Love Is...

                          One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love. -Sophocles

                                                                                                                                                             
       In honor of Valentine's Day festivities, we're going to share a lil blog aloha in a different way, after all, aloha is all about love and a more complete definition of love at that, and  this is a blog, so right there we have blog aloha!

Now that you can see how serious this blog post is going to be, I have to dive right in and ask a random trivia question: Can any of our readers remember a cartoon and subsequent figurines apparently popular in the 1970s I think, a line drawing of a little boy and a little girl, always with the subtitle of 'Love is...'  My Uncle and Aunt had a figurine that said something deep like 'Love is...Never having to say your sorry.'  Probably given to my Aunt by her husband in a humorous attempt at an apology; anyone see the irony in that?  

I saw something a day or so ago that for whatever reason reminded me of the cartoons which of course got me to thinking of Valentines Day and all the prerequisite consumerism, mixed message advertising and how far away from love, real love all of this has drifted.  Jeff and I have quite a while ago decided to forego the whole typical night out, store bought card, jewelery buying thing.  We had a very unromantic dinner out a number of years ago on a Valentine's evening; reservations lost due to working late, three to four hour wait around town, somewhere along the line that night we looked around and asked ourselves 'Why are we doing this? We're busy professionals, (at the time we were eating out way too often) and we thought, we could have celebrated any other night that week.  And that's when it hit us, why are we doing this at all?  We are not anti-cupid, really, we're just tired of the hype that surrounds this holiday like all of the other ones now.  Consumerism has highjacked every holiday ! Travis at Debt Chronicles posted a fantastic blog post about this very thing with an accompanying video that is not to missed, at once hilarious and sickening it drives my point home all too well.  So for those of us who have embraced a more minimalist way of living, how do we handle the stuff being, well stuffed down our throats? We say a heart felt no, and we move on. 

We are extraordinarily blessed to live in the South Pacific, romantic beaches and pathways abound, beautiful fresh tropical flowers in pinks, oranges and red proliferate every day of the year.  Give me plumeria any time over roses, that's just me, but I love that I can see and smell flowers all of the time.  Needless to say a dozen roses really don't do much for me, but I understand it really has a special meaning for some, and if it does, that's the important thing, find what works for you and go with that.  Maybe because of the spectacular natural beauty here, people tend to be focused on free things you find in nature and less on jewelery or hothouse flowers, most of the things for sale seem to appeal to the tourist and less to those who live here, we noticed the same thing at Christmas.  So that makes me think of another aspect of simplifying life, finances and health; if we are satisfied or indulged even by what matters, as Betsy Talbot points out in a great post this week, are we more likely to be content and not need more food, consumerist junk, or jewelery?  I think so.  So we indulge our senses on tropical vegetation and the ocean waves, we're getting healthier and our romantic plans for this Valentine's Day?  Don't worry I won't make you blush; include a free bonfire on the beach and a snuggly blanket to watch the stars under.  Free.  I can promise you that I don't miss the fancy dinners and even