A Quotable Valentine

It's been a busy week...multiple projects (for which I am VERY grateful) and some glitches (Mac crashes, Tyger meltdowns, BlackBerry malfunctions, bad hair days) but all in all, a week that made me happy for Saturday to arrive. I made all my deadlines, though there was a near all-nighter on Thursday and I even managed to deliver one editorial job early. *yup, that's me being quite chuffed*

Did I get much of my own writing done? (shuffles bespoke English bench-made shoes on the ground while looking at the sky and refusing to make eye-contact) Um...not so much. I did a lot of writing for other people, but not much of own this past week, so I will endeavor to change this coming week. At some point, writing IS writing and I did actually enjoy some of my week's work.

And look, if I were less tired (mentally, anyway) I'd come up with some dashingly clever segue to get me over to the impending holiday...but that's not happening. SO...St. Valentine's Day is coming up, don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm celebrating my V-Day a little early. The Snow Monkey and I have a pretty disparate schedule next weekend, so we'll be celebrating Monday and Tuesday when I'm in Boston for the Bean Pot championships. Now you may be wondering why I'm announcing my V-Day plans here--fear not, The Snow Monkey does not venture into the blogosphere--he being all overly published and writerly--so all my secrets are safe with you lot, right?

Neither The Snow Monkey nor I really have discussed the holiday so I think this will be a pretty low-key Valentine's Day.  And honestly, I've not had the time to scour the shops or e-bay looking for the right baseball item for him or some piece of amazing Canadiens memorabilia. So what I've decided to do is a fun little gift...simple, but as he'd say...very us, very trig. It's in the spirit of a medieval book of hours...illuminated (if you can call my simple drawings illuminations, but you know what I mean) and filled with verses and dedicated to someone I love. *That said, he'd better NOT forget flowers...*

We love a lot of the same things, The Snow Monkey and I, so I am collecting a bunch of quotes, sayings and comments made by our favorite people about our favorite things. I spent a lot of today looking through favorite books of his (The Ginger Man, Confederacy of Dunces) and searching beloved authors (Waugh, Liebling, Joyce, Wilde, Maugham) for the right little nuggets of love and laughter. There are also hockey quotes, horse quotes (he's a budding horse lover, I'm slowly leading down the equine bridle path) and quotes about the artists he loves like Hogarth, Gillray, and Winslow Homer.

I've bought one of the little watercolor sketch pad Moleskine's and I'll illustrate and do some watercolors throughout, plus add a few little words that I know will spark laughter...like Mahler. He'll laugh about that. No one laughs at Mahler like we do. Actually, probably no one laughs about Mahler except us. Hmmmm. Anyway, I think it'll be fun and romantic and I do hope it'll hit the target. Whatever my artwork (ha!) lacks in realism will be made up for in cheeky humor and creativity.

Wish me luck on my little arts arts & crafts project...and with that I leave you with the best quote that I came upon while working on my Livre de L'amour...

From The Ginger Man:
"When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Ireland."