Another Spring Cleaning

 

Almost Spring and predictably my thoughts turn to Spring cleaning, organizing, and de-accessioning. Back in the fall I took many books to the library book sale but I still have two large bookshelves to go through. 

                                                     My workroom is my focus at the moment. It's become the repository for all kinds of detritus--like all the gift bags, and ribbons of the ages--really nice ribbons, some of which have gone through various seasonal cycles already. And the Amazon gift bags--of which there are an embarrassing many--good sturdy bags that ought to be useful for something other than gifts. I have a BIG bag of them and am going to see if our local thrift store could use them.   

On to the bookshelves. Now that I'm no longer teaching, I'm sending many books on writing to the library. And putting years of class handouts into the recycling bin. I had what I believe were some excellent lessons (and they are still on my computer,) but as I tossed them into our paper recycling bag, I felt a bit like Prospero, destroying his books of magic.

But, I've got to say, it felt good. That part of my life is done, and I have the freedom to piddle about with watercolors or read or sit outside in the sun and watch the wind stirring the daffodils.

                         

                                                                                    

                                                                                     

Ins and Outs

I've been trying to set myself a daily task of cleaning/reorganizing--something I I can do in the morning and then feel free to paint or read after lunch. Josie's stuff has been dealt with, as have the many food containers that used to leap off the shelf whenever I reached for one. My closet is tidier. As are the two shelves in the kitchen where I keep herbs and spices, etc.

Alas, no sooner were those first kitchen tasks done than I realized the kitchen cabinet doors were in sore need of cleaning--a revelation made all the clearer by the slant of morning sun that showed up the dust and grease and drips and drops of the past many months (years?)

So, yesterday morning I set in with sponge and degreaser. As I worked, it became obvious that, though the doors were cleaner, they still look pretty bad--hazy and dinged here and there.

John had a look and said it would take a bit of sanding and varnish which he would do in the next few days.  Great! And while he was in there, I prevailed upon him to lift down the long board that hangs above the cabinets. It's just that, a long board with a print of a Japanese scroll glued to it, the whole varnished over. It used to hang in our kitchen in Florida--so it's had close to fifty years to age into the nasty mess it had become.

But it cleaned up fairly well and, once the area where it hangs has been painted, back it goes.

And on I moved to the Blue Willow plates hanging above the window. Greasy and grimy no more, they'll go back in place after some painting has happened. They were a gift from my late friend Vicky and they had belonged to her grandmother...

As I was polishing the white china knobs on the cabinet doorsI remembered seeing those clickbait "articles" about what's in and what's out in decorating. White china knobs were out. Farmhouse decor in general was out--like those Blue Willow plates . . ,

What if you live in a farmhouse? Oh, well. On to degreasing my collection of Crabtree and Evelyn mugs . . . Pretty sure they're out too.

 

Josie as Cinderella

Oh, hi. I am having a cup of tea before I get started on my project. I am going to make a Big Mess.

I am taking everything off my shelves and putting it all over The Room. The books and plushies go on my bed and I am putting other things all around. Meema is watching quietly instead of fussing, for once.

So much stuff! But I got it done and said Look Meema, my shelves are bare! and she said, Good, I will give you an old towel to wipe the shelves with and then I will help you put everything back very neatly.  So that's what we did.

Then I wiped the window sills and the wood stove and everything. I told Meema I was like Cinderella, doing All the Work!

But that wasn't all. I went out on the little deck and wiped things there too. Cinderella has to work hard.

This towel is getting dirty.

But I keep wiping.

I even wipe the plant. (Meema says it is a juniper.) When there is nothing left to wipe, I see that there are some dead leaves in the corner by the wall and I pick up handfuls and drop them off the deck. It is a lot of fun making leaf showers. Now I am like Elsa in Frozen except instead of leaves, she did ice and snow.

I wonder who I will be tomorrow?

 

I Can See (a Bit More) Clearly Now

The willow is clothed in pale green 

And it's looking like spring,

So, of course, I'm washing windows.

In this case (the kitchen,) washing windows involves moving stuff, washing it before putting it back, and cleaning up all the crud that had accumulated under the table. 

 

The kitchen windows are the age of the house--forty-six years old--and I can't do anything about the fogging between the panes. But at least they and the knick-knacks thereon are clean now.

The dining room windows are a bit newer and clean up nicely, though in order to avoid having to drag a ladder t the deck below, I have to perform some weird contortions to get the both sides. But it's done, just in time for the rainy days ahead. 

Now maybe I can play with my watercolors.

 

And the Spring Cleaning Begins . . .

Even though there's still snow in the shady places, it's feeling like Spring and that urge to clean has come upon me. I know, I should fight that urge, but we'll be having house guests next week and the fact is it needs doing -- out of the way places are teeming  with cobwebs, dog hair, cat hair, and dust, plus the bodies of many, many defunct ladybugs -- are everywhere.

