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February Photo Album here. Try to spot at least two photos of Oliver with a friendly alligator. Folks around here just love alligators, despite this incident that occurred just after we moved here.

One February day I was sitting in our local coffee shop doing data entry for the business tax returns, deciphering and categorizing a year's worth of crumpled paper receipts. The back door was open, birdsong and sunlight and a warm breeze seeped inside, and it felt just like vacation. And that's when I realized that I used to have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Despite his Christmas-induced snowman obsession, Oliver does not seem to feel deprived of winter play. That's him at left, on February 5, when it was warm enough to set up the water table in the backyard (thanks again to Mel and Beth). All our photos from February are of him playing outside - at the playground, the beach, among our azaleas, etc. Every morning for two weeks, we designed our dog walk so we could stop to smell the magnolia blossoms of our favorite tree.

All that sunlight gave us food co-op gals the energy to really get moving on our plans. We ordered twice through an existing buying club a few towns over so that we could learn stuff before spinning off our own club in Savannah. Alas, the thing about food co-ops is, they tend to attract crazy people. And crazy people are inefficient. And inefficiency drives me crazy.

So I spent a whole lot of February in impassioned, beer-infused discussions with my Co-Coordinators about the organizational failings of The Other Buying Club and about how We were going to do it Better. It was probably not unlike the scene in Everything is Illuminated where the Trachimbrod congregation splits in two over whether they should hang from the ceiling or lie on the floor during worship. Still, our food co-op is going to be way better than their food co-op.

Just for the record, this month we also helped Jon sell the apartment in Chelsea, and hosted Sasha, and enjoyed watching the Giants defeat the Cheating Cheaters, and worked on renovation plans for our carriage house, and had lots of regular playdates, and worried a little, but not too much, about Oliver's grazing and milk-drinking habits. Nothing was really story-worthy - basically everthing just started to really fall into place and be OK. In February, the former worst month of the year. Poppy's already claimed some time in February, 2009 - book now, slots are going fast. Careful though, too much Southern warmth could destroy your formerly clever and snarky sense of humor...

-M