Sustainable Valentine's

While my phone is going through a severe depressing phase and lost almost all the photos from my most recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, I wanted to explore with you all today what to do for Valentine's Day.
Trying to live a zero-waste lifestyle isn't always easy, everyone knows that. Yet it's often especially hard during the holidays. Now is Valentine's Day one of those holidays where we can go either super consumer or super cheezy with the gift cards for hugs.
I've been reading the 5 love languages, and together with my husband, we've been discovering which of the five most apply to us.  I know that not everyone has these same love languages and that some of us may still need to figure them out. But I definitely believe that they make sense, at least for us. I've included a little link below here that gets you to the website and you can do a quick quiz to figure out your personal love language. 
LOVE LANGUAGES PLUS QUIZ

1. Quality time
• experiences: to be done together obviously, but scour Groupon, and find something that you've both never done before, get a massage together or learn how to dance!)
• if you have the money and the time, go on a mini-vacation: we swear by these to keep us sane, being together and a change of scenery really helps us to reconnect and have meaningful conversations.
  
  
  
  
  
  
2. Acts of Service
• Make the other their favorite dinner/lunch/breakfast in bed. For Purna that would likely be his lasagna, I hate making it because it takes forever and I'm a lazy cook, but his love for lasagna might make the effort worth it. They'll love the effort and thought you put into that special sauce or those beautiful pancakes. 
• Take out the trash, bring in the mail, declutter all the countertops and reorganize the stuff-drawer. Figure out which socks have a mate and which ones need to disappear altogether. 
• Finish a project that's been laying around for a long time. Unfinished things can attract negative and depressing energies that make your flow stagnate. Feeling that something's tugging at your memory that needs to be completed and checked off can make one feel lethargic and sad, so getting it fixed and done becomes a beautiful act of service to one another. 
• If you're married or living together, you might want to consider filing taxes as soon as you can - it's always a hassle and your S/O will definitely appreciate the gift of the taxes done, especially if it means that you'll be enjoying a return soon thereafter!
  
  
3. Words of Affirmation
• Writing a short letter about how much you appreciate the little things your S/O does, bringing in the mail, getting the dry-cleaning etc. Praise their character, (but be honest, you don't want to sound fake) especially if it's something they pride themselves in. Try to really figure out your own feelings of "why do I love this person so much?" and then write them down for the other to read and cherish.
  
  
4. Physical Touch
• If your lover's primary love language is physical touch, there's so much creativity that you could use. From massages and cuddles to taking baths together to exploring new fantasies. The sky is the limit. Not just focusing on the traditional erogenous zones might make your partner enjoy it all even more, be more relaxed etc.
  
  
5. Giving/Receiving Gifts
• This is the big one for a zero-waster. It's fairly easy to buy candy in bulk, I've found at Sprouts there to be a huge collection of different things covered in chocolate. A great thing about Sprouts is also that they have double coupons on Wednesday, so two weeks worth of coupons are valid every single Wednesday. It's amaaaaazing. And they are able to tare and take the tare off your bulk purchases, even though for some cashiers it might be the first time and therefore take a little longer. One word of advice, if you have a Sprouts near you and you're into bulk-shopping, try to go to the same Sprouts every time, it'll save you time explaining over and over again what a TARE weight is. BUT MAIN POINT: they're able and willing to weigh and tare. 
• Your bae's favorite take-out, in your own containers. While I was picking up Purna's dry-cleaning (incidentally conveniently located right next to our local vegan grubhub) I had my refillable waterbottle with me, and remembered that he looooooves their pink lemonade with beet coloring. So I walked in and asked for the pink lemonade, to go in my bottle. I paid, refilled and left, easy as that. It'll be such a tiny happy surprise for him tonight, I can't wait!
• Besides candy, here's another few ideas for gifts:
• an app they've wanted for some time but felt was too expensive (could also be a subscription to an app)
• I really like SWEAT by Kayla, especially because I don't have time to go to the gym and no gym membership. 
• Oh She Glows also has a beautiful recipe app for 1.99 that's a nice gift. 
• an e-book, either in a genre that he/she already likes or something that you're both thinking about getting into.
• a homemade scrub, lipbalm or anything DIY with a little sweet notecard.
• perhaps a beautiful or not so beautiful drawing of your S/O laying on the bed like a french girl. We've done this a few times and they always turn out hilarious.