I Think That Qualifies as "In Like a Lion"

I don't know about where you live, but at this little place here March came in in a crazy mix of weather.

February 28th was a very warm day with thunderstorms that rolled through after dark.  Strong thunderstorms. With heavy, driving rain.  By sunrise on March first, we had received about two inches of rain.  There was water everywhere (luckily, it all stayed outside), and on my drive to work I noted how much flooding there was in many farm fields.  The water was all the way up to the shoulder of the road in several, and the creek I pass over about a mile from my house had risen to less than two feet of the bottom of it's bridge. Normally there is about a 5 foot difference between bridge and waterline there.

During the day, the wind grew, and on my drive home in the afternoon I noticed that one old barn on my route was blown over.  I'm positive that rickety barn was standing on my way to work that morning, but by afternoon it was a heap of rubble.

Also during the day, the temperature plummeted; and dinner time found it to be about thirty degrees colder than dinner time on Feb. 28th had been.  Now instead of heavy rain, the evening included heavy wet, blowing snow.  White out conditions at times.  Several local areas lost power (thankfully, not this little place here).  And despite the ground having been thoroughly thawed and warmed enough that we had earthworms and spring peepers making an appearance before Tuesday's thunderstorms, on Thursday we woke up to roughly an inch of snow on the ground.  In other words, it snowed so hard that it accumulated faster than it melted when contacting the soil.

Some of the roads were slick and icy for the morning commute on Thursday.  By afternoon, everything had melted again.  Thursday night, however, was very cold, and on Friday morning the ground was frozen, rough and hard.

Given a beginning like that, I am hoping that March will get gentler, and ease us on into Spring.

Also given a beginning like that, I'm a bit hesitant to get too lofty with my personal goals for March!  My original plan was to reset many of my February goals, and add in a few more specific to the month of March itself (such as getting seeds started indoors ASAP).  Now five days into the month, I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't overbook myself, because weather conditions and working outdoors every morning during the week greatly affect my energy levels for the latter half of each day--the time I have for working on these goals.

Here are my official March goals:

1. Ride at least 12 times (preferably three rides a week).
2. Walk 1/2 hour 3-4x a week (actually, this was a directive from my Dr. in late February and is in effect until mid-April) plus workout at least once a week.
3. Lose 2 pounds (a February do-over).
4. Lose at least 1" from my waist (also February do-over).
5. Try one new recipe a week (need to eat more meat and veggies and less starch/pasta/potato/rice).
6. Do one jigsaw puzzle.
7. Read one novel and one horse related non-fiction from my book collection.
8. Spend at least 1 hour a week on decluttering/organizing.
9. Put the Quarter Horse up for sale (need to get current nice photos and a video of him being ridden would be helpful to speed up the sale).
10. Knit a sweater for Toad (to be an Easter gift) and at least start a sweater for K3 (hopefully also for Easter, although her end of April birthday will be a backup date).
11. Start my tomato, pepper, broccoli and cabbage seeds.