This weekend was a good one. It started on Friday night in Fort Lauderdale, where I caught an outdoor family-friendly concert and craft fair. I sang along with plenty of pop songs, ate a crepe, and generally enjoyed being outside on a February evening.

Most of my Leap Day was spent at the beach, although I did precede it with a bike ride over to a local farmers market. I picked up baked goods, a baguette, burrata filled with nutella, oranges, strawberries, and tropical fruit, much of which became my breakfast and lunch. I read on the sand, dipped myself in the water, and enjoyed people watching. (There’s a lot of Instagramming that goes on at the beach, particularly on the first official day of spring break season.) The sun was setting as I arrived at the airport, which seemed a pretty fitting end to my trip.

To kick off March today I did sleep in a bit today before getting up and heading off to the farmers market. My team had our final bowling match of the season and then we each headed out our own ways. My friend Sigrid and I strolled back toward Dupont together, possibly our last such walk, since she and her husband pack up to move back to Germany at the end of the month. I did a little grocery shopping, got in some phone time with my folks and my friend Laura, made a lasagna, and did a very little bit of tidying up before Rudi came home. After he went to bed, I started a new graphic novel, New Kid, which won the Newbery Medal this year. I’m nearly halfway done and am really enjoying it so far.

Tomorrow it’s back to the office. I thought there might be another trip coming up later this month, but it looks like some other colleagues are going to cover that, so I feel optimistic that I might be able to catch up on several projects. It would feel great to not be so behind on things and to start my second six months at my job with some things crossed off my to-do list!

I hope your week is a good one (it’s that magical last week before daylight savings time robs us of an hour of sleep) and that you get to cross some things off of your to-do list, as well!

I’m home. Corey was delighted to see me arrive and now is eager to remind me where we keep the bedroom.

But first, I wanted to think about what I’d like to do tomorrow:

• Sleep in a bit. I didn’t get to do that today (although I also didn’t get up to watch the sun rise over the ocean the way I’d considered) and am looking forward to it. I’d guess Corey will also agree that’s a good way to spend the morning.
• Stop at the farmers market to buy milk and drop off compost.
• Go bowling. Our team is vying for third in the league playoff during the final week of the season.
• Unpack. Rudi will also have bags tomorrow night, so I’d like to minimize their impact on the living room.
• Call a friend I keep missing in phone tag.
• Do some laundry.
• Start my Sock Madness sock. The first pattern arrived today and I’ll have until midday on the 14th to finish a pair to advance to the next round or a single sock to get all the patterns. I haven’t gotten out of round one in several years…
• Get Rudi to put aloe on my upper back. It’s the most ridiculous sunburn, full of bumpy edges at the limits of where I could reach myself. I had hoped that I had compensated for that knowledge by putting on a long-sleeve shirt in time, but alas.

How about you? How’s your weekend going? Are you ready for a fresh new month’s start?

When I originally scheduled this work trip, we thought there would be a second day of events, but those didn’t pan out. But I still wanted to get my day of fun at the beach, so today I chose to work remotely. This was my office this morning. I also worked at my hotel room, a coffeeshop/florist, and a branch of the Broward County Library. (The beach was the nicest of the bunch, but the one my computer liked the least. Apparently track pads aren’t a fan of ocean breezes.)

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The bookstore I visited in Phoenix had a fireplace.

2. My volleyball team is signing up for a new season, and one of my teammates has been taking care of the details via email. The teasing that filled the messages was that of close friends. I love them so much.

3. Corey’s joy at having me home.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

No sewage that I noted, but they were flying the flags that indicated “dangerous marine life” and “medium hazard” for man o’wars (jellyfish on steroids) and rip currents, so I only got my toes wet.

I am on the road again for work tomorrow, this time to Fort Lauderdale.

Interestingly, all three of my recent trips — to the Bay Area, to Phoenix, and to southern Florida — will have had similar weather — highs in the 70s.

I might have hoped for slightly warmer weather for this trip, since I’ll be staying through Saturday with the original hopes of getting in some beach time. Also, Fort Lauderdale has been struggling in recent months with sewage leaks (19 of them since December), so I will need to be careful in finding a beach to visit. They have nearly 25 miles of coastline, so I’m still optimistic that I may yet be able to find an area that’s not hazardous. However, if it’s as bad as some articles have claimed (dead fish floating on rivers), I’m not above canceling my extra time and coming home early.

But I am staying in a small, plantation-style hotel with just a dozen rooms, part of a resort of faded glory and, in the case of this hotel, seemingly Southern gothic charm. (I’m hoping for the quirky side of that descriptor, rather than creepy.) I am a fan of off-beat accommodations, so I’m hopeful this will be a plus. It does have a pool, so hopefully even if ocean swimming is out of the question, I’ll still get to don a bathing suit for a while.

It’s also spring training, and my two favorite teams train in Florida. I got rained out of seeing baseball last Saturday in Phoenix, but I am hopeful that I can pull off a game in West Palm Beach, which seems to be less than an hour north of Fort Lauderdale via train. And if neither the beach nor baseball is possible, maybe I’ll take the train south into Miami for the day or figure out how to book a tour of the Everglades, which are nearby. What I’m saying is that there are options, and I am determined to avail myself of them.

Plus, maybe I’ll get to see a manatee in the wild, which would be amazingly awesome. Keep your fingers crossed!