The merry, merry month of May
Oh, how I long for the “Merry, Merry Month of May.” But first I must struggle through the conflicted month of February, and then March and April.
I’m tired of winter. There I’ve said it. But huge piles of snow and sub-zero wind chills just represent the most obvious burdens of February. It’s the time of year I have to get serious about catching up on all the accounting for our business. I have to enter hundreds of transactions into QuickBooks. All the scraps of paper that I’ve just shoved into file folders all year long now have to be organized, analyzed, and keyed into the computer – one of my least favorite activities. About one full week of misery is what it takes to do the accounting for the year, at least to clean up our record-keeping to the point that I can turn everything over to a real accountant to figure our taxes.
I can remember when February was one of my favorite months. I remember one really special morning in February. I don’t think I was old enough to be in school yet. My mom did something really special for me. She took a heart-shaped cookie cutter and pressed it into a slice of bread. Then she pulled off the bread outside the cutter – which included all the hard crust I didn’t like – leaving behind a heart-shaped slice of bread. She buttered the bread heart and topped it off with her home-made strawberry jam. Paired with a cup of hot chocolate that was the best mid-morning snack I’ve ever had in my life.
My favorite holiday celebration in grade school every year was Valentine’s Day. We always had a party in the afternoon of Valentine’s Day, but we began preparations for the party about a week ahead of time. We covered a great big box (about 2’ x 2’ x 2’) with white paper. The teacher cut a slot on top of the box. Then we all cut out the fanciest red hearts we could imagine and pasted them all over the box. This became the valentine box. Day by day for the week leading up to Valentine’s Day we brought valentines for everyone in the class and dropped them into the box. For our party, the teacher would select a few students to be the mailmen. They opened the box and delivered the valentines to everyone. It was so much fun to carefully open every envelope and see what valentine each classmate had selected for me.
It had also been fun to spend hours at home over the week leading up to this party selecting which valentine I would give to each of my classmates. In the earliest grades, my mom bought me a book of valentines that were printed and perforated on heavy paper. I would carefully punch out each valentine, trying really hard not to tear it. When I was in the middle grades, my mom was working at a job in Madison, and she could afford to buy me the more expensive package of valentines that I didn’t need to punch out. I still like to look at the packages of valentines at dollar stores to see how closely today’s valentines resemble the ones I remember giving and receiving.
Another fun thing I remember doing for Valentine’s Day was pooling funds with my brother Danny to buy a beautiful heart-shaped box of chocolates for our mom. Of course, she always shared the chocolates with us, which made the surprise gift for her even better.
So February is both a terrible month for me – I’m sick and tired of winter and I have to spend days doing the accounting I hate to do; and a joyful month for me – a time filled with happy childhood memories. It’s a conflicted month.
On that note, I think I’ll put on my down-filled winter jacket and ear muffs, put Floey’s pretty blue coat on her, and go for a short walk. Some fresh air will feel good, even if it’s cold air. Maybe I’ll make some hot chocolate when we come back.
