Valentines Treat & How I Met My Man

Doesn't this look yummy? I'm actually planning ahead this year and am going to make this delectible dessert for my man for Valentines Day. He loves chocolate, so this will be a winner, I'm quite sure. And it looks so pretty too. I'm going to take a shortcut on the swirled heart on top with something store bought, but the recipe actually shows how to make those too. And, I already have a heart-shaped pan that came with my Pampered Chef cheesecake pan, so I'm ready to go. So, in case you were wondering what to do for your sweetie for Valentines, here's your chance to impress & make him swoon with delight. Chocolate cake always gets my man! You know they say that the way to a man's heart is through his tummy...well, I think that's absolutely true.
Here's the recipe, I scanned it for you, so click to open it and copy from here. This is from the February '08 Country Home magazine. (me and my honey in May, '05, Seaside, FL just before we got married in June)

On a related note, I've been tagged by Judy at Gracious Southern Living, Steph at It's Toile, Ya'll, and Fran at Frannycakes, to share how I met my hubby. So, it's pretty short and sweet and not all that exciting, but I'll tell you just how it all came about.

After a 9 year marriage in Atlanta, I had just gone through a long 2 year separation and very painful divorce in 2004. After my divorce, I had started doing some dating online. That's the new way of dating in case you haven't heard and that seemed to be a good way to meet men without having to go out to places I did not want to go to meet them. I only wanted to date a solid Christian man. Online dating has really gained in popularity over the last few years and since I was older, it seemed to be the best way to ease back into the dating scene again. And let me just say, I really don't like the dating process at all. It's tedious, deflating, and just plain not fun most of the time. I've always just wanted to be settled down with one man, my man and not have to go through all the dating games. I didn't get married at all until my 30's, so I had plenty of years of dating behind me. I wasn't particularly looking forward to more. Although it was fun at first and I went out with a lot of guys while online dating, I quickly grew tired of the dating scene.

I met my husband, Peter on a Christian online dating service called Christian Cafe, in September of 2004. He had lost his wife of 23 years to cancer only 3 years before, so we both had been through some very painful times and were both emotionally bruised. We started dating pretty exclusively. He wined and dined me, wooing me until I fell for him! We allowed love to grow and and as we went forward, we made the mistake of trying to rush things too fast as far as getting married too quickly and we went through some very tough times with all of that in the beginning months of our relationship. But we got past it all and continued to date and get to know each other better and decided on June of 2005 for our wedding. It was still pretty fast, but we are going on 3 years of marriage now. It hasn't been without its ups and downs. Blended familes and marrying when you are older presents a lot more challenges than when you are young, in love, and doing it all for the first time, so no rose-colored glasses for us. You have to see each other in reality and not a fantasy world.

My hubby is very smart, ambitious, hard-working and fun to be around. He keeps up daily with finance, politics, and religion and I can be sure he will keep me informed on the important things that are happening around the world, since I'm usually caught up in more mundane things like decorating. We are completely opposite in so many ways, but I love him dearly and we are looking forward to spending the rest of our years together here on this earth. He's good to me and allows me to spread my wings and strive to be the person that I was meant to be. He encourages me, challenges me, and accepts me, with my good and bad traits and I do the same for him. Our life has not been perfect along the way, but we have each other to lean on and that is very comforting. He's a devoted Christian man and it's always his heart's desire that Biblical truth be told and I admire him for that. He will never be accused of being a wimp.

So, that's our story about me and my Valentine! Can't wait to see his face when he sees his heart-shaped cake.

Head on over to Garden Goose for a Valentine's Day giveaway. Be sure to tell her I sent you.