Spring!!

I declare winter offically "OVER", which is a bold and daring move here in southwestern Ontario, where there really is no "spring", just a half-hearted winter for a while, and then summer.
But today, winter truly does seem to have run away, and left us with an entirely new season.
What has made me so heady and audacious?

• The sun is out. And it's warm. In Canada, in the winter, you can easily get blazing sunshine combined with -40°C temperatures. In fact, the colder it is, the more likely it is to be sunny, because it is clear. But today and for the past few days, the sunshine is not simply decorative, it has a purpose and a function and you can actually feel it weighing on your head.
• Toby goes out. For the past few months, Toby has expressed a loud and lengthy desire to go outside about a hundred times a day, but recoiled from actually physically leaving the house when presented with the reality of what was out there. He would perform a truly impressive manoever where his front half was coming back in the door while his back half was still on it's way out, which, at the very least, entertained the person standing in the freezing doorway.
• The kids are on March Break. The girls are off school this week, a week which always marks the beginning of the last leg of the school year for me; only three more months of school left, with there being holidays in April and May, to boot. My children spend March Break 1) on the computer 2) shopping and 3) asleep. Not a bad holiday, in by books.
• I've put the boots away. Always a welcome sign of spring: you can walk out the door in the shoes you are wearing.
• I can run with impunity. I started running again recently, because the sidewalks are clear and I don't have to worry about avoiding ice or puddles, or looking like moron leaping to the side or tiptoeing at the last second.
• I smelled a neighbour's BBQ last night. It is possible to BBQ in the winter, but it's a major pain in the ass, and really, why bother? Crank up the oven and enjoy the stuff you can't make in the summer months. Those first few meals of grilled burgers and BBQ chicken are heavenly, and totally welcome. I think we will BBQ tonight.
• The van is clean. There is no point in cleaning out the van in the winter, it reaches the level of a health hazard early in November and stays there for the duration...nobody wants to be out vacuuming in -16° weather. But when it gets nicer out, I'm all keen to pitch out the trash, exhume the Tim Hortons' cup graveyard in the back, and make it presentable.
• Black is whack. Since I colour hair for a living, and manage to get at least one daub of tint on my person every. single. freaking. day. I tend to wear all black to work. The blobs don't show, and if I get bleach on me, I can dye everything back to black easily. But the first fewe days of spring I hate my black clothes and crave turquoise and cotton candy pink and lavendar. And after I've blobbed some 4.51 and some 6.23 on them, I go back to black clothes again.
• It's way too nice to be sitting inside on the computer. Time to go out and putter in the garden.

Enjoy the season!!