It's Groundhog Day. Again.

Here we are at Groundhog Day once again, and this is a unique one because there's actually snow on the ground!  You can see our own groundhog here has seen his shadow in the snow, and yep, that means six more weeks of winter.  We've got his t-shirt turned to show six more weeks, but what did Phil see (or not see) up in Punxsutawney?

Mom and I watched the celebration this morning, just like we've been doing for many years now, and this year looked cold!  It also looked pretty packed up there, with everyone jumping up and down and having a great time.  The Inner Circle came in and the ceremony got going, and sure enough, Phil came outside into the cold air - although he looked a little sleepy this morning.  Did he see his shadow?  Yes, he did - and that means six more weeks.  But what about General Beau down in Jackson?

Not the greatest video quality there, but General Beau ... also saw his shadow.  Looks like we're in for a longer winter, folks!

Yes, it's cold out there, but not as frigid as this weekend.  Our snowman is melting somewhat, nevertheless.  But there is another polar vortex event heading our way, and perhaps these clever groundhogs have seen the forecast for February:  it's going to be a cold month!

Maddie was off to school this morning - the roads were fine, although the one area in front of our house in the shade is still a big long patch of completely-covered-with-ice road.  Once you get past that, you're okay.  While Maddie was at class, we were with our specialist who is helping us through the detox program.

Meanwhile, Maddie is making her own ad campaign for the Easter production (that isn't taking place!) at Free Chapel this year.  She's been doing some good material for marketing, and learning to use the programs. 

Tonight, Maddie was at taekwondo.  But look who else was here to watch the team practice and train!

It's a tradition for our groundhog Chuck to show up at taekwondo if it falls on Groundhog Day.  He was positioned at the window, and got some funny looks from the students.  He was enjoying his big day though, watching Maddie do some practice moves.

Meanwhile, I was getting my walking in for the day - outside.  It was in the low 40's, but I kept moving and it was all good, mainly because I was discovering more on this trail.  Usually I'm going off to the left, past the Chicopee Church there and into the woods.  I thought the trail dead-ended to the right, but in fact, it goes underneath the busy road via a tunnel.  And the tunnel is actually painted in places with a mural!

Not only that, the trail goes through the woods, over a stream and straight over to the college.  Pretty cool!  And yes, and speaking of that it was pretty cold outside.  I walked back to the martial arts place from that point, having been out in the cold about an hour.

But hey!  That added another couple miles to my virtual path I've been walking, and that put me over 80% done on my march towards Graceland, and it also got me another post card!

Just nine miles to go!  I've got to pick one more Elvis movie here for the virtual path, but thus far I've seen a lot of 'em along the way.  There's plenty more if I want to do this again next year - he made a lot of fun movies.  And speaking of movies, tonight's flick was obvious:

We ate some Groundhog Day cookies and watched "Groundhog Day" tonight before bed.  It's such a classic, one of my favorites ever. 

Tonight we got to sleep pretty quickly, after reading from our latest book and saying prayers.  It was a good day today, made sweeter by the time we get to spend together.

February Cookies

We made cookies tonight!  These are "February" cookies, ones shaped like groundhogs for tomorrow, and ones shaped like hearts for the Valentine's Day holiday coming up too.  Maddie decorated the heart-shaped ones, and I did the groundhogs.  We were watching a few things while decorating cookies this afternoon, including the latest "Great American Bake-off" show that has a football theme to it - the Super Bowl is coming up soon.  Here below are some of the cookies we made tonight!

The traditional angry or sad faced cookie!

 

Okay, I took this picture because it's a full moon tonight, and there's snow on the ground.  Apparently this is a thing, a "Snow Moon."  We had to go outside and snap a picture of it in the bitter cold.  I got inside, and showed everyone the picture and said "Here's a picture of a Snow Moon."  At which point the family as a whole replied, "That's Snow Moon.  It's a Space Station."

I love our family.  Oh, and check out this funny meme I got from Josh.  This is unique thing about February this year:

It was a good day today.  This morning we kept the birds fed outside - the snow was really thick on the ground and for a second week in a row, our morning in-person services were cancelled, so we all joined the service online together, first with the Free Chapel service, and then we joined a small group online with the Gwinnett children's ministry, and then we watched KidPak online too - a lot of online ministry this morning there.

