Lovely Things from February

I got the idea for this post from Alexis Hall, who wrote up a Things I Liked post for February. And I realized how wise that was, because the world is making me particularly anxious right now. Why not celebrate the stuff that went right?

So here goes. The glories of February:

• I went cross-country skiing several times, and did not die. (In spite of the snow-covered DANGER sign we skied past.) I skied past a sheep. And I skied on a lake with a dog.

• I met a guard llama named Desmond. Guard llamas are a thing. That makes me unaccountably happy.

• The Husband built several fires in the wood stove. They crackled magnificently. So even though the air had, say, -5% humidity and my skin has mostly fallen off, it was super atmospheric.

• A 42-year-old minor league Zamboni driver stepped in as an emergency goalie, helping the ‘Canes beat Toronto at home. This would be fabulous any old day of the week, but it was especially fun to hear just after Elle Kennedy and I published a novella with the same plot.

• Still North Books got its liquor license. So, bitches, there is now a bookstore in my town THAT ALSO SERVES WINE. Does that make me cool? Fuck it. Who cares.

• I dined in a restaurant that used to be (and still looks exactly like) an old Vermont train station. And there was live music.

• Enjoyed a highly caloric tapas dinner and a Dark & Stormy before watching Yale beat Dartmouth at hockey! YAAAAAS.

• Made two different lasagnas and had 10 people over for dinner. The sauce was from a jar. But everything else was from scratch. Except dessert. Some people cook every night. I am not one of those people. So I feel like I scaled K2, here.

• Wrote more than 35k words, meeting my goal. I hit the USA Today list with Heartland. I sold rights to books in German, Russian and Czech.

Wow. February was a freaking great month. Alexis is onto something. I feel better. So even if we’re all in quarantine by the end of March, I fucking conquered Feb.

Onward.