Valentine's Day arrives Saturday.

Whether you celebrate it in a shower of chocolates, diamonds and flowers...or in your jammies watching "War of the Roses," it is a day to ponder love.

How do we love, or not love, on Feb. 14?

Let us count the ways:

1 billion: Number of Valentines sent each year, according to the U.S. Greeting Card Association.

850,000,000: Number of Valentines sent by women.

189 million: The number of roses produced for Valentine's Day, according to the Society of American Florists.

64: The percentage of Valentine's roses that are red.

4: The percentage of Valentine's roses that are yellow.

20,000 dozen: The number of roses ordered by Royer's Flowers, which has five stores in Lancaster County.

300: The number of delivery people hired by Royer's for Valentine's Day.

1,200: Names of roses in the book "A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names."

1: Name of roses called "Happy Butt," which is an apricot or apricot blend hybrid tea rose.

$103: Number of dollars that the average person will spend on Valentine's Day this year, according to the National Retail Federation.

$2.17: Number of dollars that the average person will spend on their pet on Valentine's Day.

1,716: Number of members of the  online Facebook group called "I am destined to be the Crazy Cat Lady, and I hate Valentine's Day."

20: Number of members of the Facebook group called "I Bet I Can Find At Least 1,000 People Who HATE Valentine's Day."

35 million: Number of text messages estimated to be sent in North America on Feb. 14, according to VeriSign Inc.

2,000: Number of pounds of chocolate candy sold for Valentine's Day by Evans Candy in West Lampeter Township.

35: Number of pounds of chocolate-covered potato chips sold by Evans for Valentine's Day.

24: Number of molded chocolate "diet pills" sold by Evans for the holiday.

25: Number of engagement rings sold in the past three weeks at Koser Jewelers in Mount Joy.

31: Number of heart-themed pieces of jewelry sold at Koser's.

66: Number of men who waited until Valentine's Day to buy their gift at Koser's last year.

1: Number of Valentine's Day wedding receptions Saturday at the Eden Resort & Suites in Manheim Township.

9: Number of years that Catherine Chiccarine, of Mountville, and Paul Squierdo, of Lititz, dated before deciding to marry and have their reception this weekend at the Eden Resort.

8: Number of red-themed foods planned for the couple's reception, including shrimp cocktail sauce, tomato bisque, red potatoes, roasted red peppers, raspberry sherbet intermezzo and a wedding cake with red roses.

47: Number of years since Charlie Brown first set eyes on the Little Red-Haired Girl, sitting across the playground from him, in the Peanuts comic strip. The cartoon world's unrequited love star was based on a woman Peanuts creator Charles Schulz dated in art school and who ended up marrying another man.

48: Number of second-graders who celebrated Valentine's Day today in Rebecca Murphy's and Kate Constein's classes at Elizabeth Martin Elementary School in the School District of Lancaster.

30: Number of compound words in the kids' Valentine's Day scavenger hunt.

140: Number of candy conversation hearts in a pound, to be discussed in a Valentine's Day science experiment conducted by the classes.

20: Number of top romance rentals at Netflix. The Top 5 include: "The Notebook," "The Lake House," "Hitch," "Just Like Heaven" and "P.S. I Love You."

7: Number of Top 20 Netflix romance rentals that revolve around divorce, death or illness.

51: Percentage of votes in the Blockbuster "Anti-Valentine Movie" survey that went to movies starring Michael Douglas. His hits that made the list include "War of the Roses," "Fatal Attraction," "Basic Instinct" and "A Perfect Murder."

6: Number of potatoes in a bag that Pati Davenport of Elizabethtown opened on Feb. 5.

1: Number of heart-shaped potatoes in Davenport's bag.

9: Number of days Davenport has kept the heart-shaped potato on her kitchen counter. "It's getting a little shriveled but everybody I show it to just cracks up," she says. "I pulled it out of the bag and just stopped and said, 'Oh gosh.'

"I'm in awe of the heart-shaped potato."


Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.