Hello from SE Michigan where winter is hopefully dwindling and allergy season has yet to start cranking. It’s a rare moment of quiet around here, Spring Break for our area schools and the kiddo is off in warmer weather and sunshine with her father. When she gets back, soccer and spring activities will come roaring back, and then – everything that comes with graduation.

My daughter has begun to finalize her plans for next year, and I’m so proud and excited (and sad, but trying not to let that show too often). This is the season where everything starts to become real.

We went to the Whitney Hotel in Detroit to celebrate and if you are ever nearby and want to splash out to celebrate something, this is a place to go. It’s a fine restaurant and bar in the home of a Gilded Age lumber baron, filled with its original woodwork, art, and Tiffany glass. (And possibly a ghost or two? The top floor bar is named Ghost Bar accordingly.)

I’m working on her college dorm room blanket (the Cozy Comfort throw) and her winter scarf (the Bug Collection scarf). These are both longer term projects and although I try to pull them out of my knitting basket multiple evenings a week, this past month they took a little backseat. I ordered a beginner embroidery kit from Clever Poppy and absolutely loved it! I finished it up and ordered another one.

I made some charm kilt pins, and also fell down the sourdough rabbit hole and although I haven’t had much success with my first couple of loaves, my starter is still pretty young. I’m following the Kelly Welk tutorials on YouTube and hoping for a good focaccia here very soon.

March was also a good month for books. I read “Coffin Moon” by Keith Rosson and although it’s definitely not for everyone- it’s horror, and pretty gory horror at that – it was one of the first books of the year that I couldn’t put down. I’m also progressing through Juno Dawson’s “Her Majesty’s Royal Coven” trilogy and although it took me a little while to get into it, by the second book I was hooked. I find a lot of fantasy formulaic and simply not very well written, but Ms. Dawson’s characters are interesting, very diverse and appealing, her stories move quickly, and I like her enlightened, progressive feminist and queer themes.

I hope that you all enjoy the beginning of spring (or autumn, in the Southern Hemisphere) wherever you are. And my personal opinion- even if you don’t celebrate Easter, there’s nothing wrong with crunching the ears off a chocolate bunny.