March Rocks! By Mackenzie Crowne

From little candy hearts and hand-made valentines to fat flakes shimmering beyond the window on a snowy Christmas eve, if you’re like me, every month in the year holds special memories. Waving flags, parades and potato salad, jack-o-lanterns and pillowcases full of candy, each flip of the calendar page returns me to my childhood. June delivers a thrilling sense of freedom, a throw-back to that wonderful last day of school every year. September rolls in on a bittersweet wave of magnificent fall colors and chilly winds hinting at the winter to come.

But, this is March, you say, a quiet, unassuming month lacking any major points of note. Wrong, or as they say in the Irish, Micheart! March rocks! Here in Phoenix, where I hang my hat, March means wildflowers - like the beauties decorating the hills of my mountain escape - hot air balloons and the annual Renaissance Fair. For a chick who detests the cold, a month shooing off the dog days of winter to usher in the early signs of spring is a big deal.

March also means St. Patrick’s Day. For a chick from a large, loving, LOUD Irish clan, a month celebrating the streak of green running through the soul of mankind is magical. And for an Irish chick who writes romance, March inspires tales of enduring love amongst the vibrant hills of Ireland, stories seeped in things old and mystical. But more on that later.

I admit, blarney comes naturally to me, so, count yourself lucky I’m curbing my Irish gift of gab to wish you a happy spring and a very happy St. Patrick’s Day with my favorite Irish salute…

May those who love you, love you,

and those who don’t love you,

may God turn their hearts,

and if he doesn’t turn their hearts,

may he turn their ankles…

so you’ll know them by their limping.

When Mac isn’t enjoying the wildflowers decorating her mountain escape, she spends her time weaving HEAs for her characters, like Sam and V, the hero and heroine of To Win Her Back, the latest in her Players series from KensingtonBooks

March myths and other stuff by Barbara Edwards

When March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb is one of my favorite predictors since my birthday is March first. I like to think I’ve been a lion for the first half of my life and can look forward to mellowing in the coming years. Maybe.

March is an interesting month. We have a soothsayer warn Caesar to Beware the Ides of March in the play by William Shakespeare and the famous portrayal of his assassination by his friend Brutus. This is a must read for anyone.

The celebration of St Patrick’s Day when everyone is Irish is another example. I don’t drink green beer or wear green hats. I do have a pair of emerald earrings that I enjoy putting on and love to watch children dancing. The Irish Tenors with their Irish Ballads make my heart weep any time of the year.

The first day of Spring occurs in March. The March equinox, which marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, is on March 20 in 2013.

I noticed it doesn’t always fall on the Spring Solstice a holiday celebrated by Wicccans. In researching this date I found it’s not called the solstice: that only occurs in winter and summer. On the first day of spring—the vernal equinox—day and night are each approximately 12 hours long, the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth’s equator.

How about the most well-known birthstone for March? Aquamarine is a color variety of the mineral Beryl. Blue Beryl is called Aquamarine while green Beryl is called emerald. Maybe the reason I love both. Beryl often occurs as veins with other minerals. It is very hard and resists weathering. Only diamonds, sapphires and a few other gemstones are harder.
Romans named the Aquamarine. It’s derived from "aqua" meaning water and "mare" meaning sea because the stone looks like seawater. It was believed that the origins of aquamarine were the jeweled trunks belonging to the sirens. The stones were said to have been washed up on the shores from the depths of the sea. Aquamarines were said to be sacred to Neptune, the god of the sea.
Because of aquamarines' association with the sea, the stones became popular with sailors. It was 
believed that carrying an aquamarine with one to sea would bring prosperous and safe journeys, protecting the sailor from sea monsters. Greeks were known to have carried aquamarine amulets with them as early as 500 B.C.
     The Romans believed that aquamarine would heal ailments of the digestive system as well as the mouth and throat. During the middle ages, aquamarine was used as an antidote against poison. In additional to its medicinal powers, it was strongly held that aquamarine was used by fortune tellers to read the future.

Visit me at www.barbaraedwards.net for excerpts from my books, buy links and free reads.

