After a sloppy, sleety day, the weather seems to have calmed down outside. But everything is coated with ice, and I'm glad I don't have to walk any dogs this morning.

Yesterday turned out to be productive: I did end up writing a first draft of that Byron piece, and I managed to do it while sitting in the middle of the living room surrounded by family noise, so that was a success too. Mostly I try not to dwell on my lack of work space. A room for my son is more important than a room for my writing, and the Brontes all wrote on their laps in the middle of the parlor while their brother was having drunken rages upstairs, so what am I complaining about? Still, I do feel wistful about that room of my own. This was the first one I'd ever had, and now I don't have it any more. 

Enough repining: I did, in fact, write anyway, without a room, and who knows? maybe today I'll write some more. I've also got a couple of friends' poetry manuscripts to work on, and that Byron draft to tweak, and my new-and-selected to start collecting. And floors to clean, and laundry to hang, and probably more shoveling to do, blah blah blah.

But it's February! And next month is March! And in March I can start thinking about my garden. I am itching to be back outside, in the thick of planting. This spring I'll be growing potatoes, which I haven't grown since we left Harmony. In the back garden I'll be planting ferns and Solomon seal in the beds I prepared last fall. It will be the best garden yet (unless that groundhog comes back).