Don’t you love the way February keeps you on your toes? Look away from the calendar for a day or two and the shortest month of the year is over before you reach the bottom of your project list. Forget to check the weather forecast one morning and you could be seriously over or under-layered as the day progresses. And Valentine’s Day? So much social/emotional pressure, especially if you forget to call way in advance for a reservation at your sweetheart’s favourite restaurant.

But February also delivers an extra day every four years. Here at 51 degrees north, the daily commute allows firsthand observation of the sun coming up a little earlier and going down a little later each day. The birthstone for February is amethyst, which is purple – my favourite colour. And since 1990, those of us living in Alberta enjoy a three-day weekend thanks to the Family Day statutory holiday. So I have a certain fondness for the shortest month of the year.

After double-checking the list of synonyms for love, I’ve opted to share photos of experiences, places or things of great interest or enjoyment to me this month.

1. Play Outside

A daily dose of outside time is important to my physical and mental well-being. As we headed out for a long ramble near Canmore one morning, I grabbed an engraved stone that we traded for from a geocache we found years ago. Around the same time we traded for similar stones engraved with words like hope and believe – some of the better swag we’ve seen over the years. Anyhow, it seemed a fitting way to indicate my zest for a daily dose of nature. In hindsight, I wish I’d use a smaller aperture so that Mr. GeoK and Mount Rundle were more in focus. Next time!

2. Lego Love Bug

It’s a longstanding holiday tradition that each member of our family finds a Lego set under the tree on Christmas morning. For Christmas 2016, Mr. GeoK carefully chose Creator set 10252 (Volkswagen Beetle) just for me! I finally made time to build it this month, and particularly relished coming across several new-to-me pieces as I carefully followed the instructions. Here’s some letter math I thought of as I was building:

(LEGO – G + V) + [a little shake] = LOVE

3. I Heart Snow

I’m generally not a fan of graffiti. But I find an undisturbed blanket of snow an irresistible draw and almost always end up stomping around in my winter boots to make shapes or words. If I’m wearing a coat with tight-fitting wrists and collar, I’ll make a chain of snow angels. I created this heart in the snow adjacent to a nearby aspen wood casting long shadows. It’s a symbol of the pleasure that can be found in winter activities like building snowmen, snowshoeing, skating and sledding.

4. The Breath of Life

My heart sings when Mr. GeoK agrees to go on a photo date with me, especially when it’s an exploration of something like Calgary’s inaugural Glow Light Festival.  I cherish this particular image for a few reasons:

1. The installation is called “The Breath of Life”. So long as I keep breathing about 16 times/minute, I’m alive with the capacity for love.
2. I really enjoy visual art that incorporates science, technology and engineering. This installation that consisted of 24 handmade LED lamps programmed to symbolize the metabolism of the Oxygen-Carbon Dioxide cycle in the biosphere.
3. At the end of the night, Mr. GeoK surprised me with this picture that included me!

5. Pulse Quasar

Although Pulse Quasar was not quite my favourite installation at Calgary’s inaugural winter light festival, of all the photos I made over the course of the evening, this one delights me most. It’s vibrant, includes some lovely starburst points of light, features a lot of purple (have I mentioned it’s my favourite colour?) and is from a unique vantage point that I haven’t seen in any of the many other photos of this particular installation.

That concludes my ode to all that’s wonderful about February. Click here to see what brought joy to photo blogging challenge host PJ this month and for the link-up to all the other posts for this month. And feel free to leave a comment sharing what you loved most this month.

I treat this photo blogging challenge like a photo assignment. The one-month time frame makes it pretty low stress. New participants are welcome any time, so please join us! The March theme will be posted at a ‘lil Hoohaa tomorrow.