What Makes Me Mad About March

March is one of my least favorite months. It's heading into the fourth month of winter and while I don't object to winter, I've had enough. Spring, where the eff are you? Let's go. I've gotten a few tastes of warmer weather here and there and dang it, I want, I want.

March is also Hell if you are a teacher, because where I teach, there are no days off in March until you get to Good Friday at the very end of the month. Yeah, yeah, I know I just had a week off in February and there's one coming in April, not to mention half of June and all of July and August, BUT teaching for an entire month straight with no days off is insane. Just picture if not one child, but at least twenty-something children said your name over and over again, every day, for a whole month. And you couldn't ignore them. And you were trapped in a room with them for 6.5 hours. And you had to actually accomplish learning every day too. Every year I come really close to wanting to be abducted by aliens on my way to work. Yes, that's right. I'll take an alien probing over one more "Mrs. DePetrillo, can I..." No, you can't. And Mrs. DePetrillo has decided to change her name to something she will never tell you.

March, also has St. Patrick's Day, which around these Irish parts, is just a big, fat, green light to get plastered. This does help a bit with the complaints in the above paragraphs, but what gets me annoyed is all the non-Irish persons imbibing along with the holiday. Everyone is NOT Irish on St. Patrick's Day. Vinny, Tony, Giovanni, Bobby, you know you guys are not Irish. And no, I'm not going to call you McVinny or O'Tony on St. Patrick's Day. You. Are. Not. Irish. Stick to your pasta and parmesan, you meatballs! Holiday stealers. Really.

So, take a hike, March. I'm all in favor of shooting right to July, the truly best of all months of the year. The sun is high in the blue sky. There are no students needing my brilliance. The margaritas are cold and don't care if you're Irish or not. All is good in July.

What's your favorite month and why?

Toodles,
Chris
www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

March and Madness

I know March and Madness have something to do with basketball, but honestly, I don't follow sports at all. Especially basketball. That squeaking of sneakers on the court kind of wears on my nerves after about 3.6 seconds. It just looks like a bunch of running around to me, which isn't all that productive, is it?

Can you tell I'm not an athlete? Like, at all.

I have my reasons for not being an athlete. Well, actually, there's just the one reason.

I suck at sports. Epically.

Let's start with the fact that growing up, my mom used to call me "Grace." Not because I had the poise and elegance of a ballerina, but because I pretty much stomped around like a drunken elephant with its eyes closed. So hear the name "Grace" with the bucket of sarcasm that it came with. I bumped into things. I fell a lot. I could never get my arms and legs to move in the synchronicity that other people seemed to achieve easily.

What's really funny is how I'm writing this with past tense verbs, bumped, fell, like it doesn't happen anymore.

It happens.

For obvious reasons, I don't play any organized sports. Even as a kid I only played softball because my parents made me. I think they were getting worried about all that time I spent in my room. As if I were doing something truly heinous in there, like...like...reading. Oh, no. Don't let the child READ! She might grow up to...have a good vocabulary and be a good student and maybe, just maybe, she may get a wild and crazy notion to...gasp...write BOOKS!

Oh, the horror. The madness. Not just in March either.

Okay, so I'd rather read and write even today than play a sport that involves scary equipment and balls and sticks and bats and pucks. Shudder. BUT, that doesn't mean that I'm not active. I move. All the time. In fact, the only time I sit still is to read or write. I spend lots of time walking and not at the pace of the rest of the humans. I walk like lightning. Sure, I stumble, I trip, I fall flat on my face on many occasions, but I'm fast. Just ask my 105-pound German Shepherd, Anubis, who loves to walk with me. We cruise, and generally speaking, he's the only reason you'd ever see me with a tennis ball in my hand.

I like yoga and aerobics and lifting weights, which you will note don't involve me having to catch anything. My vision sucks, and although I'll put my hand out to catch something (or to protect my head), I never actually catch anything. It always falls like I have a hole in my hands or as my husband says, I have "Margarine Mitts." Things slip.

But, I'm okay with this lack of sports ability. I've come to terms with it. Some of us were meant to play hard, others of us were meant to read about those that play hard. And some of us were meant to write about those that play hard.

Besides, I don't look good with sweat on my brow. I just don't.

Do you play any sports? Are you any good?


Toodles,
Chris
www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com