Now Playing: Annie scurrying around the house.

Spring breaks are wonderful things, even if you don't get to spend them in New Zealand or the Grand Canyon, like some people.

Woke up to the sound of birds outside. I dressed, did my devotions, and went downstairs for breakfast. My mother was sitting at the dining table, reading The Four Loves. We chatted while I ate breakfast. We sat and talked until ten o'clock at least, and then I had to go to The Greenery downtown for a haircut at half ten.

It seems as though nothing changes at The Greenery: the same decor, the same ancient permanent machine in the corner, the same dusty green knick-knacks on the shelves. Mrs. H chattered away happily about Ireland (St. Patrick's day is her favorite holiday) and politics in Stillwater and visiting Tulsa yesterday, wearing a bright green suit to church while she scrubbed and snipped my hair. I basically grinned the whole time.

After she was finished with me, I walked down to the bank, then back to the house. I did my wash, rummaged through my albums for TFYP photos, scanning them into the computer, and so forth. My father came home for lunch, and we all ate together. Laura and Stephen were quite silly. After lunch, my mother, Laura, Stephen, and I went to SLS to volunteer, while my father went to visit his parents. My mother has been working on editing and collating addresses of donors to SLS. She's already logged several hours, and her goal today was to finish with our help. We split into pairs. Stephen and I worked together, giggling irrepressibly at some of the names we found. We finished the work in about an hour.

Then we drove out to Grammy's house. At Grammy's house, Laura and I refilled the bird feeder. We sat inside with Grammy for awhile. She and my mother talked. We went outside after awhile. My mother and I trimmed back the rose bush, which has grown quite large. It's a very thorny variety, with some extremely big thorns. The afternoon was warm and sunny with a slight southeast breeze. Driving back to the house, the countryside was so brown. Incredibly dreary. The blooming pear trees seem out-of-place.

Back at home, I made a toy, a rubberband and string, for Annie and played with her in the back yard. I dragged it through the brittle leaves and grass, and Annie pounced and frolicked along after it. Then I went indoors to finish my wash and to hunt for my mother's needlework, which has gone missing. She had asked me to look through the boxes and drawers in her room. It was a bit surreal to go through the highboy, the chests, the dressers, the boxes, to find bits and pieces of my parents' lives--familiar sweaters, blankets, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, papers, antiques going brown at the edges. Baseballs in my father's dresser; a book of half-sketched watercolors in my mother's drawers.

I helped my mother make curry for tea, and when she had to leave for an SLS board meeting, I kept an eye on things until the vegetables were done cooking. My father, Laura, Stephen, and I ate tea together and watched "The Three Stooges" afterward. Then I practiced my flute for an hour in my room, all Blavet. The sun went down quickly behind the budding trees. Laura has been learning "Dawn" from the new Pride and Prejudice soundtrack, and occasionally fragments of the beautiful running melody floated upstairs.

My father is reading to us now, "The Dancing Men" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. My mother is back and has been eating a belated tea, while Stephen sits and listens, and Laura teases Annie with the rubberband. Annie is absolutely wild. Sandy lies curled at my father's feet. Cool evening air seeps through the open back door.