Make an abominable snowman. It’s like a regular snowman, but less friendly to passers-by.

Practice multiplication and script with your kids. That’ll put them in a REALLY good mood. For older kids, break out the practice tests.

Delete all of the expletive-laden “music” from your teenager’s Napster playlist on the family computer, while she’s not looking.

Make snow ice cream, slushies or ‘tinis. Harvest icicles for the latter.

Fill squirt bottles with water and food coloring and make art on the snow. Let your dog help out.

Trudge around town for a store that hasn’t sold out on sleds.

Wash the floors by hand. Or use a toothbrush.

Do that mending and ironing you’ve been putting off since 2004.

Groom the dog. Then suck all the fur off your couch.

Make freeze-ahead dinners. The ones you wish you had right now.

Go rooftop luging.

Get kids the Lil’ Capt. Robert Scott Antarctic Expedition playset.

Shovel through piles of climate change theories.

Shred your pile of old documents. Better yet, multitask. Use them to light up the fireplace.

Change the batteries in the smoke detectors, since you forgot during Fall Back.

Find all the lids to the Tupperware.

Play Monopoly with the rules that make the game go slower.

Go through your junk drawer. Do not be afraid.

Clean your silverware and jewelry. Alternatively, pine for silverware and jewelry worth cleaning.

Sort mementos into keep and toss piles. Spend time poring over the keepers—after all, that’s why you’re keeping them.

Make a master calendar for gift-giving dates. Shop ahead online. Or for yourself. Pretend there are sales.

Invite over neighbors and children you rarely see for a potluck dinner.

Make a list of all the things you love about your valentine for a card or scrapbook. Make stuff up if you have to.

Actually use those cross-country skis, or skates or showshoes you were always planning to try out after a big snow. C’mon, you can do it!

Put on your fanciest evening dress and jewelry, grab your cocktail and pretend you’re in an old movie. That sounds a lot better than, “Sit around your house and get wasted.”

Scan old photos and make a photo book. Then force the kids to look at pictures of their parents when they were little.

Do your taxes! April 15 only feels far off.

Chug a shot and break open your financial portfolio.

Order seeds and plants for your spring garden. Yes, spring will come eventually.

Update your resume. Hey, it’s better than doing it at work and leaving it in the copying machine.

Go through clothes (for you and your children) in drawers and closet. Try on and toss.

Upload your CDs, finally. Now, this may be difficult: Toss the CDs and the CD player.

Take out all the beach chairs, umbrellas and boogie boards and make a beach day in the snow.

Google yourself.

Collect all the pennies from the corners of the house, coat pockets, sofa cushions, jeans in the laundry. Maybe you’ll have enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Then again, maybe not.

Write a letter. You know the kind, with pen and paper.

Make snowflakes out of paper. Tape them to your windows to block out the white piles outside.

Teach haiku—five, seven, five—and make a book of illustrated snow haiku.

Create air fare alerts for deals to your dream destinations.

Play this fun game with your kids: Let’s Clean the Bathroom!

You know that neighbor who won’t stop blasting music? That’s where your shoveled snow goes.

Play family-friendly spin the bottle with your chore list. Hope it doesn’t point to you when it’s time to clean toilets.

Mani-pedi, scrub or mask, deep condition. You choose the body parts.

Bubble bath. Turn down the lights, light a candle and pretend you’re in a spa. Doesn’t do it for you? It’s not completely impossible that a real one is open.

Experiment all day on devising the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. Tasting mandatory.

Begin your memoirs.

Take pictures of all your belongings to inventory for insurance. Now do a written inventory.

Sleep. If that doesn’t work, make some nookie!

Send hate mail to your friends and relatives in warm-weather places. Or block them on Facebook.

Look at Florida real estate online, so you never have to read this again.

-Leanne Italie

But, at this rate, that might not be so bad.

The groundhog made his “prediction” on Gobbler’s Knob, a tiny hill in the town for which he’s named about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Temperatures were near freezing when he emerged at dawn—unseasonably warm—and were forecast to climb into the mid-40s in a winter that’s brought little snow and only a few notably cold days to much of the East.

Thursday’s ceremony is largely that: Phil’s prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group who dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance what the groundhog will predict.

Organizers expected 15,000 to 18,000 people to witness the furry creature’s prognostication ceremony just before 7:30 a.m. EST.

This year’s crowd was warmer than most. The average early-morning temperature usually hovers around 17 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett was among the spectators this year. Those who couldn’t make it to Gobbler’s Knob could follow the groundhog on Twitter and Facebook, or watch a webcast of the event on his website.

“What started as a small gathering in 1887 has now evolved into tens of thousands of visitors from around the nation and even the world coming to Punxsutawney to participate in this time-honored Groundhog Day tradition,” Corbett said.

The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.

Phil has now seen his shadow 100 times and hasn’t seen it just 16 times since 1886, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle, which runs the event. There are no records for the remaining years.

