Valentine's Day: To go out or not to go out.....that is the question!

For the moment, Daniel and I are happily childfree...until we get a referral for an orphan in Ethiopia sometime next year and our world will turn upside down! But for now, we are living on the edge with boundless freedom to go out to fancy restaurants, steal away on weekend trips to Carmel, go dancing all night, etc.... We don't actually do any of these things, but at least we know we have the freedom to do so! Usually, Daniel will say, "Hey, let's go away for the weekend to Carmel! What's stopping us?"

And then I dream for a second about how amazing a trip to Carmel would be, the beaches, 17-mile-drive, the art galleries, delectable dinners, romantic coffee shops. Then reality comes screeching around the corner in the shape of a dog named "Chica" with cat poop hanging out of her mouth and a trail of torn up kleenex she has dug out of the trash can. And then I say to Daniel, "Who's going to watch the dogs, do the laundry, do the grocery shopping, clean the house, read my 1200 pages of transcripts that are due next week? I'd rather stay home and watch a movie on the couch tonight..." And then Daniel hangs his tail and mopes to his office. Plus we've got choir and Sunday school to teach, so we can't ever really miss church except for the summertime.

This prelude leads me to the burning question: To go out or not to go out on Valentine's Day. Do we want to brave the crowds and 45-minute waits at the romantic restaurants downtown? We are DINK's! We should be living the life! (Dual income, no kids, in case you are not familiar with that acronym. I've been calling us that for a while as a joke, when one day Daniel corrected me and told me that we are NOT dual income since I'm the only one that works, and I should come up with another catch phrase for us)

Part of me wants to live it up and celebrate our childfreedom, but the other part of me wants to stick a middle finger up to Valentine's Day in solidarity to my single compadres out there. When I was single, I absolutely hated V-Day. It was yet another reminder that I was alone and had no one that loved me. Nowadays, different holidays torment me, e.g., Mother's Day. I hate the media and American calendars telling me when I'm supposed to feel romantic. So tonight I've decided that I'm making meatloaf for Daniel, and we're staying home. I think we'll celebrate romance in March instead, just in time for my birthday!