I devoted yesterday to the bedroom -- which tends to get short shrift when we clean and vacuum the other parts of the house -- off went all the bed clothes for a wash, out went the pillows, the quilt, the light blanket, and the duvet to air in the sun. 

John obliged by turning the mattress and I moved on to the most challenging part of the operation -- putting the clean duvet cover -- about twenty pounds of flannel -- back on the duvet.

Over the years I've found a way that works for me -- lay the duvet on the bed, turn the cover inside out, put a hand in to one of the top corners then grab the corresponding duvet corner and attempt to slip the cover on. Repeat with other top corner and, unless you panic and think you've got it all wrong (as I sometimes do,) the cover will slide over the duvet most satisfactorily. 

Then, of course, you're supposed to pick it all up and give it a shake to distribute the duvet within the cover but it would take a taller and stronger person than I to do it with my duvet combo ( did I mention the cover weighs forty pounds? At least. Plus, by this point, there's usually a cat or two sitting on the nice clean cover and it would be unkind to disturb them.)

But, looking for a video to describe my method, I found this --

the California Roll method HERE. It looks much easier -- probably any of you with duvets and covers already know about it. 

Take Everything Out of the Closet,They Said

This time of year I usually try to sift through my closet and retire things I haven't worn in years. But I know that in the past I just scratched the surface. So, taking my cue from de-clutter experts, I began hauling EVERTHING out of my closet.

I confess that halfway through I was feeling whelmed -- not overwhelmed but teetering on the brink.  The bed was piled high with a strange miscellany of stuff and I'd already forgotten what was on the bottom layer. So I decided to deal with just one side of the closet at a time.

After vacuuming the empty space (and annoying many spiders,) the next step was supposed to be holding each item in my hand and asking myself if it sparked joy. And tossing it if it didn't.

Ummm . . . not working for me. Those bleach -spattered stretch pants don't inspire much of anything except embarrassment but they are useful for housecleaning. And so it went, with many of the garments being saved for utility, not joy. 

An old jewelry box took a good hour of my time -- what does one do with sorority and fraternity pins? And monogrammed things? Some very odd odds and ends from my family and from John's -- I may talk about them another day. 

There were some, but not many, clothes to get rid of. But there were other things that evidently I'd shoved in because I didn't know where else to put them -- a elderly set of sheets, a heavy old denim bedspread, and an inordinate number of freebie type carry-alls.

It took pretty much all day but I've reminded myself of various garments I'd forgotten about and it's all in some sort of order.

And, aside from a industrial size garbage bag of trash, I have a nice little collection of things to go to My Sister's Attic, a local thrift store that benefits battered women, or the annual Madison Has Heart flea market that provides assistance with heating costs to needy local families.

Now that sparks joy!

Apparently I Save Everything

The bookshelves in the loft have been too long overlooked and had acquired the sort of dust layer usually seen in attics in horror movies. Continuing my on-going project of getting realistic about why I am keeping books I've forgotten I even had, I've spent several days cleaning and sorting books. 

About eight boxes went to the library on Saturday for a future book sale and at least eight more have been loaded up to be taken off today.  There are also elderly (falling apart) paperbacks to go into paper recycling and elderly and long outdated text books to go to the dump, alas.

There are so many memories on those shelves. Here, in no particular order, are a few:

A song book from my summer Spanish class in 1959 -- a special six week course at Universidad Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores in Monterrey, Mexico. I still remember the words to the songs and Las Clases de Cha Cha Cha was a favorite, along with Besame Mucho and Caminante.

My Old Kentucky Home: A Handbook for Southerners contained a grocery list in my grandmother's handwriting -- and a nasty memory: it was a fervent defense of segregation.

Europa Touring(1969) was the guide to our great motorcycle adventure and contained a packing list and a diagram of how everything (tent, clothes, cooking stuff, etc.) would fit into our duffel bag.

'57 /'58-- my ninth grade Latin textbook. I went on in high school to take four years of Latin along with three of Spanish -- anything to avoid physics and chemistry and higher math. Arma virumque cano, you all.

 In one book I found two recipes from a Mrs. Williams (not a clue who she was) with a sweet note at the bottom saying she hoped dear little Vicki was learning to drink from a cup. (I did.)

And in a folder full of pictures and pages torn from magazines (the low tech Pinterest of the time) along with much that reminds me how our tastes and interests change over time, I found a picture that was possibly the inspiration for our little Japanese style house that John built on a lake in Florida sometime in the Sixties. 

I still like the look of it.

It's emotional whiplash, darting from one phase of my life to another. Part of the reason this job is taking so long.