The tradition attained a large following with the 1993 Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day,” in which a weatherman covering the event must relive the day over and over again. Before the movie came out, Phil was lucky to have an audience of 2,500, said Mike Johnston, vice president of the Inner Circle.

And while the group has records of Phil’s predictions dating back to 1886, what it doesn’t have is a tally of whether Phil was right.

Johnston said the reason is simple: “He’s never been wrong.” Phil is “incapable of error,” he said, because the groundhog smartly avoids being site-specific in his prognostications.

If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, “I guarantee you someone’s going to have six more weeks of winter.”

———

Online:

http://www.groundhog.org

http://www.twitter.com/groundhogclub

“Teachers are reporting increased participation and attention from students and a dramatic increase in endurance,” said principal Nikki Westfall. “Our families are happier too. They are reporting much less stressful mornings.”

The in-class breakfast model is not new to the state, or even the metro area, but Colorado is trying to expand it through the No Kid Hungry campaign, which includes an awards program for schools that serve breakfast to more kids.

At Clayton, breakfast participation in 2011 reached about 90 percent of students, with an average of 405 breakfasts served daily, up from about 91 breakfasts served per day in April 2010.

That increase earned the school a Gold award in the Colorado School Breakfast Challenge.

The award, which came with a $5,000 gift, was presented by Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia on Tuesday.

Besides knowing more kids have had breakfast, and using anecdotal data to monitor classroom behaviors, Clayton officials compared data from August through December in 2010 and 2011 and found that student tardies dropped by 15 percent. Discipline referrals dropped by 50 percent.

Officials working throughout the state as consultants to help schools find grants and change their breakfast programs have noticed similar results.

“When schools move to a universal breakfast program, we have seen it removes the stigmas associated with eating breakfast. School nurse visits and behavioral problems drop,” said Kathy Underhill, executive director of Hunger Free Colorado, one of the organizations supporting the No Kid Hungry project.

Underhill said programs also are trying to serve healthier foods.

At Clayton, kids get a piece of fruit, a carton of milk and an entree such as a nutrition bar or cereal bar.

Westfall said she plans to use the award money to develop health-and-wellness classes that can be tied to the breakfast program. Some of the funds will also be used to purchase additional insulated food bags and carts so that when the school expands by a grade level next year, those kids could also eat breakfast in class.

The program’s startup cost came from about $6,000 in grants, a sum managers say is an investment that pays off in real dollars and in student outcomes.

“I’m a big believer that if we’re serious about ed reform, we will have to look at making sure children are fed,” Underhill said. “It’s not an either/or. If you have not eaten, your mind is not there in the classroom.”

Yesenia Robles

The three recently opened their separate shops under the same roof in a former mercantile space at 51-59 Broadway.

At Fancy Tiger Crafts, owners Jaime Jennings and Amber Corcoran have created an open, airy shop featuring shelves bursting with yarn from more than 30 vendors. Many of the vendors are small, local companies like Lonesome Stone of Granby. Bolts of colorful printed cloth line shelves along one wall, while a rack of Liberty of London prints sits front and center. Bookshelves brim with guides to knitting, crocheting and other needle arts, and an upholstered chair gives customers a place to peruse the works. Old-fashioned lettering painted on the wall advertises “Handsomely Decorated Cloth Fabrics.” In the back of the store is a long community table where people can gather on open crafting nights and for classes on making everything from baby quilts to Japanese coin purses. A fireplace and cheerful yellow- print wallpaper lend a homey feel. “We wanted it to be like an old prairie schoolhouse,” Jennings said.

And in two rooms farther back, the real magic happens: 15 sewing machines and several cutting tables are available during classes and for rent by the hour.

Next door, Jennings’ partner Matthew Brown runs Fancy Tiger Clothing. The store has a contemporary yet rustic feel, with plenty of hand-hewed wood furnishings by Fin Art and barn- wood-paneled dressing rooms.

Brown carries a number of lines for men, including Top Man, Kill City jeans and Billykirk Bags. Among the women’s clothing lines

Read more: Like-minded fiber and clothing merchants team up in Baker neighborhood’s “anti-mall” retail area – represented are Tulle, and such local designers as Melissa May and Fallene Wells. Many of his jewelry offerings are created by local designers, and Brown also likes finding select vintage bags and jewelry to resell. “Our goal is to try to buy local and repurposed as much as we can, and to educate people on what we’re doing,” Brown says.

Buffalo Exchange has been doing a brisk business since it opened early this month on Broadway, according to owner Todd Colletti. It buys, sells and trades clothing at the store. Men’s is up front, while women’s clothing and accessories are at the back of the store. Free parking alongside the building is a nice perk (but mind the signs and don’t park in the urgent-care spaces across the lot). After more than a dozen years at 226 E. 13th Ave. (which remains in business, selling clothes) Colletti says he’s happy to be near like-minded merchants.

“I love Broadway. It has a long Denver tradition and was once called the ‘Miracle Mile,’ ” Colletti says. “With all that drive-by and walk-by traffic, we’re a lot busier. And because we bought the space, we were able to do things with it. We have more light, garage doors we can open up, evaporative cooling, storage for back stock, a kicthen and space for employees for functions.”

