A Top 10 List of Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and it’s snowmageddon in Charlotte! As the snow continues, we are being advised to stay home and off the snowy roads. Take a deep breath, do not freak out if you have not gotten a gift for your loved one. Many of us have ‘cabin fever’ from being cooped up in the house for so long. Before you go all Hunger Games/Survivor on us, here are our top ten suggestions for a last minute gift from the heart if you have little access to outside resources:

1) Create a Pinterest board dedicated to your sweetheart with different love quotes, funny memes and pictures. (Kind of like a digital scrapbook)

2) Create an actual scrapbook by pulling all of your cute photos together from your Facebook profile, because that picture of your Halloween party ensemble is sentimental!

 

3) Cook him or her a nice meal, make sure it’s their favorite dish. If you can’t cook, check out Pinterest for recipes or cater! (In Charlotte, Foodiecall.com is still delivering food!) If you don’t have the fixings for their favorite, you may have to improvise with the 1 lb of picnic grits you bought from Sam’s club last year – or you may want to brave a walk to the nearest grocer! I know you can do it Braveheart!

4) Make them a mix tape or CD and lip sync your favorite to them and/or do a silly dance! (Or ipod/iphone playlist)

Some of our top song suggestions if you are looking for inspiration:
– The Power of Love – Celine Dion

• Unforgettable – Nat King Cole

• Love Song – Sara Bareilles

• Baby Love – The Supremes

• I Knew I Loved You – Savage Garden

• All of me – John Legend

• I Want to Know What Love Is – Foreigner

• Because You Loved Me – Celine Dion

• Bleeding Love – Leona Lewis

• Can’t Help Falling in Love -UB40

• I Just Called to Say “I Love You” – Stevie Wonder

 

5) Write them a love note or poem! Just speak from your heart to theirs.

 

6) Create a slideshow video for them, this is a little more complicated:

• Create a Picasa account, switch it to private

Upload photos of you and that special someone to Picassa

select “edit movie”

You can select what tune you want the video to play by choosing it directly from your iTunes account or a CD that you download to iTunes

Adjust the timing of the video to make sure it’s short and sweet

-Picasa will then connect to YouTube

– If you don’t have a YouTube account create one with a gmail account

-Picasa will automatically sync, you just need to select “Create Movie”

– The movie might take 1-2 minutes to buffer

-Then, select “Create YouTube” Video

• You can select the option to make your video private where the only way your loved one can access it is with the link you provide them.

This is really sweet, and if it keeps snowing the way it has been, you might have to watch it with them via candlelight so make sure that laptop is charged up!

7) Take the day off completely and play together, outside.

8) Slide in your favorite yoga DVD and do some of the poses with your loved one. If it’s just you on Valentine’s Day, you get the whole yoga mat to yourself and you will feel great afterwards.

9) Take a bubble bath! In the alternative, throw in a couple of cups of Epsom Salts. The salts have stood the test of time as a natural remedy for sore and tired muscles.

10) If you are lucky enough to be snowed in with your sweetheart, pretend you are at a grand ski resort! Make hot chocolate, put your special music on, put on some warm socks and get under a blanket on the couch and have a movie marathon! If you have a fireplace, light it up! Bake something together and fill your place with an amazing scent.

If responsibility calls you, and your driveway must be shoveled before you can relax, please remember the following:

to bend at the knees, engage your core and your glutes as you lift the snow shovel, and breathe with your mouth closed. Really force the nose to do what it was intended to do. Nasal breathing has a number of physiological advantages for your health and your fitness. Your breathing habits will affect your performance, endurance, post-exercise energy levels in addition to your ability to metabolize fat. Here is a great piece on proper breathing during physical exertion, from Dr. Mercola’s website.

After all that shoveling, your back may feel tight. Call Results Massage & Bodywork, in the arboretum area, and book a massage for your loved one, or for yourself. Licensed massage therapist, Candy Benish, has the experience and education to smooth out the tight spots and relieve the muscle aches fast. She offers gift certificates, should you want to treat your special someone.

Results Massage & Bodywork, LLC

3349 Chilham Pl.

Charlotte, NC 28226

(704) 292-8056

Whatever you decide to do in the next couple of days, be well, stay warm, and take good care of yourself. 🙂

Candy Benish is a licensed massage therapist in Charlotte North Carolina.