According to Punxy, it's six more weeks of winter weather. Hope that you kept your gloves, scarves, and hats out. =)

And now a poem in honor of the occasion:

Groundhog Day

Celebrate this unlikely oracle,
this ball of fat and fur,
whom we so mysteriously endow
with the power to predict spring.
Let's hear it for the improbable heroes who,
frightened at their own shadows,
nonetheless unwittingly work miracles.
Why shouldn't we believe
this peculiar rodent holds power
over sun and seasons in his stubby paw?
Who says that God is all grandeur and glory?

Unnoticed in the earth, worms
are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil.
Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered
seeds that will take root and grow.
Grape hyacinths, against all reason,
have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow.
How do you think spring arrives?
There is nothing quieter, nothing
more secret, miraculous, mundane.
Do you want to play your part
in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler.
Find a spot not too far from the ground
and wait.

~Lynn Ungar, Unitarian Minister*

*from www.panhala.net

1) Friday evening grocery shopping together. It was nice not to have a crowded store.

2) Full snow day as a married couple. Arlington got around 4 inches of accumulated snow, so it was nice to curl up with kitty, sleep in, read, and play video games.

3) Greg ate snow ice cream. My family loves snow ice cream, and since we were getting snow for a long enough time, we put a bowl outside. Greg and I each got a small bowl of snow ice cream out of it. I think it safe to say Greg enjoyed it. =)

4) Freyja tried the snow ice cream, too. Well, more accurately, she licked my bowl after I was finished.

5) Freyja had her first nosebleed. It was just a few drops of blood but she's so little, we were a bit concerned. After consulting with Dad 'The Vet' Tremmel, we let her outside on our balcony a bit in the cool air, cuddled and coddled her a bit, and then made extra sure to run the humidifier at bedtime.

We had a lovely weekend to say the least, and Freyja cat is doing well. Hope that you had a lovely weekend, too, with or without the beautiful snow that we enjoyed.

Sorry for the quiet in our BLOGsphere, but this is one crazy work week for Greg and me. Greg has a huge project deadline looming in conjunction with some growing/flexing responsibilities at work. I just have an influx of projects that all seem to have deadlines in the February 1-5 range, so we've been making sure to chill and relax most evenings to prep for the next day. That said, we've also spoiled ourselves a bit this week.

For one, we got our wedding bands back from the jeweler. No, our rings are not made by Toyota and have thus not been recalled. Rather, Greg and I purchased a lifetime care plan for them similar to the one that he purchased for my engagement ring. This means that we need to have them inspected every six months for wear&tear damage, but in return, we get free repair, resizing, and in the case of my diamonds, free replacement of similar or better quality if one of the stones be lost. I love Helzburg Jewelers for such a customer friendly policy, and Greg and I have already recouped the cost of the care plan for both of our wedding rings, and will soon do the same on my engagement ring. But I digress. The point of my story is that after stopping to get our rings inspected the other week it was determined that they needed a new rhodium coating. Rhodium being the metal used to protect white gold from wear (it's much harder than gold), from tarnish (it does not oxidize in solid form so it doesn't tarnish or rust), and to keep it shiny (it's highly reflective). So Greg and I left our rings for the goldsmith to pamper and went home with very naked feeling fingers.

A few days later Greg received a call that our rings were ready, so he stopped on his way home from work to pick them up. Unfortunately, he only brought home my engagement ring because having our wedding rings re-coated also partially filled in the inscription inside each one so that it was very faint. So, Greg had Helzburg hold the rings until the goldsmith returned this week and could re-inscribe them with our wedding date. That said, we were finally able to pick them up last night, and, to my amusement, the inscription in my ring was clearer and straighter than when it was first inscribed.

Not that much of the above is of consequence, but it did lead to some interesting parallels in my mind to the marriage the rings represent. First, that Greg and I both felt 'naked' in a sense without the rings in spite of their ever so light physical weight because we've been wearing them for over a year. Like our bare ring fingers, our lives before marriage were still perfectly wonderful in God's timing. However, after entering into marriage, the slight 'weight' of responsibility for another person and to another person, while foreign at first, becomes an ingrained part of our routines, habits, normalcy, and finally part of who we are.

The second parallel is one that may send some criticism my way, but it is what it is: marriage requires routine maintenance to really shine. I know that that's not a new or earth-shattering concept by any stretch of the imagination, but it's yet another way in which symbols sometimes reflect truth not just a state of being. For Greg and I our routine maintenance is a date night once a week. It's not always wine and roses, nor is it always easy to make/find the time, but it is always time sans chores, work, and others to just spend time getting to know each other over again each week. That might sound strange, but just as our marriage grows, we're still growing as individuals in our careers, faiths, etc, so recognizing that allows our marriage to grow more deeply rooted as well. For us it also means doing something out of routine for us on occasion, such as a random dinner out (TGIFriday's last evening) or a road trip to any of numerous locations. Others I know take a full day once a month to be tourists together either locally or traveling. Yet another couple cooks together once a week. And still others regularly remind their children of how they met, reliving the moments of young love each time. Whatever the method, it's taking time to focus on the person one married to remember the reason they were wed in the first place. It's a daily decision to love the snoring, morning breath, cold feet, and frizzy hair each morning. Not romantic I know, but neither is a piece of metal being scraped clean, smoothed and then coated again with an even layer of the substance just removed. It's just one way to make sure that it shines.

I've finally finished uploading our holiday pictures to our image galleries. We didn't get too many pictures at Thanksgiving but we got some great ones in Georgia for Christmas. Click on the pictures to check them out!

World of Coca-Cola	Georgia Aquarium
Christmas Day	Freyja

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!