Blizzard warning for today - February is truly here.

My contribution to sane eating was to avoid snacks while watching the Superbowl last night. Congrats to any Denver Bronco's fans for a decisive win. (I didn't have a serious preference - just enjoyed good football.)

Good morning. We have storm-force winds and I am swathed in fleece + merino longjohns.

We're experiencing a warming trend here. Wishing that El Nino would leave northern California and come down here for a while, but would appreciate it if it waits until after next weekend as we're attending a polo match on Sunday.

Glad the Broncos won yesterday. It was a good game. Weird commercials, though. That puppy, monkey, baby thing was truly disturbing. Lady Gaga did a wonderful rendition of the National Anthem. I wasn't thrilled with Coldplay, but it appears few people were. They wanted more Beyonce and Bruno Mars (and I agree).

We're not football fans so didn't watch. We are getting seasons of Game of Thrones from the library and are finishing off season 2 now so we watched some epis of that last night.

Strong winds here too. The anticipated snow later in the week has been changed to flurries only but we're expecting a huge cold snap for the weekend.

I was so ready for spring - had to flea treat my pets yesterday after finding one of the little insect creepies on the kitchen floor - but it's early February and this is Canada.

Reality check!

I did get good news from my scale though.

Dagmar

I don't like Lady Gaga's music, but she has great chops. I stumbled across her mash-up of songs from the Sound of Music (the Grammy's a few years back, maybe?), and it was really quite good.

The NLF babies ad series was just creepy. Let's take an inherently violent sport that is known to cause all kinds of health problems for former players (including shorter life expectancy), and that has a reputation for tolerating all kinds of bad behavior off the field (domestic violence, sexual assault), and try to make it look family friendly by showing a bunch of cute babies and kids, ultimately coming together into a gospel choir. Then turn this around, and make it all about having sex after the game. Ick.

//kaw

We enjoyed the game overall, including the commercials and the half time. Didn't like Cam Newton's attitude before or after the game though.

I was thinking the same thing about the NLF babies series. It's one thing for the older kids/adults to know about their beginning, but do the 6 year olds know what they were participating in? That's odd....

We had paused the game to cook appetizers and later dinner, so we were about an hour behind. Usually you can fast forward through commercials, but not this time. So, we had to be careful to stay off social media. Our younger dd was texting us about the baby doggy monkey ad and we were clueless. She also texted about Betty White, which we somehow missed.

I thought it was neat that the former MVP's were recognized, but almost all of them looked so beaten up-- limping, etc. Shows how hard the game is on the players.

As my dh's knee surgeries were caused primarily from former football injuries, I am particularly aware of how hard the sport is on their bodies.

My younger dd is 21 today. Can't believe that can be possible.... She doesn't drink so she won't really celebrate in the traditional sense....

Weight is higher this Monday than last Monday by a pound, so I'll work this week to get that back off again.

And we have the warm weather Allison mentioned. It was gorgeous yesterday and will be gorgeous again today.

And, send some good vibes my way today-- or Ellie's way... We are still working hard with Ellie (doberman puppy) with her fear of people. Our pet sitter is going to "trial" her today by taking her out with a doggie group (for walks, interaction, etc.). Ellie hasn't seen the pet sitter since October so I hope she remembers her and isn't too skittish. I'm praying for a good report!!

Michelle, can you get Ellie into a doggie daycare a few days each week? It's done wonders for my dobie, who came quite badly damaged emotionally after 3 years in a small cage. I've also been taking her to dog parks frequently, but I'm pretty sure the daycare is where she really found her groove. Look for a small group setting, not a huge one.

I am tired today. This weekend was busy, busy, busy. I need the week to be slow so I can rest.

kaw, I think it was the Kennedy Center Honors show where Julie Andrews was an honoree. That was when I realized Lady Gaga had a great voice.

ETA: It wasn't Kennedy Center. See post below.

I'm really trying to keep afloat this week. I keep telling myself 'One more week. just one more week'

debest, if you feel like you can't make one more week, then go for 1 day at a time! Hang in there!

News of your storm made it all the way to Boise, Idaho. Saw a report on our noon news. It sounded pretty fierce--hope you and your family are safe and dry.

Lady Gaga did songs from Sound of Music on the Oscars in 2015, not Kennedy Center. Here's a video.

Another maintainer here who didn't watch the SB yesterday (I haven't watched a game of football since H.S. homecoming in 1982). Had similarly un-team-sports-watching friends over for dinner and conversation instead. We ended up talking politics and economics, spurred on by the travesty that is the MI legislature who are working hard to destroy our state so only monied interest groups will thrive.

We celebrated Chinese New Year today at my youngest son's school. He is in a Chinese language immersion program (1/2 day of teaching in Chinese and 1/2 in English) that extends to his entire elementary school, so it was quite a party. All 6 grades plus Kindergarten did song or dance performances, and at the end, the group of 7-8th graders who are now at the middle school but went through the language program, came in to give a series of short skits and songs in Chinese with "supertitles" projected over their heads to translate for the ignorant parents while the kids laughed at the Chinese jokes. Fun and very impressive. I can hardly wait for our trip to China this summer.

Andrea The Chinese immersion program sounds totally cool! Where in China will you be travelling?

Dagmar