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!

This short film, This Is Where We Live, celebrated the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate Publishers, an imprint of HarperCollins, when it first came out more than a decade ago. I meant to share it with you 18 months ago, but just discovered it in my drafts folder when I was looking for something else. I guess it’s good to go in there periodically, eh?

If you liked this, 4th Estate has several “making of” videos on their Vimeo channel.

As I’d hoped, the weather and my schedule cooperated and I got to spend time today puttering in my garden plot. And by puttering I mean, clearing the main bed, turning soil, and planting seeds.

But after a couple hours, it felt nice to see something looking so … tidy and taken care of.

The back portion is several rows of peas and the front row is several rows of spring greens.

I haven’t bought any new seeds this year, so we’re seeing what will sprout from past seasons. I feel more optimistic about the seeds from last year than the ones from 2009, but either way those seeds are out of my house and in the ground.

And while I’m relatively sure that doing this much planting so early in the year will guarantee a blizzard and frozen ground in the next two weeks, these are all plants that flourish in cooler weather and should be able to withstand a certain amount of cold.

Have you started thinking yet about what you’re going to grow this year?