I found this vintage Valentine’s Day card at Cherryland Postcard Auction (lot #1667, if you’d like to bid online), and fell in love with it because it’s clearly an old promotional item from True Confessions magazine.

I love (and therefore collect) past issues of the publication & am dying to see the illustrations on the inside… I’d love to buy it, but…

But all of this just reminds me of all the old ephemera I have — and that is a problem living here in Fargo during this historic 2009 flood of the Red River. Certainly it is not the time to add to my collection.

As I type, hubby is still toiling down in the basement, lifting & propping as best he can to get all the boxes up a few inches, just in case our house (currently one of the areas designated as an “evacuate to” area) has issues from sewage backup or sump pump failure.

I’m not being lazy; I’ve taken my shifts and now need an emotional as well as physical break. I’m not from this area originally, and while I’ve seen the usual spring flooding here the past five years, I’m still not familiar with all the locations and flood terminology — so I’m doing my best not to panic. (Just how does one not panic when the hospital just two blocks east of you announces they are evacuating due to the flood? I’m expecting a tsunami any minute.)

So it’s no new old Valentines for me.  And the Red River is only getting one if it spares my house.