I accomplished my two April challenges–

ONE

I wrote 30 poems, one each day, as a sonnet cycle. It was surprisingly easy to keep going, as every day I had a prompt from the previous poem. By about 4/12, I found that I didn’t have to count lines, I just wrote 14 and stopped. The form entered me. I will be working on revisions for a good while, but I’m hopeful that I have something here. The cycle starts and ends with this line:

It was a warm day in April when the coleus died.

TWO

I ate a totally plant-based diet (Vegan) for 30 days. I found it delightful. I spent more time preparing meals than usual (which I totally enjoyed), and I loved the colorful dishes, and the feeling of eating clean. I felt completely satisfied, when typically I am hungry a lot of the time. And I lost 9 pounds, which was, to be honest, one of my goals in this challenge. I’m thinking that giving up dairy (milk, cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, butter, yogurt) made the difference in having lost a few pounds. I hope it will also lower my cholesterol, which was above normal for the first time this year. I feel somewhat more energetic too. I like this enough to continue a mostly vegan diet, but will probably add eggs back in, since I get them locally from co-workers.

THREE What’s next?

I have a longer than a month goal in mind. I want to visit all of the waterfalls on the Olympic Peninsula. I have a map. I’ll have to give it at least a year. This is the Sol Duc Falls.