This Awful Awesome Life is officially one year old! A lot has happened in the past year. We said a loving farewell to my fellow publisher, Jay Speyerer who passed away in the fall.

I moved the magazine to Squarespace for the August issue and took over the designing duties. So far I’ve been able to recreate our first two issues and hope to have all of 2017 available to view soon.

For our inaugural year, our talented writing team covered some incredible subjects. I tried to summarize the topics we covered and list our contributors, but it will be better if I show you in photos in this issue.

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month with a look at some courageous women in politics, science and literature. Terry Kish remembers a special woman who influenced her life, because sometimes the best role models are the strong women in our own families.

March marks the coming of spring and St. Patrick’s Day, so get your green ready and join us for some boxty or colcannon. How much do you know about The Emerald Isle? Find out by taking our quiz. Orlando Bartro discusses Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce.

We're spending a little time in the garden to talk about safe plants for your pets and how to make your yard more friendly to butterflies, hummingbirds, songbirds and bees. Corey Flynn has some wonderful suggestions for getting active this spring and some information on national nutrition month, and don’t forget to check out what’s for dinner with Linda Cahill. I have some book recommendations for spring reading for kids and a couple of book reviews for the adults. I went a little overboard on photos this month, But I just love springtime! 

Enjoy!

Fran