Not having children, especially little girls, I’ve never seen the Disney movie Frozen. Nevertheless, Frozen is the word that comes to mind when I look out my windows. Yes, I live in Central Texas, and we occasionally have a week of winter… but this is “a sheet of ice covering everything, power outages, and a 130-car pile-up on an icy freeway kinda winter!” Dang! I’m waiting for someone to cue the herds of caribou. Or a woolly mammoth.

Our local weatherman gets quite excited when some “weather” happens, and it’s understandable since we really haven’t had anything like this before. He keeps using the term, “record breaking!” while avoiding the term “global warming,” but, this is indeed unusual for Texas, to say the least. The forecast is for even colder weather, and snow beginning on Sunday evening with an accumulation of a couple inches.

This will be the second time in the last 18 years that I have seen a couple of inches of snow here on Valentine’s Day.

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, I know with everything that’s going on in our world: the extreme winter in 43 out of 48 states, the saga of the impeachment hearings, and the challenges of trying to get a Covid vaccine while doing our best to avoid getting the virus, it’s hard to get excited about Valentine’s Day.

You think, “what does it matter?” Trust me, it does matter… there isn’t much we can do about the BIG STUFF going on, except keep our hearts open and warm to the people around us.
But, we can and must strive to be fully present to the small stuff: moments of pleasure and beauty that come our way. It is necessary for our mental health and connectedness.

If you are reading this, I want you to be My Valentine! If I could “do an Oprah” and send you all flowers and chocolate, I surely would. Instead, grab yourself a favorite chocolate bar, box of chocolates, slice of cheesecake, glass of champagne, or some strawberries, and let’s celebrate ourselves!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

XO Donna