What do you give someone for Valentines Day when they are on a diet?  Especially someone like me who thinks chocolate is a major food group!  NOT chocolate.  Dale asked me what I wanted and I told him I wanted two new remotes for our tvs.  One old one doesn’t turn on or shut off.  It was the one for our bedroom tv and you would have to get up and walk across the room to shut the stupid thing off. I know that’s whiny but it sort of defeats the whole getting sleepy thing if I have to get out from under the covers and walk.  I am then wide awake and have to read even longer to fall asleep.

The extra one for the living room (the one I use of course) is the original one that came with the tv and it would do everything except turn the volume down.  Because I am a silly creature of habit I would pick it up, try to turn down the sound, growl and hunt for the other remote…EVERY time.

We now have two new ones but getting them programmed was interesting.  I followed the directions and pressed the device (tv) button and then held down the power button until it came on and stayed on.  Then for the old tv in our room there were about 12 sets of 4 codes that you had to enter.  The power button was supposed to blink each time you entered a set.  It did not.  I tried twice.  I read the instructions again.  I tried again.  I growled.  No luck.  My son picked it up and looked at the codes.  He pointed it at the tv, held down the tv button and entered the first code.  It worked.  I read the instructions again and NO WHERE did it say to do this.

I also asked for a pedometer so I could keep up with how far I walk.  I’m not obsessed about it – I just wanted a ball park figure.  I took it out of the package and like the remotes, this required a chainsaw, jackhammer, and much growling.  The instructions said to slowly pull the battery protector tab that was sticking out of the battery door on the back off the pedometer.  There was no tab and nothing came on.  We got out a tiny screwdriver and took the cover off and sure enough, there was the tab, folded double inside.

The last thing I asked for was another set of hand weights to have at the house, since I carried the other set up to school.  The only thing I had to do to them was cut the string that held the tag on.

Dale was not sure about these gifts.  He didn’t think they were very romantic but I appreciate all three gifts and have already used them all.  The frustration of getting the first two working gave me a headache, but walking with the last one helped get rid of the stress that caused so it all evened out.  Maybe next year I’ll stick with chocolate.