I didn’t take this picture (as you can see by the caption.) But I could have. Snow is melting like crazy here. Last month marked the official first day of spring, and with it we had actual warm weather for a few days, then a small snowstorm, some rain, and, this last weekend, weather so warm (60!) that we didn’t wear jackets and opened every window in our house.

It’s been a long hard winter in Minnesota. There were stretches for days where we tried to avoid going outside for anything non-essential because of the dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills. We also got a ton of snow. Our pipes froze, and our furnace went out. It was a great first winter back.

With the winter also came some huge changes in my life. I started the MFA program at Hamline University in January. It has been an incredible experience thus far and I am so thankful to be a part of such an awesome writing community.

In February I finally bit the bullet and published Your Pilates Life. I’ve been sitting on this book for a very long time (for reasons outlined in the Author’s note at the beginning) and I really wanted to get it into the hands of readers. It’s available for free on Noisetrade and the response has been incredible. In the last week alone more than 100 people have downloaded it! Please check it out and tell me what you think!

I’ve also been working diligently on Stealing the Ruby Slippers and am excited to announce that it will be out in May in both print and digital formats! I’m working with an amazing editor, and I got to see a first look at the cover this week.

I promise I’m going to start posting more regularly. I don’t know what that means yet, because, lets be honest, life is crazy. But…I think I can safely say I’ll be here for sure once a week. I hope to see you too.