Valentine's Day Planning

I grew up in Southwest Louisiana, not too far from the Texas border. After a brief stint in Nashville, I made my way to Texas. (The part of Texas right across the border from Southwest Louisiana.) If there’s one thing I love about living in Texas, it’s the fact that I can sit by the pool in January and get some sun.  My boyfriend is a native Texan, and like all of them, loves all things Texas. He jokes with me that I’ll learn to one day love Texas. I told him that I doubt I’ll ever love Texas. I feel there will be aspects of Texas that I will grow to love. I feel that I will never dislike Texas, and may actually grow to like it a whole lot. Love is a strong word, and for someone who grew up in Louisiana, it’s hard to consider loving any other place on the planet as much as I love Louisiana. Louisiana just has a different feel about it, and in turn, a different way of life and looking at life.

I’ve spent most of my afternoon by the awesome pool in my apartment complex (it has a waterfall and awesome patio areas by the lake, which is why it’s awesome compared to the bare pool area by my apartment) thinking about what to get the boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. He’s already won in that regard because he got us tickets to see Boyz II Men…on Valentine’s Day. (Yea, he’s a keeper) Since I know I’ll never be able to top that, I wanted to give him something heartfelt and meaningful. I’m not a heartfelt and meaningful type of girl when it comes to relationships, so I wanted to step out of my comfort zone for this one. I’ve been scouring Pinterest for weeks and it’s been of no help to me. I’ve done countless internet searches to no avail. While I’ve been staring at this awesomely tranquil setting, I started to think of all of the things I like about Texas: Bluebell icecream (which is waiting in my freezer), Dr Pepper (which I’ve been drinking since soda was first introduced to me since it’s my mother’s favorite), the Texas Rangers (they just happen to be in Texas), Bordon’s chocolate milk (I used to buy this every day after softball practice until I quit playing during college), Shinorbock (my favorite beer), and  Dairy Queen (the true Texas stop sign. This got me thinking about what other things I like that are from Texas. I’ve been doing some research and it turns out, there are lots of things I like that are either made in, headquartered in, or originated in Texas. Then my brilliant plan came to mind – give him a basket of things I like about Texas.

While that idea is awesome in itself, I’ve decided to take it one step farther. I know nothing about Texas. I plan to take a few of those “simple” Texas history quizzes online with my results to show that I know nothing about Texas. I also plan to include a map on where I think major Texas cities are located. (I’m going to bomb that one big time!)  Follow that up with a Texas bucket list of things that I want to either do or see in Texas, followed with a small gift basket of things I like about Texas. I also plan to include a section of “things I don’t hate about Texas” to include all of th things that while I don’t necessarily like or love them, they’re growing on me.

I know that this is entirely cheesy, and sappy. I also think it’s going to be awesome. He may think I’m crazier than he already does, but this way he’ll know that I put thought and effort into a gift for a holiday that’s really just meant for people to buy stuff anyway.