiday that simply celebrates love? There is nothing else so basic, and yet so complicated.

2008 is my sixth year to celebrate with Rob. He is such a generous gift giver, especially for Valentine’s Day. Even after I told him that all I wanted this year was a nice dinner (and that’s the truth!), yesterday morning I woke up to candies, a glass bottle of Coke, and a new teddy bear on the breakfast table—with a note explaining that he knew he was a day early, but he just loves me that much! This morning there was a clever card, a giant stuffed monkey, more candies, more Cokes, and a snack that I mentioned wanting to try on our last trip to the grocery store. And tonight we have late reservations for dinner at a surprise (to me!) location. Rob isn’t the most creative man of the bunch, but he sure gets an A++ for trying hard.

However, in our house, it’s not all about me. On this annual day of love, I want to celebrate my husband as well. I carefully avoid store-bought tsotchkes, electronic gadgets, or trendy clothing. I want to give him a gift that celebrates what I truly love about him. The tradition has become to craft something for him. I have had several of really good ideas over the years, but this year I really struggled for a while. Then it came to me.

After making a list of the things that I love most about Rob, I carefully placed them in the shape of his favorite sports car, Audi R8.Thank goodness for Adobe Illustrator.



Since this year’s theme is sleep, I transferred the design to a pair of pajama pants and made it into a small car-shaped pillow. I also bought this really cute book that Jordan recommended on Oh Happy Day.

The most challenging part of the project was figuring out how to get it done in secret. This is the first year that Rob has lived with me, and I’m usually very thankful that he comes home early for work (see the 4th line from the bottom on the chassis of the car). But it sure makes it a challenge to pull out the sewing machine for a secret project. I had to drag all of my supplies to work, and spent my lunch hours this week crafting away.

I think he’ll really like it, especially the detail that it’s modeled after an A8—I mean, he is a man. But I hope it goes over better than last year. A year ago I spent a week designing and sewing a stuffed love monster out of felt. However, that effort was overshadowed a bit by Rob’s proposal and a diamond engagement ring. Not that I’m complaining about that :)