Jennifer Balink

How to Valentine.

What I had planned was something very different. But then Leonardo, or Lance, or Landon or whatever silly name The Weather Channel decided to give the deadly winter ice storm, moved through, and we didn’t have power for four days, and it felt like so much more than a four day interruption that I still can’t quite get right, if you know what I mean.

So the posts about making pancakes and chocolate ganache and more will just have to wait until I can get them fully downloaded from my brain to the keyboard. Ditto the full post on “How to Valentine,” which is about half written but still with the notes to myself [EXPLAIN THIS] and unfinished sentences.

And the real “How to Valentine” post, the one I was writing last Thursday in that blissful hour in between calling it a “snow day” at my office (meaning, there was no way we could work) and losing laptop battery in my house? Well, that’s morphing into something else, something that connects Valentine’s and the storm and love and food (which is, really, just another form of love). And I won’t get it finished until I have some breathing room this weekend.

So, in the meantime, here’s some funky “love” art that you can download, print, cut out, and use to make your own funky Valentine cards (or stickers, or whatever), just like when you were a kid. Make your own Valentine’s cards and give them to your friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Give them to the utility crews still working to restore power. To the grocery clerks who came to work even though they didn’t have power at home.

Love abundantly and back it up with a small, silly-seeming, kind gesture — whether it’s with these cards or others (or little packs of Haribo gummy bears or whatever).

Because spreading love to the people you love is just never, ever a bad idea. Ever.

Valentine card cutouts 2022Download
Valentine card cutouts 2nd edition 2022Download

14 comments

  2. The short ones are really gonna like these. Thank you. I’m testing a print as I write. I want to see how they do on non glossy thicker paper. If you’re like us it’ll take some time to set your lost days in context. In our neighborhood, we put out ice chests full of cold water and ice tea for the linemen. Of course it was 90 degrees. BTW, only NOAA can name a storm. There’s a small town in Mongolia called Moron. Isn’t that where the Weather Channel is based?

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  4. Not much of a Vday around here. Hubby still recovering from 13 days in hospital w COVID. But he is on the mend and supposed to return to work on Monday albeit with O2 still in tow. Hopefully will be off of that soon. So I haven’t been ignoring you, just a little preoccupied. Praying MY life can return to some kind of normalcy also. We have been dealing with this since Dec 3. 🥴

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