It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but, most of the time, being a long-distance relationship is tough.  You miss your loved one, you wait anxiously for the next visit, you get confused over word choices in texts or emails, you have flights canceled, you might even be in different time zones.  No matter what the situation, LDRs often follow Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

I’m in the 3rd long distance year of a 4 year relationship, so I kind of feel like I’ve become accustomed to the ups and downs. You never really get used to saying goodbye, but you develop a slightly thicker skin (for me, that means not weeping for an hour and a half before he heads off, maybe limiting it to 20 minutes).

You know what else helps?

Romantic Valentine’s Day packages from someone else.  Especially if that someone knows the way to your heart:

Bacon, toffee, and brownies (if you’re interested in ordering some, ask the baker!)

Cate from Running Foodie and Cate’s Bites packed me the most gorgeous, decadent Valentine’s Day package I could imagine.  It was part of Christina’s brain child: The Valentine’s Day Blogger Swap! Since my regular Valentine was stuck working in a lab, playing with rats and such all day, Cate thoughtfully sent me some goodies to make the day a lot less lonely.

I’ll admit, I snuck her a few hints, but she really took the idea and transformed a blogger swap package into a box of joy and rapture!

Cate included a Yuengling, her favorite beer, as she’s been stockpiling it in Boston, unable to get it unless she’s in PA!!  That already touched my heart (and, soon, my liver!)

She remembered my love of not smelling like a locker room and included coconut bath gel (Wish I’d opened it up before my shower!!)

She ALSO remembered my fondness for crazy flavor combinations, and treated me to these gems:

Theo dark chocolate with coconut and Hachez featuring Mango Chili flavors.

Holy shit.

Sorry, literally couldn’t contain that expletive, because that was my exact reaction to seeing these two bars.  The hungry beast inside of me wanted to lash out and wolf the entire box in one gulp, but I practiced self control… in the sense that I ate only one bacon toffee brownie.  I’ll save the other two to share with my beau when I see him this weekend, I wouldn’t want him to get jealous of my new blogging friend, Cate, and all the love I have for her.

No need to be jealous, Ry, I still only have eyes for you.

My stomach, however… that belongs to Cate for a little while.