I bought some earrings on clearance. I very nearly did NOT buy them, because they were the only thing I’d found on a trip to TJMaxx, and for whatever reason I dislike buying Just One Thing, especially when I’m still pushing around the entire optimistic-and-now-ridiculous shopping cart. But I was persevering in overcoming that feeling (Coping Thought: the cashier COULD NOT CARE LESS that I am buying just one thing) (okay: Elizabeth, who is a part-time cashier, has notified me that she DOES notice if someone is pushing a cart and buying just one thing, and she DOES wonder What Happened There); but then it was my turn and, at that pivotal moment, one of the two cashiers left and the other one busied herself with something time-consuming, so that I stood there minute after minute, feeling more and more self-conscious and more and more as if I did NOT need to spend eight dollars, even if it WERE a nice clearance, on YET ANOTHER pair of—oh, she’s calling me up, it’s my turn, okay I guess I’m doing it.

And I wore them today and I love them so much more than I was expecting to, and I got SEVERAL comments when normally my earrings elicit NO comments! Do you know what is difficult? Taking a picture of one’s own ear with an earring in it. Here are my two attempts:

Earring blurry and at a non-ideal angle.

Earring a little better but still not right, and now ear looks warped.

ANYWAY the gist is that they’re sort of a safety-pin style, but with a heart. All day I kept noticing them and enjoying them.

I wanted to see if I could find more earrings of a similar type, so I started by searching “safety pin earrings” and found a whole lot of safety pin earrings that looked like safety pins BUT ALSO I found two more pairs by the same brand as mine (Lucky) in gold-tone and in silver-tone. In case you think you might like to buy yourself your own little Valentine’s Day present. I am going to buy one of the two, when I can decide which one I’d prefer.

And HERE are my exact earrings currently unavailable on the Lucky website:

(image from LuckyBrand.com)

I used to actively dislike/avoid heart-shaped jewelry, and I’m not sure what changed but now I am surprising myself by starting to like it. I also have some little red-enamel-heart dangles like the ones in the middle of the top row here, and I am looking forward to wearing them especially in February, and in fact I am thinking of buying the six-pack to have more options:

(image from Amazon.com)

I said above that I’m not sure what changed, but actually I am pretty sure I know exactly what changed, and it was when I stopped thinking of Valentine’s Day as a disappointing day with a boyfriend/husband, and started thinking of it as a fun day of red/pink/hearts/candy with friends and kids and co-workers. I bought heart-shaped plastic plates to serve dinner on, and I bought heart-patterned matching mugs for my friend group, and I buy myself a heart-shaped box of See’s, and I buy giant Hershey Kisses and valentine Little Debbie cakes for the kids, and I send a pop-up valentine to my niece and nephew, and I wear a heart t-shirt to work, and I buy classroom-style valentines for my co-workers just to be silly (this year I’m doing Fun Dip!), and now apparently I also buy heart-shaped earrings.