Valentine's Day, President's Day, and the unremarkable, but worthwhile, days in between

Happy President's Day, readers! I hope you are celebrating the holiday in a manner of which our forefathers would approve. I for one am drinking coffee and trying to catch up on some writing as is my way. Others I know are having to work today, and thus must quietly remember our presidential forebears in their offices and cube spaces.

At any rate, while taking a break from the other blog I'm supposed to be writing (what? a second blog? details to follow soonish), I thought I would update about my weekend. To celebrate our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, Sam and I chose to do basically the same thing we've done as an unmarried couple: avoiding the fray. This is not to say we don't exchange candy and flowers and cards (always cards) aplenty, but rather than battle busy restaurants with suddenly rigid prix fixe menus, we opted to stay in, make pasta, and binge on House of Cards. After all, every day is a special day to tell your loved ones you care, but House of Cards episodes get dropped on Netflix but rarely.

On Saturday, unrelated for the most part to Valentine's Day, we went to the Hayden Planetarium to see the new space show. I'd actually never been to the planetarium before, so it had been on my list to do at some point anyway, and since there had been some buzz about Dark Universe, it seemed like as good a time as any to check it out.

From the Dark Universe. Redshift aplenty. 

The show was fun, although thankfully only about 20 minutes because I could see getting a headache after not too long. After the planetarium, we walked around the American Museum of Natural History for a bit. I'd only been there once as an adult, and I have to say, I think it's a lot better to go to if you are or are with a child. Otherwise, it's just a collection of very old looking dioramas. That said, I do really enjoy their rock and mineral collection. (Probably should have taken some pictures of it to bely that fact.)

After the museum, we braved the snowstorm in a car with but one working windshield wiper to make to New Jersey for the weekend. I know I should be done with snow pictures after last week's snooze fest, but here's one more from my in-laws house. This is what happens in the suburbs when the snow doesn't get shoveled away after every storm:

I'm calling that a few feet.

I dedicated my deadlift muscles in pursuit of shoveling a few paths so that my brother-in-law's elderly dog could make it out to his favorite spot in the yard. Or rather, I helped dig one path to that purpose and then a second path that was supposed to lead from the back door to the gate, but only after we shoveled there did we realize the gate was frozen down. Nevertheless, I'm choosing to consider it a nice Sunday morning workout as opposed to wasted energy. 

At any rate, I hope tonight's snow fall shall be this season's last. Happy President's Day to you all!