Making the Most of March

In Madison, March is an unbelievably dreary month. Spring is just around the corner, but it might as well be at the opposite end of the calendar. Everything is grey and mucky. Occasionally a clean sweep of snow swoops in, but it turns quickly to mush. I used to get some sort of interesting illness every March. One year I was diagnosed with pneumonia, another mono AND costacondritis.

This is also the month that doom seems to descend on our family. Along with other less heartrending calamities, my mother died in March and I was diagnosed with fourth stage colon cancer in March. This trend seems to be moving outwards in the family and Jeremy even tried to steal my super trauma ER date this year.

We have tried very, very hard to make March a fantabulous month for ourselves. We moved to the Pacific Northwest where March is filled with flowers, you start to get days that are warm and balmy (based on WI standards anyway), and it starts to SMELL like spring. We even got married in March.

This year, we went to every possible social event we were invited to and made an effort to see friends, including a glamorous Ladies Lunch I went to with Suzanne Young to celebrate our friend Cyndi’s step into a new career.

But still. It’s March. There’s Japan. There’s WI politics. Comparatively, we got off lightly with a new hardcore chemo regime for me and a month’s paycut for Barrett whose paycheck and benefits still come from the state of WI.

We just keep trying and we have plenty of help. There were definitely some wonderful things this year in March.

Like a whole box of oranges fresh from a backyard tree of some friends. Our whole kitchen filled up with orangey goodness and there were even enough to share.

We’ve been enjoying the spring flowers.

And some good books.

Yesterday, in honor of the second anniversary of our ring exchange, we visited Cathedral Park.

The sun came out and there was even a fiddler playing just like at our ceremony, though not, of course, one as lovely as Johanna. We had dinner at Typhoon! and ended the day with cake.

Plus, this month we received a generous donation from an anonymous donor for my Kick Cancer fund. Thank you anonymous donor! You rock! And thank you everyone else who has donated who I might not have thanked already. I try to keep up with you, but your awesomeness is sometimes more than I can handle! (Not that I’m complaining, I love you, donors!)

Only one more week of March and there is no doom allowed. We plan on it being FABULOUS!

Love to you all,

Bridget