By LYNNE IRONS

I have been wracking my brain to come up with a garden topic this week. Should I stay with some sort of winter theme or get fully into the gear-up for spring?

I think I’ll take on credit cards instead.

Here is my best shot at a segue. I use my credit cards for the gardening business: ordering seeds, plugs, and bare-rooted perennials in mid-winter and paying them off in the summer when the money starts rolling in.

Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School will sponsor an Italian Dinner Night in the culinary arts dining room from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday, March 10. The dinner will benefit the school store student staff field trip to Orlando, Fla.

The Visiting Nurse Service of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services will present a Healthy Lifestyles Program for the Entire Family on Saturday, March 15.

The program will be held between 9 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. in the Southside Conference Center at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, Oak Bluffs.

Sponsored by nurse service and the boards of health of Chilmark, Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury, and West Tisbury, the goal of the program is to promote a healthy lifestyle that can result in the reduction in the development of chronic illness.

Deborah Ratcliff notified the Gazette this week that she heard pinkletinks at her home in Oak Bluffs on Tuesday night. Spring cannot be far behind. Edgartown voters are reminded they have a special town meeting that begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday night. Chilmark voters are reminded their special town meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. on Monday night.

With the rising cost of everything from salaries to health insurance premiums coupled with slowing commercial and residential growth, elected leaders in all six Islands towns will likely face especially tough decisions this budget season as they begin to draft their financial blueprints for the coming fiscal year.

A fatal accident aboard the schooner Alabama during a day sail out of Vineyard Haven in the summer of 2006 involved no violation of U.S. Coast Guard regulations, a report by Coast Guard investigators has found.

Vigorous environmental protection for five ancient ways will be the central issue at an Edgartown special town meeting set for next Thursday.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Old Whaling Church; moderator Philip J. Norton Jr. will preside over the session.

A great coach once said, “What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.” By that standard, the boys’ basketball team’s magnificent but ultimately heartbreaking 83-76 overtime loss to Wareham in the second round of the Division 3 south region state tournament on Wednesday must be considered a success.

Stephen Nixon, assistant principal of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School since 2004, will become principal in July, beating more than a dozen off-Island candidates for the position now held by Margaret (Peg) Regan, who resigns at the end of this academic year.

The announcement came this week from schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss, who made the final decision using the initial decisions of a screening committee and the recommendations of students, teachers and community members and a sub-group of the high school committee.

A single-source catalogue of every one of the 1.8 million or more life forms on Earth, the Encyclopedia of Life will involve a network of some of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions.

But the encyclopedia, which went online for the first time this week, will depend heavily for its success on people — like Allan Keith, citizen scientist of Chilmark — with little or no formal training.