February’s a tough month for so many people, and this February was the mother of all Februarys. I’ve noticed a lot of people have been down lately. And even most of us who haven’t been down exactly haven’t been all that up either.
I have a bad habit of trying to cheer people up. I want to run up to all the winter-weary refugees and shout “We made it through February! We’ve turned the corner! The end is in sight!”
But the worst thing we can do is get too excited too soon. March serves up its own challenges. We hung on through February, counting down the days, struggling through the icy grey grip of winter, knowing if we could only survive till March, it would start getting better.
But we all know how fickle March can be. March is the two-steps-forward-one-step-back month. March is the month that make us feel hopeful and inspired with sunshine and melting and a hint of warmth, and then turns around and snatches it right back away from us with a big cruel dump of snow and arctic winds and plunging temperatures.
We expect nothing from February, but March? It tortures our reawakening hope.
And then we kick ourselves because we know what March is like, we’ve been through it dozens of times, but every year we allow it to trick us again – sometimes repeatedly throughout the month. It’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. We’re Charlie Brown. The football is Spring. Lucy is March.
March is good, though, as long as we don’t allow ourselves to have unrealistic expectations. Here are some things to look forward to:
March Break, if you get it
Multiple Personalities Day (March 5)
National Crown Roast of Pork Day (March 7)
International Women’s Day (March 8 )
Panic Day (March 9)
Daylight Savings Time begins! (March 9)
Middle Name Pride Day (March 10)
Good Samaritan Day (March 13)
Ides of March (March 15)
Everything You Do is Right Day (March 16)
St. Patrick’s Day (March 17)
Goddess of Fertility Day (March 18)
Supreme Sacrifice Day (March 18)
The Swallows Return to Capistrano Day (March 19)
The first day of Spring (March 20)
International Earth Day (March 20)
Extraterrestrial Abductions Day (March 20)
Single Parents Day (March 21)
Good Friday (March 21)
Easter (March 23: four-day weekend if you’re really lucky like me)
Near Miss Day (March 23)
Greek Independence Day (March 25)
Something on a Stick Day (March 28)
Bunsen Burner Day (March 31)
If we can just hang on till Bunsen Burner Day, I promise it’ll get better. I PROMISE.
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When I looked at my outdoor thermometer at 9:30 this morning it read 20 C! What??? I was very confused. I ran to the second thermometer (this one is in the shade), and it read -5 C. That made more sense. But it does mean that the sun was hot!!! I love winter, but Spring is even better~
I can’t wait for Something on a Stick Day.
Do any of these days come with cake?
Psychic Librarian – I’m shocked by that! I did notice the gigantic icicles hanging off my back porch roof were melting today, but I would never have imagined it was anywhere near 20 in the sunshine. (But see, there ya go, March is trying to get you to let your winter guard down, and tomorrow it’s going to blast you with freezing rain.)
Robin – I’m going to start whittling my stick early this year. That holiday creeps up on me every year and catches me unprepared.
Nancy – I think they ALL are cake-worthy days. I’m spending at least three days in collective bargaining this month, and I’m putting Supreme Sacrifice Day on the table as a paid holiday.
I see the beginning of the month is going to be tough for me since I barely have one personality, no middle name and don’t eat pork. Also, the end of the month worries me because I’m afraid of sticks and things on them and/or sports played with them and I still have flashbacks about a certain traumatic bunsen burner incident in grade 9. Thank goodness for all the vacation days.
Monday morning… March is being unpleasant already. This morning, the sidewalks won the second worse conditions of the year award. I actually barely made it to the nearest bus stop and planted myself there until a bus came. Walking would have taken me a tad too long. And I find walking on ice to be so nervewracking, I’m sore from the tension afterwards.
I’m liking March already. Not only because it has some great holidays I have thus far neglected to observe, but the school buses were canceled today and I had to take one for the team and stay home with DH’s daughters…
At least it’s light out longer. February is so grey and grim. Plus, it’s going to be 67F here today! (don’t hate me–that’s not normal for us; plus, record heat is guaranteed to be followed by an ice storm in less than a week, if the rest of the winter is anything to go by)
You forgot Army Day – March 4th.
it’s 13 C here in Hamilton, but I’m not getting too excited.. I am however excited about the following days in March
Multiple Personalities Day (March 5) Time to bring some of them into light I think!
Everything You Do is Right Day (March 16) THIS IS AWESOME!!!
Goddess of Fertility Day (March 18) No wonder there are so many December babies in my family
Extraterrestrial Abductions Day (March 20) Have to make sure I lock all the doors and windows.. don’t want this happening again
Something on a Stick Day (March 28) Gotta celebrate that one…. without my brother, becasue then it would be poo on a stick day….
Thanks for giving us something to look forward to
I forgot daylight savings time starts so early from now on! Now am I am excited – thanks!
Panic day? Everything you do is right day??
They should be on the same day so it would be right for us to panic….imagine the “parades”…
You missed Steak & Blowjob Day on the 14th!
And don’t forget that tomorrow is March FO(u)RTH! The only day of the year that is in and of itself a full sentence.
I hate springlike weather.
My roof is leaking in two places and when Kenya and I went by road to the other side of the lake the salt got into her wound and opened it up, and when we crossed the lake rather than taking the road back it was so wet I worried about falling through.
Give me a year of summer and winter.
Demo and Heather – March 4th – that was the anniversary of my son’s dad and me. I’m not sure what exactly it was the anniversary OF, since we never got married, but it was our anniversary. We remembered it that way too: the only day of the year that gives a command. March Forth. (Happy Anniversary John.)
Don Mills Diva – I was pleasantly surprised by the early arrival of Daylight Savings Time too – just one more week. Woohoo!
Valerie – 13, yummy. And 67 wherever Ellen is – that’s damned near perfect.
Oma I would be so pissed off if my brand new house was springing leaks.
James – how do you plan to celebrate?
XUP – I could lend you one of my personalities if you like.
Strange that International Earth Day and Extraterrestrial Abduction Day are the same. Do these people celebrate their return to Earth? Or do we celebrate that for a short time they left it?
You forgot Pi Day on 3.14