elaby | Valentine's Day

I ended up staying home sick from work on Valentine's Day, and Rachel stayed home with me to take care of me <3 I'm so incredibly lucky to have her. Once I was feeling better, we had a very relaxing day, sleep-filled and movie-filled. And we exchanged our Valentine's Day gifts <3 <3 <3

This year, we both made most of our gifts for each other, and we holed up in separate rooms several times over the past weeks to get things done in secret. We made supply trips alone (we hardly ever run errands alone so that was totally bizarre, in a fun way XD). This is what Rachel made for me. <3

(There were three boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, but the other two are now open and in the freezer XD All to be saved until after our diet experimentation month.)

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, and so Rachel made me a decoupaged bottle covered with tissue paper hearts and filled with little heart-shaped pillows that she'd filled with organic lavender. She actually gave this to me earlier this week so I could use it, and I have one of the pillows inside my pillowcase now. It smells divine.

The biggest and most wonderful surprise of my gift was this set of Glamourkin-inspired pendants that Rachel made for me. I almost exploded from joy when I saw them. I knew she was making something for me with Mod Podge in the studio all of those days, but I had no idea what <3

Each one of them is so perfect. They all mean something special to us or reference something I love: clockwise, there's the Maid Marian one, the Anglo-Saxon poetry one, the writing one, the forest-spirit one, the Anthy one, the sleep-and-portals one, and the one that alludes to the depth of our love, the ocean, and our favorite Project Unicorn story, "Pearls Enough". I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw these <3 <3 <3 I am blessed beyond all measure to call this wonderful woman my wife.

Today, she took me on a Secret Valentine's Day Date. She wouldn't tell me where we were going, just to dress up and that we had reservations at 1:00. We drove through town and into Dover, at which point I was very confused because we'd gone past pretty much all of the establishments IN Dover but we hadn't taken the faster route past the town to any other towns. Then Rachel pulled the car into the Silver Fountain Inn, a beautiful Victorian bed-and-breakfast that we'd passed multiple times and often talked about staying at for a silly one-town-over vacation. It turns out that the Silver Fountain Inn has just started serving afternoon tea <3

It was delicious. We were the only ones in the dining room, and we could sit at any table we liked, so we sat at one of the larger ones with lots of elbow room. The plates were golden and all the teacups and saucers and pots matched. Soothing music played in the background as we drank Subtle Strawberry white tea and ate tropical scones with clotted cream and lemon curd. We were able to get a two-tiered tea sandwich tray (less expensive than the three-tiered one at the other tea house we normally go to, which is also more than an hour away). They made me sandwiches of egg salad and strawberry cream cheese and cucumber with butter to substitute the chicken salad they usually served. We're starting my restricted diet tomorrow so it was extra wonderful to have this today <3 And the house was so beautiful, with curving staircases and hand-painted canvas wall-coverings instead of wallpaper. It was an incredible find and the perfect Valentine's Day date <3 <3 <3