Show Your Green Love on Valentine's Day

· Create a clue hunt to each of your favorite places together.

Have the clues end up at your favorite place to eat. Involving others makes it a lot more fun and challenging (use hotel staff, friends, family),"get into the blue car on 1st and Pike," "look for the paperback copy of Tom Sawyer at the Greenwood Library," etc). The clues can be lines from favorite movies or books, facts only the two of you know, song lyrics, etc. You can also use photos as clues by taking obscure shots of favorite places and see if your partner can guess where they are. A more high-tech version is to record an audio CD or podcast (this will become public, of course). With this option you can make sure they don't jump ahead by having to call you to tell them what the next track/clue is. You can record "dummy" tracks to throw them off if you suspect they will jump ahead too fast. This can be done by walking, bussing, or driving. Unlimited options!

· Make a fancy meal at your home.

Or you can ask a culinary friend of yours to help. Decorate with pictures from when you first got together, play favorite music, rent favorite movies. Turn off the phones. Light some candles. If you have actor-type friends, you can make your home into a fancy restaurant, complete with courses, service, live music, etc.

· Organize a slide show of your life together.

You can also supplement with humorous Power Point presentations (graphs of the exponential increase of your love, time lines of children, retirement dreams, or possible travel destinations). Ask friends and family for pictures they may have taken as well. They're usually different from what you would take. The slide show can become an annual tradition where you show pictures from the past year or you can do a one-time cumulative slideshow from pictures you have since you got together.

· Design a Progressive Meal.

If you go out a lot and you and your loved one have a lot of favorite restaurants, go to a different place for each course. That way you can digest while traveling to the next destination and you can tell your love story to a few different audiences.

· Celebrate in silence.

Find all the activities you can do in complete silence. Sometimes words aren't enough (or they're too much) and the silence can really exercise your other senses. Eating gourmet food, trading massages, watching a movie, reading together, taking a hike, writing love letters, listening to music, cuddling, bathing, going to a spa and staring at each other are all easily done without talking.

· Split the day in half so each of you can plan something for the other.

That way the romance can be shared in both giving and receiving. Maybe one of you cooks a meal and the other organizes outside entertainment. You can go to a play, hear live music, go to a museum exhibit, do any fun house projects, or any of the other ideas listed here.

· Take professional pictures.

Hire a photographer friend or get comfortable with the self-timer on your camera and take pictures of the two of you. Go to different places in your city, inside or outside, with different outfits on, and different poses. Make sure you don't leave until you are satisfied. When the photos are printed, replace older ones right away. It's always good to have current photos so you can be more present in your relationship.

· Make a Love Alter.

If you are creative types, pick an often-visited place in your home to make an alter for your relationship.
In feng shui this can either be the SW corner of your house (Compass School Feng Shui) or the right far corner of your house or room from your front door (Black Hat Sect Feng Shui). Or if you have a special place where you spend a lot of time together, you can put the alter near there. You can include things like wedding vows, love notes, pictures, special objects, candles, quotes, scents and anything else that brings a warm feeling about your relationship. You can decorate with colorful paint, fabric, or pieces of brightly colored origami paper. The alter can be hung on the wall (using old drawers works great for this) or on a small side table. You can update your alter every year or when you have something to add, to change your intentions.

· Write a eulogy for your relationship.

While it may sound morbid at first, it's really a sweet thing if you focus on what you want to come from your relationship. Sacred unions are powerful forces in the world and love is the basis of that power. You can write these as if you were married for 60 years even if it's only been 2 or you can write it according to the years you've been together.
For example: Steven and Julia's union created 3 wonderful children, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. Julia and Steve traveled to Guatemala, where they worked with several communities, teaching them about hygiene and learning how to cook authentic dishes. Julia says that because she was with Steven, she learned how to be more patient and how to have more fun. Steven says that since he started going out with Julia, the world has felt a bit brighter and he felt a lot more passionate about life.

· Take a long weekend and go on a short road trip.

Bring favorite snack food, stop off at small Mom 'n Pop cafes, take tons of silly pictures, make mix CDs or playlists of favorite music. Only use cell phones in an emergency and don't check email. Play the What If game, talk to strangers, go camping, stay at fancy hotels, indulge yourself.

· Discuss with your loved one some ways you can spread your love around.

Who else would benefit from experiencing more love in the world? Adopt a dog, take a niece or nephew out on their own for a special time, visit an older relative, write letters to far away family members and friends, donate money to favorite organizations, volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, etc.

· If you don't have a date or you enjoy spending time alone, make this a day for loving yourself.

Do all the things you put off or save for a rainy day. Watch movies you haven't seen, eat desserts first, buy a special article of clothing, call a friend for a couple hours, read a good book. Write a love letter. Go to a sporting event. Take a long walk. Build a bookcase. Work on your car. Whatever makes you happy.

· Share the love.

If you aren't really into Valentine's Day but want an excuse to share love, invite your family and friends over and ask everyone to share about loving moments in their life. Since this holiday can get a bit materialistic, this is a great way to celebrate love without all the stuff. This is also a fun way to include singles and small children in your life. You can incorporate ideas from above to do with larger groups. Cooking food, playing games, sharing pictures and telling stories are activities for all ages.

· Each day of the month of February write a small love note to your partner.

Leave them in inconspicuous places. Be creative in where you leave them and the notes may be found even later than February. It's always nice to be surprised.

· Memorialize your partner.

It's always nice to show how much you love and think about your partner and if you are a collector, you can create a scrapbook of him/her. You don't have to subscribe to Martha Stewart to scrapbook and it's not just for women. Concert tickets, movie stubs, receipts (not very romantic, but maybe they could be from foreign countries), plane tickets, photos, poems, pictures cut from magazines, books, or taken from the internet, photocopies of emails exchanged, photocopies of old love letters, newspaper clippings about the person, or any other artifact from your past. If a scrapbook sounds like a big project, try picking a few items and make a shadow box. Joseph Cornell, an artist well known for shadow boxes, collected beautiful objects to make shadow boxes for women he was courting, as well as other loved ones. If there is an Ikea close to you, they have two different sizes. Other art and frame stores will also have shadow boxes.