I sent away for some flowers.

Since I have limited time to shop away, and there isn't anything reasonable in line with the holiday that I could find in some brief online shopping attempts, I thought that would be the gesture.

Once again, and explicitly from the wife, for the last time, the purchase from ProFlowers.com failed to meet expectations.

Sure, it's deadly cold outside. But we're home. I saw the delivery guy walking across the street, and grabbed the package before he got back to his truck. Still, inside, the whole deal was a frozen block. The flowers were wrapped in an apparent attempt to provide some insulation, but capped in a wet spongy block, that had turned to an icy brick. We let the flowers thaw a little, and put them in the provided vase.

A number of the flowers had been frozen to death, with broken stems and petals. Those were discarded, and the remaining few left to warm and drink and hopefully burst into color for the few days we expect them to last. About half of the flowers were plucked from the wilting bunch before the bouquet that remained looked pleasant.

The wife appreciated the gesture, but let me know that if I can't get them fresher from the shop down the lane, for whatever reason, to not bother. The thought was lovely, but the flowers disappointing, and she'd rather have both be a little lovely.

She had gone for more of a shopping excursion, and grabbed cards for everyone, and candies for each of us (herself included), and ordered baubles for the kids. Half of the baubles arrived, the other half are days later than expected. Maybe they'll arrive tomorrow. But the half they got were these (kid) fun hoodies that fold into their own zippered pocket, becoming a stuffed animal when so done. They were tickled. And the chocolate hearts were also a big hit. They didn't get into the Valentine's cards, but did enjoy them politely.

We decided on a different stretch for dinner, and I dashed for some Mexican take-out from a local joint on the other side of the lakes (so not terribly local, but still a less-than 15-minute drive). I scurried as quickly as allowed, and the food made it home pretty warm. I did turn on the Jeep's seat warmer, so maybe that helped, but since they were stacked in a paper bag, probably not too much. That the Jeep was still warm from the drive there probably helped more.

It has been bitterly cold all week, and it doesn't look to be breaking any time soon. The middle of February is typically the worst, and it's been (literally) colder than the North Pole lately. Today's high was about -6F degrees, which a little earlier was -11 while the North Pole was -8; I didn't check the North Pole temperature when we grew warmer.

The kids don't have school tomorrow, but I've got a day filled with meetings. First kids' day off since returning to school, so we'll see if we can figure out how that works while I'm tending to my employment. A busy day of "talking meetings," as I call the ones where my participation is more than gathering information.

The house has also been stricken with a round of what we're hoping are colds. Thursday the little little came home snotty, and went to bed early. A little fever warranted some ibuprofen, and he was fine again in the morning. The wife started noticing her sore throat first on Friday. The big little started complaining Saturday morning, and I Saturday afternoon. I've been congested for years months, as is typical after the fall allergies, the winter lock-ins tend to make for frequent congestion; usually it breaks after spring allergies for the summer. No one else has a fever, though. Some temperature takings in the 97F range, but most are lower. Seems like sore throats due to post-nasal drip likely caused by the congestion from a (hopefully non-COVID) cold or similar.

We're going to keep checking our symptoms and temperatures, and decide if the kids go back to school on Tuesday based on how Monday goes.

Other than the apparent colds, everyone is healthy.