A Wee Break

It's March Break and it's been glorious weather all week -- mostly warm and sunny and sometimes crashing thunder and lightning.

March Break is officially my favourite holiday of the year -- because there are no family or church or societal obligations whatsoever to it. It's not long enough for leisure to become a burden but it's so much longer than a long weekend.

March Break is always when the winter breaks too, when spring bursts forth. Not usually as much as this year -- I almost literally watched the ice on our pool melt from total freeze to total water on Monday, and now our ducks have returned. A week ago today, I walked the dog on the golf course after a freak snow/icestorm and fell three times. Now the greens live up to their name and I've planted the beets, the carrots, the arugula, spinach and peas. The garlic scapes are an inch above the ground. All the bedsheets are washed and one room is newly painted a soft blue with shiny white trim. This missive comes to you from my front porch.

We've watched a bunch of non-award-worthy movies this week -- none of which I can recall right now -- a bit of basketball, and an episode of Survivor and one of The Voice. It probably is more time I've spent with my television screen since the last Olympics.

The dog has run away a couple of times. He has spring fever, baby. Last night it took a village -- four members of our family plus a couple of neighbours -- to track him down. My rugby-playing son got one of his runs in, circling the blocks to the house where he heard the lady calling, "Puppy...puppy...get off the ice." He was found standing in the middle of her inground pool, on an icefloe, and then he escaped again and was captured by a friend. (Thanks, Leah!)

I've had a couple of days with morning sickness this week -- no, not that kind -- which I think was my strong constitution fighting off a stomach flu (either that or it was the olives that may not have been properly sealed), but because the week started off with my new novel finally starting to sing, and kids who were happily engaged, and work that could be done before kids woke up or while they made supper, I didn't really care. It felt like such a good week.

Today, I really had to finish the article on time management so I barked a little at people who invaded my space to chat, but I got it done. And then I looked at that frightening HST remittance form and did a small project that got postponed. I remembered about maintaining my Twitter account.

But I'm barefoot on the porch. (Again, not that kind of morning sickness) I'm planning burgers on the barbecue for supper. I'm loving the lengthening days. And keeping the puppy on a leash even while my spring dreams soar.

(Oh, and it was 25 years ago tomorrow that I started dating my husband -- although he says he started dating me on March 26. But then, I was an early bloomer.)