I survived Valentine's Day!

When I was in 6th grade the most unpopular boy, you know the one all the other boys pick on.. gave me a Valentine that professed profound love. I don't mean just a cute card where he signed his name, I mean a long handwritten note that said how much he "loved" me. It was placed in my Valentine box when no one was looking. I found it when we all got that time to open our Valentine's. I was frightened. I hurried and looked to see if anyone saw it and then hid it in my pocket. I was worried that if anyone saw it I would be picked on forever too.

I took it home without showing anyone and destroyed it. I was still mortified and afraid that someone saw it and I was really gonna get it the next day. I even faked sick so I could stay home. No one ever knew and eventually I felt safe at school again. I never said anything to the boy and thankfully he never mentioned it either.

Ever since then, I've been slightly uncomfortable with the whole Valentine routine. Did he get you the "right" thing? And that weird way women have of somehow making you the failure if he didn't step up with the great gift? What is that about? So of course now I run a business that bases it's entire bottom line on Valentine's Day. Would anything else make sense?

Valentine's Day for any florist means about a 1000% increase in business for about 3 days a year. Imagine what that is like... you need temps to come for just those days, the regular staff gets grumpy, clients get edgy. It's plain crazy. One year a whole local baseball team showed up to "help"...yep, eventually there was to much fun being had and the cops were called. Luckily none of them were arrested.

Last year I worked through Valentine's Day with pneumonia, a partially collasped lung and although I didn't know it at the time; rapidly growing cancer. I decided that this year I didn't want to work as hard and with the economy I didn't think there would be the orders anyway. So I scaled way back the number of orders I normally plan on doing.

I was surprised by a couple of things; first of all the orders poured in so fast I could not believe it. It was one of the fastest selling years we have had. Similar to the year the Wall Street Journal named us "best overall". Not only did we sell everything we had very early, but I estimate we turned away over 200 customers. If you were one of them.. sorry.

Secondly I was surprised how much harder it was for me physically. Actually it was easier for me last year with the pneumonia and all.. wow. I was weak. I could only work for about 2 hours and then I would have to lay down with my feet above my heart until the pain went away. Often I could barely walk after working for a day. I was constantly taking as much painkiller as I dared. And now I am so exhausted I can barely function. (But happily I did get to personally make the packages for my favorite rock star... thanks Tommy.)

I can only blame it on the heart problem and the bad circulation that it causes. When I am on my feet they start to swell and it's like all the blood goes there; when I sit, well I think it all goes in my... uh.. seat. If I spend more than a few minutes in any one position and then try to move it's difficult and painful.

This has to go away soon. It's making me nuts. I have another MUGA scan scheduled on next wednesday. I'm hoping for improvement, but I doubt it will be all better unless a lot happens in the next couple of days. I can tell it's somewhat better though. Before the V-day push I noticed that I didn't have as much pain in the mornings and I wasn't quite as tired all the time. I think the extra work just overloaded me.

My son is very patient through the whole Valentine week chaos. When he was 2 I invented the Valentine fairy. Who much like Santa brings treats and leaves them on the morning of the 14th. This helps a great deal. He looks forward to it and it gets him to bed earlier on the 13th when I'm so exhausted. This year as he was falling alseep and he thought I was in bed, I overheard him talking to the Valentine Fairy. He asked her to "make my Mom feel better, you know like normal people...." I fought back tears and vowed once again to get my old strength back.