aaah...February

I love February. It's by chance the month of love with Valentines day smack in the middle of it. My husband loves any reason to celebrate or have a holiday, and I have learned to go with it. It's fun and when its allowed create mostly joy. February is also the month that we celebrate our wedding anniversary, our official engagement, our first 'goodbye' after falling in love. Now its also the month we have the anniversary of the beginning of this new stage in our life. We moved to SoCal a year ago today. So it's a month filled with celebrating.

It was a very sweet Valentines evening, with CQ in bed early after a big day on the jungle gym. Her dad brought home her first Valentines card and it sprouted tears in my eyes, she's a lucky girl.

MetaMama: A little fact I became aware of today is that today is Nirvana Day. Buddha died on this day, he said something to the monk Ananda that made me reflect on Meta again and the value of the principles it teaches. He said:" What, Ananda, does the order expect of me? I have, Ananda, expounded the teaching without distinguishing an inside and an outside...Therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, a refuge ubto yourselves, take the teaching as island, as refuge, have no other refuge!" I understand this to mean that we are responsible for our experience, that as within so without, that we should strive to match these worlds and take back our creativity, initiating our response to life and events from within.