Making up the bed has always been the first thing I do in the morning. "There, that's done," and I can proceed on to laundry, bird feeders, dog cookies, refilling cat food bowls. a handful of pellets for the goldfish, picking mint and brewing tea, coffee, Internet news, and breakfast, more or less in that order.
One day a week I generally change the sheets and on that day, if the weather cooperates, I air the pillows, something I remember my grandmother doing. They smell of sunshine when I lie down that night.
Now The Wartime Housewife suggests that it might be a good idea to air the bed every day. Having seen pictures of the various dust mite and other microscopic critters that can lurk in bedding, I'm thinking, why not? I remember traveling in Europe and seeing duvets hanging out windows in the mornings.
So I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime and leaving the bed to air. But, silly though it may seem, I still go make it back up in the afternoon. Of course, one could be like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who, I've read, insisted on having fresh sheets twice a day -- after a night's sleep and after her afternoon nap.
A new day dawned and at last it was time to finish the job I began I-don't-know-how-many months ago. I painted one cupboard interior back then but there were two left undone.
Really, the paint is redder than these pictures show. Really.
Outdoors is all new and fresh looking and, inside, it's time to put away the blues and yellows that followed Christmas....
And move into Spring pastels.
Bring out the Easter knick-knacks and change the pillow covers to the green ones...
Toss the blue kitchen rugs in the washer and put down green ones ... All just in time for predicted freezing temperatures on Thursdaynight.
But it felt good to have finished those other cupboards. Who knows, maybe I'll actually get around to painting the bedroom ... I only bought the paint two years ago...
Do you have any long-neglected projects that you're thinking about doing this spring?
October means it's time to put the house into autumn mode -- of course the chimneys need to be cleaned, the screens taken down and the windows washed, the house plants brought back inside after their summer sojourn outside -- but in order to get myself psyched up for these chores, first I put away the summer blue and white and bring out the autumn colors.
I enjoy marking the change of seasons this way -- and I like putting some things away and bringing others out. I'll pack away most of the blue and white china in the corner cupboard and take down the paintings of lilies ...
Away with the kitchen's blue and white throw pillows and the curtain over the pantry door . . .
The corner cupboard fills up with odds and ends that have been packed away since last December -- painted gourds, two skulls (cat and raccoon ), and other objects that somehow seem autumnal to me.
Different paintings in the living room and the ostrich, emu, and rhea eggs that were in the cupboard look somehow different in their new perch on the mantel.
l
f