A former Woolworth’s and J.C. Penney location, the building has features that work for retail, including shelving and a conveyor belt.

“I’ve always dreamt of doing an anti-mall and now we have it,” Colletti says.

===================

Tigalo time

What do you get when you cross a tiger and a buffalo?

A Tigalo, of course, which is the amusing moniker created by the trio of merchants who have joined forces at 51-59 Broadway. The name calls to mind the quirky movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” whose title character draws a “liger” and says: “It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed … bred for its skills in magic.” Tigalo Block Party grand opening celebration, 7-10 p.m. Feb. 3.

More at buffaloexchange.com and fancytiger.com; complete class roster at fancytigercrafts.com

By Suzanne S. Brown

Friday. Catch up with a “kindie” rock hitmaker when Katherine Dines performs a free concert at the Denver Puppet Theater. The Denver-based children’s musician released a CD of her most-requested songs, “Hunk-Ta-Bunk-Ta Hits,” on Tuesday, including tunes like “All the Way Around the World,” “Dad on Diaper Duty” and “Are We Ever Gonna Get There?” Youngsters can settle in with some apple cider and a cookie and jam out. Bring along a nonperishable food item to donate, too. Doors open at 6 p.m. Friday; show is at 7 p.m. Denver Puppet Theater, 3156 W. 38th Ave.; 303-458-6446. Admission is free, but reservations are required. Call to save a seat. hunktabunkta.com

Through Saturday. Summer vacation comes a few months early when “Phineas and Ferb: The Best Live Tour Ever!” comes to the Wells Fargo Theatre. In the musical show, the two mischievous stepbrothers use the remaining days of summer vacation to work on their latest invention. It’s so awesome that even their sister Candace, who usually hates all their experiments, joins the fun. Perry the pet platypus goes on an adventure of his own, as usual, using his secret “Agent P” identity to track down evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz. 7 p.m. tonight; 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday. The Wells Fargo Theatre at the Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th St.; 303-228-8000. Tickets are $16-$27, available at ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-653-8000. phineasandferblive.com

Monday-Tuesday. Budding music lovers get an insider’s look at classical music in the latest season of Tiny Tots Inside the Orchestra. Presented by Central City Opera and the Junior Symphony Guild, the series of shows lets preschool- and kindergarten-age kids experience a kid-friendly concert with plenty of room for participation. Dance along to music from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Copland’s “Rodeo” and even music from “Looney Tunes.” Opera is back, too: CCO ensemble artist Chad Reagan performs the famous “Largo al factotum” aria from Mozart’s “The Barber of Seville” (think “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!”). Can’t make it this week? Two additional shows are scheduled for Feb. 13. 9:30 a.m. Monday. Boettcher Concert Hall at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis Streets. 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Temple Sinai, 3509 S. Glencoe St. The suggested registration donation is $5. Make sure space is still available by calling 303-355-7855 or visit insidetheorchestra.com.

Starting Thursday. Go on a fantastic voyage in “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment—The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself)”, presented by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre. The show features the whimsical musings of de Rougemont, international wanderer, bold survivor and Victorian celebrity. He spins quite a tale, filled with exotic characters and thrilling scenarios—but keep in mind he’s not afraid of a little embellishment. This cheeky play is appropriate for kids age 6 and up; a special family matinee at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 25 welcomes the age-4-and-up crowd. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 25. The Dairy Center for the Performing Arts, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder; 303-440-7826. Tickets are $24 general admission, $22 for seniors, $19 for students; all tickets are $15 on Thursdays. boulderensembletheatre.org

Kathleen St. John

Know the benefits. Exercising soon after childbirth is primarily good for mental health—possibly guarding against post-partum depression—not for shedding baby weight. So do what feels good, not anything exhausting. Note: Walking after a caesarian also reduces the risk of rare but dangerous blood clots in the legs.

Listen to your body. If you’re feeling well, a low-intensity workout such as a 30-minute walk is fine within days of a vaginal or caesarian delivery. But don’t try to push through pain caused by tears or scars from childbirth.

Don’t worry about specific goals. You may get discouraged if you don’t hit a certain length or pace right away.

Gradually build intensity. About two or three weeks after delivery, workouts that are safe for late in pregnancy generally are fine again: moderate aerobics, light resistance exercises, modified push-ups or whatever else your doctor greenlights.

Follow post-caesarian rules. For the first six weeks or until cleared by your doctor, avoid exercises that put direct strain on your incision. That includes sit-ups, stair-steppers or lifting weights heavier than 25 pounds; some doctors recommend lifting nothing heavier than your baby.

Work around breastfeeding. Nursing mothers need more fluids to prevent dehydration, so drink plenty of water before, during and after workouts. To avoid breast discomfort, try to nurse or pump shortly before exercising — and invest in a good sports bra.

-Alison Johnson, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)