I Love Surprises, Secret Valentines, and Desserts!

Remember those days of elementary-school Valentine's Day parties? Well, this week, we got to experience a bit of that again, but in the work place!

There were so many things I loved this week that I had a hard time deciding which one to blog about today, but since Valentine's Day only comes once a year, and a lot of the other stuff that made me happy will happen on other weeks, I decided to focus my blog post today on the Valentine's Day fun.  (By the way, I'm learning from my "Happiness at Work research" that focus is a key to productivity...  Many of us have gotten in the habit of "multi-tasking" which may be detracting from our productivity and workplace happiness." But... now I am losing my focus! Back to Valentine's Day!)

This week we had a couple of fun events at work in honor of Valentine's Day: Secret Valentines and a Dessert Competition.

The Secret Valentine's event was a little like Secret Santas (I experienced Secret Santas in the dorms in college). Everyone that wants to participate puts their name in a hat, then you draw a name and you leave little surprise gifts throughout the week for your "Secret Valentine."  Even though I didn't get a whole lot of people to sign up for this, those of us who did participate had fun with it.  I got a little thrill when I'd come back to my desk and find a candy bar or card or even a Valentine sock monkey!  And I had fun being sneaky and leaving things on my secret Valentine's desk! Of course, the first day I goofed and left my little surprises on the wrong person's desk! I bet he was a bit confused, since he wasn't even participating!

It's amazing how just a fun little surprise or note can really brighten up the day. This is something we can do all the time, of course! It's even more fun when it's totally unexpected! Give it a try!

The Dessert Competition was a lot of fun, too.  I think there were 17 people who brought in desserts. The four categories we had were:

• The dessert Cupid would most approve of (valentine themed / beautiful)
• Best dessert when you’re not a cook; (simple / easy)
• Most sinful (decadent, rich)
• Best dessert when you’re on a diet (healthy / gluten-free / lo-cal)

I brought in easy chocolate-dipped strawberries and got votes both in the simple and healthy categories! And WOW, there were a lot of decadent and beautiful desserts.

YUM!