Spring Forward

Our topic for this week is “What do you do to welcome/get ready for spring?”

Normally, spring is full of activities for me and the people in my life. My calendar is usually filled with two or three events each day, and I often have to run from one place to another. In between the running, I have midterms and other paperwork for school, and plans are made for family gatherings for Easter and a handful of family birthdays. In my musical life, spring means concerts. All three of my performing groups usually have performances in March, so the arrival of spring signals a flurry of musical activity. And as soon as one concert is done, rehearsals begin for the next one, so that energy continues.

On the home front, closets need to changed out – most of the winter stuff goes to the basement, and the spring/summer stuff comes out. Since we get the occasional snowfall in April, I can’t put it ALL away, but it’s nice to trade heavy sweatshirts for lighter knits. Sometimes in March, we begin to experience a phenomenon known as sunlight, which tends to illuminate areas in the house that have escaped my haphazard method of housekeeping. When this happens, I will actually set aside some other tasks in order to make a specific area of our house not look like a science experiment gone bad.

Once the temps start climbing above 40 or so, I’ll walk more regularly. I like to do a circular route around our neighborhood. As I mentioned before, we’re getting sunshine every now and then, and going outside for an hour or so energizes me, so I can get more stuff done. I’m not an outdoors person, so an hour is about all I can handle unless I’m watching a grandchild playing soccer or baseball.

Of course, this spring has been anything but normal. Only one of the spring performances took place, as it was scheduled for the first weekend in March. Work for my classes became more intense, as I had to learn new ways of presenting my material. Since our oldest son and all three grandsons were born in either March or April, birthday celebrations have been observed – or will be done – remotely. And since I’m in my house a lot more than usual, I’m noticing those dusty bunnies and actually dealing with them. There’s still a lot of clutter, since I’m frantically sewing every day to keep up with requests for face masks and hospital gowns. My granddaughter works in the ICU at one of the local hospitals and she assured me that their supplies are so low that the bright colors I have in my stash will work just fine, so I’m going to keep going until I run out of materials.

How are you welcoming this most unusual spring?