According to the Buckeye Chuck and Punxsutawney Phil, we have 6 more weeks of winter. If we’re talking about the actual season of winter, of course that’s true. If we’re talking about winter weather, I don’t rely on a groundhog for that information. It’s cold today, and that’s all that matters to me right now.

It’s a good day to stay indoors, make a batch of yogurt, and sow some seeds in anticipation of spring. I have 10 jugs to use for outdoor sowing. I want to try sowing lettuce, spinach, mustard, and chard to see if I can get some early baby greens for salad. And I will sow some native flowers as well. I will try tomatoes from seed next as I get more empty gallon jugs. (We go through a lot of distilled water, so I can accumulate them pretty quickly.)

Until spring actually arrives, I am enjoying the blooms on my amaryllis and paperwhites — post-holiday clearance purchases on a day I needed cheering up.

As far as work as been going lately — I have two travel articles completed that are in various stages of editing. Hopefully those will be published soon. I just joined the editorial team at ScribeConcepts as a freelance consultant. And I have a couple other projects in the pipeline.

I’m also very excited to be part of a new webzine launching next month for Gen X women. More on that later.

Also, I think I’m getting close to making my first booking as a travel advisor. (Fingers crossed!) I had no idea when I started this travel advisor journey that it would take so long to get my first booking.

Hoping February will be good to me, and I hope the same for all of you.