The Obligatory Valentine's Day post

Two weeks from now, parents around the country will participate in the time-honored tradition of frittering away money on disposable palm-sized trinkets, treats and multi-colored slivers of paper. My daughter will scramble into the car after a school day spent collecting valentines from her classmates. And I, for my part, will be responsible for making sure she's prepared to dole out something with her little name scrawled on it.

'Round about now, I usually start scouting out cute little craft projects online. Something like these pins, or recycled crayon hearts. But, inevitably, my approach to step-by-step DIY projects goes like this:

1. Find idea.

2. Coo over idea.

3. Assess the many ways in which I am way too lazy to see idea through to completion.

4. Bookmark idea anyway, because...you never know.

5. Forget about idea completely.

As I say, this is my usual M.O. Today, though, I realized I may have to actually make with the glue gun and construction paper after all. Pushing the cart through Target, I came across these marvels and knew the mass-produced route was not for me this year.

There was the nauseating:

The grossly inappropriate:
(These Forbidden Fruits feature such choice love notes as "Live 4 Ever" and "Bite Me".)

Speechless. This being OC, I wouldn't be at all surprised if these sell out.

Nothing says love like hired assassins and military men.

Yeah. I'm thinking we'll do something creative this year, for certain. Simple and homemade. It'll make me feel haughtily superior as a parent and it'll keep my kid pre-occupied for a half-hour, or so. The only losers in the picture are the greedy little hands at school, for it's a known fact that their appreciation of a gift is inversely proportional to the amount of effort put into it. Thankfully, there are only a dozen little wooden cubbies that we have to fill.

I'll keep you posted on what we whip up.