La Rue Bijou - Valentine's Day--Say it with chocolate or maybe something unique. . . .

 Valentines done by Margaret Ross Tolbert

For many years, I kept special valentines I received as a child in a special wooden stationary box. The more elegant cards were three-dimensional with messages of love and intricate drawings of hearts on a background of lace, reminiscent of Victorian times. Other valentines showed elephants, tea pots or cowboys or vegetables and fruits with corny wishes for a “dog-gone” good day, a play on words or just a simple message like “Be Mine.

 With adolescence came an emphasis on romance. The boxes of chocolate or a stuffed animal or flowers or an invitation to a dance—if you had a crush or a beau.

The origins of Valentine’s Day are far removed from today’s emphasis on commercialization. Third-century saints—all of whom were named Valentine--were martyred on Feb. 14 because of their ability to heal and convert the masses to Christianity. 

The concept of love, however, was introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer in his 14^thcentury (The Cantebury Tales), in which he writes of a “Parlement of Foules” (Fowls) birds, mating in February, which associated mating birds with lovers and hence fostered an exchange of amorous messages and tokens of love, which spread in the following centuries (Davies).

 

                                            Esther Howland, Metropolitan Museum 

 Valentine cards had been produced in Europe for some time before Ester Howland, whose father ran a successful book and stationary store in Massachusetts, introduced developed a small business marketing valentines with lacy edges and a short poem around 1847.

 Valentine’s has become unrecognizable for many of us, given the festivities surrounding Feb. 14 have grown to include cards, flowers, chocolates, jewelry and dinners. Spending projections vary considerably. And many of us seek a unique experience or to create a tradition.

 Below, I describe our family tradition of painting hearts and having a memorable evening with family or friends.

 

Given I have an artist as a sibling, our traditions center around the arts. We decided to paint wooden hearts with a personal message or drawing. To keep expenses down, we ordered the hearts online. Acrylic paints can be found at the Dollar Tree or ordered online. 

 

We coated the hearts with a base coat wash of acrylic then used a permanent marker for the design and additional color for highlights. 

 Happy Valentine's Day! 

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Works Cited

Davies, Amy. “A Tudor Valentine’s Day.” Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/tudor-valentines-day/. Accessed 6 February 2026.

 

Related Works

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Parliament of Fowls.” http://www.librarius.com/parliamentfs.htm. Accessed 6 February 2026.

 “Valentine’s Day Spending Expected to Reach New Records.” National Retail Federation. 26 January 2026. https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/valentine-s-day-spending-expected-to-reach-new-records. Accessed 6 February 2026.

Wyland, Jessica. “How Valentine’s Day Became a Commercial Holiday.” University of Texas Permian Basin. https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/business/how-valentines-day-became-a-commerical-holiday/. Accessed 6 February 2026.

 

 

La Rue Bijou - Florida--Bracing for the Freeze

 

  

It’s that time of year when cold weather arrives, transforming our lush vegetation into the likes of collard greens. Then, there's always the problem of falling iguanas. . . .

Tourists are impacted—in South Beach, many hotels aren’t prepared. Radiators and blankets?  Whatever for! 

Even though freezes do occur, here on the East Coast of Central Florida, local residents are rarely prepared. Panic sets in—similar to that feeling in hurricane season. When we see a post on the FaceBook weather pages, we race to cover plants, and we stock up on food and beverages as well as library books. We often cancel plans. 

 Even in Florida, a freeze can lead to power outages, downed tree limbs and sinkholes, which come from over-pumping water from the aquifer to protect crops. Many of our plants are not native and hence are more susceptible to freeze.

 Citrus, native to Southeast Asia, came to Florida with Spanish explorers in the late 15^th century and has grown into an important crop. Since the 19^th century, freezes (the “great freeze” of 1894-1895, and more recently the freezes of the mid 1980s), have wiped out groves. Many of us remember passing those hillsides of orange trees in Central Florida. We've stopped at roadside stands. After the freeze, hundreds of acres of dead trees were replaced with pines and housing developments.

 Native to Florida, more than 8,000 manatees live along the coastal areas. In winter,  when water temperatures drop below 68 degrees Fahrenheit, they seek shelter in fresh water springs or canals where water temperatures hover around 72 degrees. Despite their corpulent profile, they don’t have blubber to protect them from hypothermia.

 

I joined several people yesterday at Desoto Canal Park in Satellite Beach. We had come to welcome the manatees. Not a single manatee to be found here. But recent photos of the springs in Central and North Central Florida show numerous manatees, congregating in those warmer waters. I should have returned today with the arrival of the cold front. But we have other things on our minds. 

