February is always an interesting month to me.  My brother’s birthday is on the 1st, on the second we throw science to the wind in favor of folklore to predict the weather, then we have a series of holidays….from America’s unofficial national holiday of Super Bowl Sunday, to Valentine’s Day, and Presidents Day, and all month long we commemorate Black History Month.  Every 4 years we get an extra day too. 

As I think about each of those individually and collectively, I keep seeing the same themes….we have come a long way as a country, still a long way to go, lots of good times to smile back and remember, lots of bad and sad times too, and overriding it all, a reminder that it’s the journey, not the destination that counts.

It’s the people we spend time with, the places we see, the things we do to pass the time and mark the years off the calendar that matter most.  

That even in the darkest and most barren days of the depths of winter when for most of the country Spring is still too distant an idea, that we can choose to find things to celebrate while we wait for greener and sunnier days.