This Valentine's Day Post Is Actually About My Stuffed Horse

It's February fourteenth. Therefore, you should expect from a single female's blog post one of the following:

* An agonized lament over her lack of a boyfriend

* An aggressive insistence that she doesn't need a man

* Complaints about what a meaningless, commercialized holiday this is anyway

* Something super-spiritual about how Jesus is her boyfriend

From me, you get none of these. Just like last year, you get a post about Teefty, my beloved stuffed horse. Since I told the story of her back then, I shall not reiterate every detail, but for those of you who don't remember and don't care to read the original post, here is a basic summation:

Once upon a time, on February 14th, 2002, I received a Ty Beanie-Buddie stuffed horse from my parents. This very special Valentine's gift soon became one of my best friends, and because I was an extremely strange child, I was nearly incapable of calling her the name on the tag. That given name was Trotter, but I began to make up weird names like Tooftie and Tefty and Sloodle-Roo before I finally settled on Teefty as her "real" name. Along with Panda Opos, my first favorite stuffed animal, Teefty became one of my constant companions, and she's part of so many memories that it's hard to imagine what my life would have been like without her.

Today is her thirteenth birthday. I feel so old.

I feel like one of those parents who laments to another, "One of my babies is a teenager, now!" In honor of such a significant anniversary, I would like to share some pictures from the past.

Here are some more photos from 2010 to the present. I freely confess to taking about as many photos of Teefty as a normal person might take of an actual pet, but want to make it clear that the majority of this photographing is because I have a little sister who plays with Teefty, dresses her up in doll clothes, and sets her up in different cute scenes. I may be a complete child, but I wouldn't go this far independently.

Teefty knows fashion:

Sometimes, I take pictures of Teefty because she's making weird faces at me.

I have also been guilty of sort-of-but-not-really taking selfies with Teefty as a means of procrastination.