 Grocery stores are filled with shoppers. A good day for Brunswick stew or chili. . . . Apparently,  thrift shops are filled with people looking for sheets to cover plants and blankets for feral cats. Warming shelters, operated by non-profit organizations and volunteers, are gearing up to open on these nights when temperatures drop below 45 degrees. 

We complain about our freezes. But friends in Virginia and the northern states continue to endure endless days sub-zero temperatures and black ice.  We may be a bit colder than South Florida, at least we we have radiators and blankets and won't have the risk of falling iguanas. 

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La Rue Bijou - The Ubiquitous Storage Unit. . . .

 

 

          Flamenco dancers?     

 

 

A few years ago, a cartoonist portrayed an elderly man with a walker and his son standing in front of a self-storage unit, chock full of the detritus of a lifetime.

 “One day, all of this will be yours,” the father told his son.

 I tend to joke about these things with my children. But an estimated 1 in 3 Americans have storage units, and more than 40 percent are baby boomers (Gatea).

 Generations ago, extended families lived together in large houses with attics and basements and often a garden packhouse to accommodate possessions. Since those times, our global population has skyrocketed, and our lifestyles have changed. Today’s houses have little storage.

 The main reasons for having a self-storage unit are referred to as the Four Ds-- downsizing, displacement (e.g., relocation, disaster), divorce and death (Poole, Stepanian). Apparently, the growing use of storage units has nothing to do with the influence of Maria Kondo or (to keep those objects that bring joy) or Swedish “death cleaning,” whereby you reduce possessions and organize finances to make your succession easier for your heirs.

 For many years, I scoffed at the idea, maintaining a storage unit was the first stage of hoarding. I also worked about a genetic predisposition to become someone like the Collyer Brothers. However, with the death of a close family member, a collector, and a series of break ins, we rented several storage units. More recently, I’ve used storage units for relocation.

 

 

 

                                                    

Frequent moves?  

 

Walking down the aisles of my storage facility, I note a cluster of units that rent costumes for galas while others have props needed for a Jamie Lee Curtis horror movie). Some have collectibles and vintage furniture, maybe for e-commerce or MarketPlace. Others have neatly labeled, standard-sized moving boxes for easy access and stacking--someone with a habit of moving. Still others are filled with a tangle of objects hurriedly (angrily?) tossed inside . Mops, buckets, clothing, lamp shades, blenders, suitcases and cartons from the local liquor store. A breakup of sorts? A few of those units are nearly empty, and a few have little-used exercise equipment. 

 Horror Props 

 Are there other underlying reasons to have a storage unit? After all, rental fees, which average between $75-$175 a month, add up. For some, a storage unit offers a transition—when you’ve cleared your house of many possessions but can’t bring yourself to part with them through donations or trips to the landfill (Poole). 

Maybe it isn't all about decluttering our lives. Maybe it has something to do with memories.  

Hum, memories. . . .  

A storage unit filled with old photo albums, high school prom, stuffed animals or my favorite books would be a hard sell to justify the clutter and expense. And that father-son cartoon remains in my mind. As soon as I relocate to a new home. . . . I'm certain to find a place for many of these objects. . . .

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Works Cited

Gatea, Maria. “One in Three Americans Rent Self Storage as Space Shortages Grow and Demand Expands.” StorageCafe. 11 April 2025. https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/self-storage-demand-and-trends-2025/. Accessed 18 November 2025.

NOTE – The article above contains a methods section on survey data.

Poole, Julia. “Tired of Losing—Mother’s Journey with Self-Storage showed me how, for many Americans, these Units Hold Much More than Material Possessions.” Slate. 5 August 2024. https://slate.com/business/2024/08/self-storage-units-industry-growth-housing-insecurity-evictions.html. Accessed 17 November 2025.

Stepanian, Jim. “Why Self-Storage Is Steady Despite Economic Bumps.” Storage Caves. 23 October 2024. https://storagecaves.com/why-self-storage-is-steady-despite-economic-bumps. Accessed 17 November 2025.

 

Related Readings

Knierim, Ashley. “What is Swedish Death Cleaning, and Should You Do It?” The Spruce. 11 February 2025. https://www.thespruce.com/swedish-death-cleaning-4801461. Accessed 24 January 2026.

Meltzer, Marisa. “How Death Got Cool. The Latest Trend is a Cross between Hygge and Maria Kondo: A Sign that Dying Well Has Become a Sign of Our Time.” 12 January 2018. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/12/how-death-got-cool-swedish-death-cleaning. Accessed 24 January 2026.