Happy Valentine's Day!

A couple funny things happened at work today that I wanted to share with you. I had the grand idea to have treats in the office for Valentine’s Day. I was making cupcakes on Monday night for something else and had extra, so I packaged 11 frosting-less chocolate cupcakes for work. After baby-sitting in the morning, I stopped by Safeway with the intention of getting more cupcakes and the ingredients for raspberry Italian sodas (thanks for the idea, Lorry!).

Pathetic, I know, but I had no idea where anything was in Safeway! I always shop at Costco, Winco, or Fred Meyer. After wandering around and looking confused, I finally found the club soda, which I set in my basket. Then I picked out a tray of 12 vanilla cupcakes with towering pink frosting and a container of chocolate cookies with mint frosting. I put these in my basket, too, along with canned whip cream. Here’s where things started to break down.

They didn’t have any raspberry syrup. Reluctantly, I put back the club soda and whip cream in favor of three bottles of Martinelli’s apple cider, but then thought that we might not have anything to open the bottles with, so back on the shelf they went. I realized then that my arm was about to fall off from the weight of the club sodas, so I decided to buy two containers of raspberry lemonade out of desperation. As I was making a beeline for the lemonade, an employee asked “Are you finding everything?” I wasn’t about to tell him how I really felt, so I said politely, “Yes, thank you,” and grumbled to myself about why I couldn’t have just used a shopping cart. I’m sure this would have been the solution to my problem. By this time, the cupcakes were quite jumbled.

Praise God, I made it to work and got everything onto the counter in the kitchen. I pulled the cupcakes out of the bag and some of the frosting tops had come clean off! Two guys in the kitchen stared at the cupcakes. Frankly, I don’t blame them.

“Umm…what happened to the cupcakes?” One of them, David, asked.

I told the whole story, and David suggested that I just separate the frostings from the cupcakes.

“After all, some people really like the frosting but not the cake, and vice versa,” he reasoned.

So I did just that. I set out the rest of the spread, chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, raspberry lemonade and ice, chocolate mint cookies, severed cupcakes and frosting on separate plates, and some vanilla cupcakes that still had frosting. Needless to say, the treats got rave reviews and everything had vanished by 4 p.m. except three blobs of pink frosting.

Around 3 p.m., I was working steadily at my computer, and David said, “Elizabeth! Look!”

He had placed a pink frosting top on a chocolate cupcake. I burst out laughing. Somehow that made all the trouble of the morning’s shopping trip worthwhile.

On a serious note, I wrote out a hymn about God’s love for both Partners and Olive Tree this morning. I’ve committed it to memory because I like it so much, so I’m going to share it with you. Here it is:

Could we with ink the ocean fill

and were the sky of parchment made;

If every stalk on earth a quill

and every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above

would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

tho’ stretched from sky to sky.

O Love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

the saints’ and angels’ song.

I hope your Valentine’s Day has been full of the love of God, family and friends!