Winter is over.  The time for sitting and contemplating (brooding?) has passed.

It’s Spring.  Bringing with it (slightly) elevated temperatures and little bits of green poking through the ground and the sound of birds singing and SPRING BREAK.

That’s right, my kids are home from school for two weeks, and it just took me ten minutes to convince my 5-year-old to leave the room so I could type those three sentences.

That’s okay.  We’re ready for action around here.  We’re ready to tackle our spring cleaning and head outside to the park and then build up a fire at night to toast ourselves because in spite of what our winter-shocked brains tell us, 45 degrees is really not that warm.

We’re ready to do our story-telling on the fly.  To reminisce about the good old days as we clean out the library and maybe finally say good–bye to the tattered old copy of Hippos Go Berserk (or maybe not).  To walk through the woods and invent fairy stories as we go.  To break in the fire pit and have our first ghost story marathon of the year.

I am ready.  I am ready to strap my shoes on and clear the cobwebs out of my head as well as my house.

I’m shooting to keep the posts short during this break, but to write one every day.  I’m keeping my eyes open for the stories we find as we go, and then I’ll pass them on here.  Old photos.  New birds’ nests. Toys stacked up in the Goodwill bags and that dogwood tree making a valiant effort to thrive in a capricious world.

Meet you back here tomorrow.  Let’s see what stories we find before then.

P.S. Need a Spring Break book to read?  I haven’t finished it yet, but the biggest impediment to my getting things done this week is my desire to never put down this one:

     It’s a story about stories!  And it’s really wonderful in an old-fashioned, modern Gothic sort of way.  Want to read it with me?  We can compare notes at the end.  I’m reserving final judgement until I see how the story turns out.