The snow is thick though, and not really packing snow either.  Light, fluffy, and with plenty out there.  Lots of depth to it, and it's just bright and beautiful, and some of it sitting on a layer of ice that's been there for over a week now.  We were out there from time to time, but not long.  It's really cold today.

I wasn't walking outside, but rather inside on the treadmill.  Today's Elvis feature was a Cirque du Soleil recording of "Viva Elvis," a tribute to the King of Rock and Roll by Cirque.  I didn't get to see the entire thing, but what I saw was great fun as I marched along for almost an hour there, keeping in step with the music.

We were under layers of blankets tonight at bedtime tonight.  It's super cold out there.  The roads might be clear enough for Maddie's college tomorrow, and that's good.  We read tonight, and then it was time for some sleep!

Snow Day at the Love Shack

So here we are with another weekend snow day!  I have to say I was a bit skeptical about this forecast, as it was "bands of snow here or there" and early on the precipitation wasn't pushing this far west towards us.  But there was a shift sure enough and "I'll believe it when I see it" became "wow, I can really see it!"

We made sure our birds were fed, and there were just so many there on the back deck, including some new arrivals we haven't seen in a while:  we had a thrasher or two, and also a rufous sided towhee (which is just fun to say!).  But the other usual rabble was there too, including numerous bluebirds, cardinals, mockingbirds, chickadees, tufted titmouse, sparrows, mourning doves, finches, downy woodpeckers, hairy downy woodpeckers, our yellow-bellied woodpecker, nuthatches, and those annoying grackles.  I didn't get to see any blue jays today, which I thought was odd - we usually do.  Hopefully they're being well-fed elsewhere.  Anyway, it was quite a bit of activity back there, especially at the table around our "Love Shack" birdhouse!

And we were fairly active too, of course.  To begin with, we had a magnificent skillet breakfast that Mom prepared.  

Afterwards, I was out there making our traditional "bird feeder snowman," or in this case a "snow person."  The snow was not the packing kind at all, so as you would expect, this project took a very long time to complete.  I had a big pile of snow there, and couldn't figure out how to get it any higher when suddenly the though occurred to me that I could take the frozen disc of water inside the bird bath, and use that as a flat surface to put on top of the snow pile, and then add another pile on top of that sheet of ice.  The head just took some time to get into shape because again, it's just not packing snow.  

We'll call this snow person Helga.  She looks like a Helga!

But eventually we got the hat on and eyes and of course the carrot that I just got yesterday at the grocery store.  Unlike last time, the birds flew to it right away to get some of the bird seed the snow person was holding.

Next I was out there with a snow shovel, which is a tool I don't use that often!  But I got the driveway and the sidewalk cleared.  

Maddie was out there doing some taekwondo moves, and posing with her plush friends out there.  Here she is on Riverstone Drive.  We were just ice skating here a week ago!

Georgia's state bird, the Thrasher!

It's pretty cold outside.  The temperature will be below freezing for another day, never going above 32 for I think about sixty hours straight or something like that.  And tomorrow morning it'll feel like negative five degrees with the wind chill, or something like that.  So it was cold and windy out there, so we weren't out there for a terribly long time more... although Maddie was out there committed to some martial arts practice in the snow!

 

We worked on the puzzle some, and then we watched the stage version of "Frozen" that's on television now.  Maddie just saw the high school play, and of course we saw the City Springs Theater version of "Frozen" back in 2024.  This version here was incredible.  There's a costume change that happens - if you know "Frozen," you know the one - and it's so fast it feels like digitally enhanced effects.  But the sets and costumes and talent are amazing on this one.  Now we're all singing "Let it Go" again...

It's cold and windy out there, just the very definition of inhospitable.  We're glad to be indoors.  Time to get some reading in, and then it's time for prayers and a long winter's nap.  No church tomorrow again - second weekend in a row for that.  We're hearing reports of terrible, terrible conditions of roads in Hall County, and the stories from North Carolina on the highway - and a train collision too - all of it sounds terrible.  Glad to be inside tonight.