Hi friends!

I hope you are safe and keeping warm during this brutally cold month.

My heart has been with Texas all week. I just cannot believe what they are going through. Hot takes on “Texans freaking out over snow” make me so angry – you try living in a state that experiences extreme heat months at a time and no infrastructure to support winter weather, and see how prepared you are for snow then. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen snow during the 25 years I lived there. Friends, I used to keep a spatula in my car to deal with ice rather than an actual ice scraper. That sums up how infrequent winter weather is there. And now that I’m in the Midwest and see what kind of support we have here for winter weather, it’s like night and day.

If you have the means, the Instagram post below has some organizations that could use donations. Note that there are some fake versions of these entities on Venmo.

Complaining about the weather in my post now would just be in poor taste. So all I will say is – it’s been very cold. The Indy area received 9.5 inches of snow this week and it’s definitely the most snow I’ve ever seen in my life. I am grateful that Indiana winters seem to be milder than other Midwestern states – I don’t think I would enjoy lake effect snow very much.

It’s been a weird month for multiple reasons but I’m trying to my best to dig in. Radical acceptance, etc. After years of joking about a SAD lamp, I finally bought one. I’m now the person running when it’s 15 degrees outside (and I used to avoid running when it was below 50 degrees in Texas – hah. THAT SEEMS SO WARM NOW).

I’ll just use this cartoon to sum up my February.

The snow makes for some pretty pictures, at least.

I have finally realized that I at least can wear my crocheted shawls in the house, so I’m working on another. It’s bright and cheery and has been a little challenging to work up, but fun.

Well, I’m going to go relax and work on my shawl – I hope you have a wonderful weekend!