All Spring Break in a Day (version 2.0)

We may not be dealing with anything as epic as the single hour of sunlight in seven years that Ray Bradbury’s characters had to work with in his All Summer in a Day, but, we are, nonetheless, working on a compressed time schedule.

See, Spring Break in my home has traditionally been a full week of projects and local tourism: a little bit of spring cleaning, a bit of extreme makeover, and a dash of stay-cation. My kids and I typically stock up on audio books and foray into all kinds of literary adventures while completing a thorough scrubbing of the kitchen floor and repainting of a bedroom or bathroom or the sewing of curtains. Despite the full roster of projects, there's always plenty of time for park treks and museum explorations.In short, the typical blueprint for Spring Break is a full ten days of relaxed productivity and meandering fun.

This year, the kids and I have a single day: today. One Spring Day with no school, no work, no plans other than going wherever the day leads. The compressed format has everything to do with those passports my husband and I secured before I disappeared on the unplanned blogging hiatus that has kept me mum for the better part of three weeks. This coming Sunday after church, we’re off on a different kind of Spring Break that’s slated to take off with an up close and personal viewing of the Space Shuttle launch and head straight to the Bahamas via cruise ship. I’m suitably excited, although the small twinge of guilt I feel for leaving the kids over Spring Break motivated me to get most of my laundry and nearly all of my cleaning out of the way yesterday so that today can exist as a sort of metaphoric tootsie roll: all the goodness of Spring Break rolled up into one single day.

In Other News:

At this writing, I’m planning one decent post before my departure. If you’re still out there, I hope you’ll look for it.

My recent disappearance comes with no concrete excuse, story, or reasonable explanation. It was completely unplanned and surprised even me.

Literature Minute:

If you've never read All Summer in a Day, I recommend taking a fifteen minute Spring Break of your own and doing it now. As thought-provoking old school YA, it's a crash-course introduction to an essential American author.

As another literary notable, don't miss the Hans Christian Andersen gallery on Google's main page today. It may look like a single celebratory image in honor of the fabled author, but, as I inadvertently discovered, the image changes when you click on it. I think there are four to see before google dumps you out onto a Hans Christian Andersen search page.

Disclaimer:

I’m fully aware that, as posts go, this one isn’t winning any awards.  I’ve just been silent for so long I thought it was time to say something.