Valentine's Traditions

Hooray for holiday traditions! Even if they don't work out perfectly, it's still fun. Two of my best friends, Mary & Christine, and I started a Valentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day tradition years ago to celebrate the day of love together while we were all single. Every year, on February 14th, as long as we were in the same state, we would go out to eat and treat ourselves to delicious food. Then, we'd go to Mary's house and watch The First Wives Club, a wonderful man-bashing film.

You'd think that when one of us started dating, we'd stop having these man-hating get-togethers, but it's just too much fun. So the tradition has lived on despite boyfriends and busy schedules. We may not necessarily meet on February the 14th anymore. After all, those who currently have boyfriends *cough* Mary *cough* must spend the day with their significant others. So we still meet, on a different day, to mock the opposite sex and eat yummy food.

Our original plan was to have our get-together yesterday. But alas, none of us own First Wives Club on DVD, our local Blockbuster went out of business thanks to Netlfix and the RedBoxes outside the food stores, and those same RedBoxes didn't have it. So we met up at Walmart, hoping to find the movie there. But alas again, neither Walmart nor Target had our movie. They did have The Break-Up, so Mary bought that instead. Not quite the same, but it would work.

After purchasing our movie, we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Now the most interesting part of our girls' night was that Mary's brother John accompanied us. In fact, he was the one who drove Mary & Christine there. So we had a girls' + John night. If you're ever dining at Outback, I would recommend two dishes. The roast filet focaccia sandwich is the best French-dip-style sandwich ever. It's my usual choice when I'm there, but this time I tried something new. Which is very daring for me, because I'm more of a I-know-this-is-good-so-why-take-a-chance-at-ordering-something-you-might-not-like girl. But I was daring last night, and it paid off. The tilapia with crab stuffing on top was so delish!

Following our scrumptious dinner, during which we discussed the merits of Jacob vs. Edward, the ridiculousness of the Ghost Hunters tv show, and the cuteness of babies, we went back to Mary's house and watched The Break-Up. It was just as good as I remembered it being, although this time I was able to see huge similarities between Vince Vaughn's character and my ex. So our evening didn't go as originally planned, but now we've been given an excuse to have another girls' night as soon as Netflix sends me First Wives Club (which is number 1 on my list so it should only be a few days). Hooray for traditions, and for improvising!

On a side note: Oh, the weather outside is frightful! And a fire would be so delightful! But since my job's four more hours or so-- Stop it, snow! Stop it, snow! Stop it, snow!!!