His Valentine to Me

In the previous entry, I talk about the long and tedious gift I created and assembled for my husband. Now it's time to share what he did for me.

I got home from work to this awesome display on my counter:

Over the last several months I have taken to popping homemade popcorn. It's healthier, tastier, and. . . well. . . cheaper in the long run. Just like I bought him a tea sampler. . . he bought me a popcorn sampler pack!  Nine different kinds of popcorn, all with different taste profiles. Very awesome. Shockingly, I see us going through this very quickly, because we always have popcorn on hand. It's a great snack.

He also got me tea-based jams. We're going to do some taste-testing, but he saw them and thought it would be interesting to taste a tea-based jam. Long ago, when we first bought a house together, we started drinking tea. I'm not big into coffee, but I wanted a warm drink to enjoy that wasn't hot chocolate. Thus was born an obsession with tea. When we moved to Edinburgh, we were completely consumed by the tea culture. We'd buy loose-leaf teas and make our own combinations and blends. I went to the The Elephant House Cafe (of Harry Potter Fame) and did a tea-tasting. My hubby and I tried different teas with different accoutrements, like the adorable shortbread elephant cookie.  A record was kept about the amount of sugar that was required. . . whether it tasted better with or without creamer and whether it was a good shortbread cookie dipper. I remember looking out the window in the back at the graveyard that supposed holds the grave that inspired the name of Tom Riddle.

As you can see, tea is just part of something that makes the two of us happy. We love trying different flavor combinations and things like that. So instead of beer or wine, we love tasting tea. And I love how, without any hints of anything, our gifts sort of crossed over to reflect our common interests.

It was so super sweet and I was so glad we were able to enjoy a wonderful Valentine's Day together. We didn't go on a trip to Chicago or anything, but we did have a nice weekend at home tasting teas and popcorn with our daughter. We went out to Olive Garden together for "noodles and meatballs" and my daughter and I stopped in a craft store to by some geeky crafts to do together later in the day.

Yeah. . . it was a wonderful surprise.