In Like a Lion

Ah yes, March. A month of many things, including its fair share of sayings. As I sit down for the first blog post in far, far too long, I am inclined to sidetrack along musings of other months and their sayings. Only nothing really comes to mind (other than the Dog Days of August, which lack the Shakespearean provenance of the Ides of March), so it would be a really short aside.

As it is, my concern with March is more vested in the old adage of it being "in like a lion, out like a lamb" or vice versa. For those of you who might live someplace where you've never heard this expression - perhaps someplace tropical where the weather is always warm, it has to do with the weather. (Also, I hate you. Just a little.) If the weather at the beginning of March is harsh, i.e. cold and wintry, then it will be nice and spring-like at the end. In theory. Around here that's never really much of a question. March is a winter month in my neck of the woods. Heck, sometimes so is April, although that's thankfully rare.

Groundhog Day is mostly a formality around here, too. It's always six more weeks, regardless of what happens with the over-sized rodent.

With the opening of March, though, comes something else: Spring Break. Which I have never, ever taken anyplace even remotely like what you used to see on MTV. Or still see, for all I know. I have about as much interest in doing something like that as I do in having my internal organs removed. Possibly even less so. No, my Spring Break is now, and for the most part always has been, a time to relax in the comfort of home and catch up on things that I have either let slide or that simply piled up on me.

Think of it as New Year's but with a week to actually implement resolutions. Not that I make resolutions, but you get the point.

So, this week I am going to tackle some things that have been let go for far too long. In part inspired by some others around the web (more on that sometime soon), and in part the culmination of realizing things won't happen unless I actually do them, no matter how much I may have been experimenting with other, less active approaches.

I am trying to keep goals reasonable, as I know full well that unrealistic goals are one of the reasons resolutions so often fail. But they are reachable, doable goals, and more importantly, some are short term and some are long term. And unlike the merry month of March - yes, yes, I know, that's meant to be May - I do not intend to go gently into that next month.

The main goal, the overall aim, is to not only go in like a lion (or some other, slightly more hard-working animal, as lions are actually somewhat lazy, even by cat standards), but to keep on going.

One of which is resuming writing here on a semi-regular basis. (See? Short, doable goals.)

Now, if I can just figure out a way to turn "April showers" into something equally inspirational.