Um, right, so, yes… a new month happened and I missed it. Didn’t notice at all, in fact. The days just slipped into being a different month and this morning I woke up and thought, “Did I ever do a Best of March post?” Nope, I didn’t. The only regular post I do and I forgot it! Oops.

So, yes, March 2019. It started in Arcata and ended in Arcata. It included one driveway and a single camping trip, which held a national forest and a state park.

It was a lovely month. Although I didn’t go a lot of places, I did a lot of things: yoga and roller-skating and kayaking; visiting the farmer’s market and the beach; listening to live music at the coffee shop; walking through the community forest; soaking in the hot tub at the Finnish sauna place; meeting a potential new writer friend for coffee; playing with puppies at the neighbor’s house… Plenty of great meals, too, most of them cooked at home, but good sushi in Arcata and the fantastic Mayan Fusion in Fort Bragg. I told S it felt like we were living a vacation life in the midst of her real life and she laughed and agreed, but that is what it feels like — lots of activity, punctuated by laundry and cleaning out the storage shed and working in the kitchen and trying to write. It’s been great.

And it’s fun to experience a true spring. March started out gray and cold — I wore my plump eggplant coat everywhere, and barely even opened the door of the van if I didn’t have it at least clutched in my hand. Mornings began with frost on the ground and I had to abandon all hope of avoiding walking Z in the rain: it was always raining and we were just going to get wet. Last night, though, we went out to dinner and I left my eggplant coat at home. And the flowers are amazing! Flowering trees everywhere, tiny wildflowers scattered along the railroad tracks, yellow blooming weeds springing up in the cracks along the sidewalk. Florida, of course, has plenty of flowers, most of the year, but there’s definitely something about the sudden abundance of blossoms everywhere that makes the world feel fresh and beautiful.

I did realize while taking the above picture that I’d totally abandoned my New Year’s resolution of working on my photography skills and taking photographs every day. Oh, well. As with every resolution, I’m allowed to start over again. But I suspect that April is not going to turn into a major photography month, largely because my April plans involve writing many, many words, and I don’t want to get distracted from Fen’s adventures by pretty flowers and beautiful skies.

Back to the best of March, though — in a month with a lot of great moments, the one that is currently sticking out to me took place last weekend. The day before our river kayaking adventure, I took a beginning kayaking class on Humboldt Bay. I went by myself, because S had to work. It was a small class, just four students, and the instruction was very focused: we were given a stroke or technique to work on, worked on it for fifteen minutes or so, then had another few minutes of instruction and went back to work. By the end of the class, we were paddling our way around some big pylons, like an obstacle course for kayakers, and it was ridiculously satisfying. It was a gorgeous day, clear sky and sunny, and being out on the water, feeling in control of the kayak, feeling like I’d learned something and was improving at something… yes, it was awesome. Possibly not the best idea in the world to stretch a lot of typically unused muscles right before the river adventure but totally worth it. A highlight in a month of very good moments!