February is the longest shortest month of the year, every day feels like two. With no long weekends, short days and below zero temperatures...I am going to be happy to wake up in March tomorrow morning.
Despite the weather and lack of holidays, here are some good things that did come in my February:
1. The discovery of Etsy, a place to buy and sell all things homemade (http://www.etsy.com/). I love this site, the items are priced fairly and each is so unique and not like anything you will find in a store near you. I bought A a birthday t-shirt with her name and the number '9' embroidered on the front. She was so excited when she opened it yesterday. With shipping (it came from California) and exchange, it was only $17.49. Wow.
My boyfriend's sister found a beautiful print to commemorate her one year anniversary of waiting for a referral for her daughter from Ethiopia. The print shows a white mother cradling a sweet little brown baby. How perfect. Nicole most definitely would not have found this at WalMart!
2. My photography skills were enhanced through a day of play at my friend Jo's. She agreed to let me use her babies as guinea pigs in exchange for free pics. I have new lighting and equipment from Santa and was eager to get it all figured out. My hope is to continue practicing on my friend's wee ones in hopes that I can one day (in the near future) make a side salary doing something that makes my heart happy....capturing moments in people's lives forever in a photo.
3. Valentine's Day. Usually this day comes and goes and I try my best to pretend I don't notice. This year was different, I even found myself looking forward to it. This is the wonder of finding someone that you can't remember your life without. R showed up a boquet of flowers each for A and I. It is not often that there are not flowers in our house (not sure where he learned this tip, but I am most certainly not going to complain). We ended the weekend with a delicious chocolate caked by me. (good thing I went to aqua fit first)
4. This brings me to the discovery of the most fun I have ever had exercising....AquaFit. I love it. I decided in January that I would return to swimming to shed some of this winter weight. Well, swimming laps gets pretty boring pretty quick. AquaFit is at the same time as lane swim in the other half of the pool. I decided one day that I would give it a try. How hard could it be? Boy, I was in for a shock! I laughed so hard at myself as I tried to keep with all of the 50+ ladies. I was hooked after the first class. Now I try to go to the shallow water class twice a week while A is dancing and then the deep water on Sundays (R is my new babysitter). If you have never tried it...you should. Not sure if I have lost any weight, but my jeans are feeling a bit looser.
5. I discovered a blog that I now check everyday for updates. The writer is a young woman named Katie. Katie lives in Uganda with her 14 adopted daughters. I don't consider myself a Christian as I am not sure how I feel about God, but I do consider myself spirtitual and feel quite deeply about the Greater Spirit. I quite often pray to the Greater Spirit (whomever she may be) and ask for forgiveness and guidance and strength. This blog has only made my belief that all things in the Universe happen for a reason, we just have to open our eyes and our hearts in order to see them. You can check out Katie's life here
http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/
and her wonderful organization, Amazima, which among many other things, sponsors children in Uganda and enables them to not only attend school, but to have school uniforms and supplies and food as well. You can check this out here:
http://amazima.org/
6. Last week was the screening of Whatever It Takes, the short film in which A was cast lead girl role (all actors were children). It was so strange to see my child on a big screen acting as another child. Weird. She did such a fantastic job, very professional. I am amazed at her confidence, yet not arrogance and so proud of accomplishments this far in her 9 years (almost 9 years). About half way through she turned to me and said "Mommy, I think they changed my voice". I love that girl. I couldn't help but laugh as I remembered the first time I heard my recorded voice and thinking the same thing. :) Unfortunately we do not get a copy of the film until sometime in the Fall as it is being submitted to 30 film festivals. We are hoping it will at the very least make it into the Atlantic Film Festival and Sundance as one of the Directors had a film win at Sundance last year. They did give us a cd with still shots from the filming......I guess this will have to do for now.

Well, there you have my February highlights. I am hoping that my March highlights include nicer weather and longer days as I begin my count down to Spring and then Summer.
Happy March.