Spring Break

Spring break has sprung!  I just looked and realized I haven't posted in a week, so I figured I'd get you up to date on things.  It's Spring Break and unlike many school districts our district has decided to have two full weeks off.  I love it for several reasons.

Everyone says Christmas break is great.  Bah.  Christmas break is a cruel break.  You spend the first week running around gearing up for Christmas and then spend the next week running around gearing up for New Year's.  If the actual holiday falls early in the week, then you might have three or four days in which to actually rest and recuperate. And, if the weather's bad, you still have to go out, because things need to get done.

But Spring break?  Two weeks with nothing to do.  Nothing to really shop for, and no place that you "have" to go.  The weather's nicer, the days are longer and if you get an occasional bad weather day, you can curl up inside with a good book and a good movie and just enjoy the day.

Since the break started, I've been out geocaching a couple of times, once by myself and once with my good friend Jim.  The latter was more enjoyable because it was with someone else, however I found more caches the first day.  But it's not about the numbers is it?

The front lawn has been mowed and the back lawn will be mowed.  The plan is to do that tomorrow and then work the garden soil and plant many different kinds of sunflowers.  Two years ago, we planted sunflowers and tomatoes.  That didn't work too well.  I've discovered sunflowers need lots of water, but tomatoes need to be stressed.  They need water, but you have to stress them out with long dry periods in order for them to produce good fruit.

The first year, our tomato yield was negligible, while we had glorious sunflowers as evidenced by the photos.  The next year, I figured the seeds that were dropped from the year before would sprout new sunflowers.  They did, but they didn't do very well, because I wasn't watering the area as much.  Great tomatoes that year, but the sunflowers were lucky to get 2 feet high or 2 inches in diameter.  This year, the sunflowers will occupy one area and the tomatoes another area.  Hopefully I'll get good yields from both.  

Taxes need to be done this week.  Then next week, I'll be taking a nice road trip up to the bay area to visit with my daughter and celebrate her birthday.  We're planning on going to San Francisco on her actual birthday and being tourists.  I'm looking forward to it since I haven't been to San Francisco in 25 years.  

Yes, there are things to do, but there's no deadline on them as long as they get done by the end of the break.  It's a much more relaxed kind of deadline.  This is the kind of break I like.