I postmortem each month shortly after it ends. Previously, I used these posts to hold myself accountable on progress toward my annual goals. Starting in January 2023, I broadened these posts to address more generally my observations and experiences for the month. (To read previous months’ reviews, click here.)

I may have scolded myself for not using my French as much as I should use it in earlier months of this year, but family time throughout the month of March forced a lot more only-in-French interaction. We spent several days in Le Mans to visit Arnaud’s mother for her birthday and spent two weekends with Arnaud’s aunt and uncle, one in Aix-les-Bains in France and another here in Lausanne.

Now I just need to keep up—or push—the pace.

Same with some of those nagging administrative and life-maintenance things I’d confessed to laziness about handling earlier in the year: I checked off some of my financial to-dos (if only they were now done and if only they didn’t get piled on by yet another tax year) and I checked off one of my three planned annual health check-up appointments in March. (Thumbs up from the doctor, so there’s that.)

I did not, however, manage much by way of social interaction, though I suppose I could count family functions in that category. As family visits are not what I’d intended in my annual goals when I’d written about needing to make more friends in the area—though I do have family-time priorities, don’t worry—I can’t count these family visits as social interaction in my intended sense of the term. Maybe the slightly more sunny, welcoming outdoor weather that the progression of spring should bring will help.

On the writing front, though, I made good progress. I stayed on timeline for having my second novel manuscript finished by the end of the year. I still have a long way to go, but I’m on plan, anyway. Also, I made headway on the plan for the novel I will draft as soon as I achieve a completed draft of the current novel in revisions.

In addition, I completed a ten-week seminar I’d signed up for late last year, another three-part seminar in March, and participated in a workshop early in the month. All on the craft and profession of writing, of course.

And all this without neglecting other professional matters! Those continued apace and on track. They’re just far less exciting and engaging to me than my writing work.

To close on a final exciting and engaging note, I went to the French Consulate in Geneva late in the month to pick up my French identity card and my French passport. I can’t wait to use both for the first time—and I look forward to voting in the European Union elections in June, for which I’ve also signed up to volunteer at the ballot box.