Spring Cleaning Commenced
AFTER
Here I go being real with you. And I mean really real. Can you get any more vulnerable than showing the world your own mess? Every single person has a mess somewhere. For some it’s their relationships, or it’s their finances, or it’s their work, etc. And for others like me, it’s my physical spaces.
I’m one of those people that takes the feel of my home and internalizes it. I have been going through my house (and farm) with blinders on. I didn’t want to see the mess. I didn’t want to feel on the inside what I was living with on the outside, which was a big dang mess. Even though I thought I had blinders on to keep from feeling the mess inside myself…I still felt it on the inside anyways. I felt disorganized and chaotic. Funny thing is some of my thoughts were that it wasn’t my stuff so it’s not my mess. Boy was I wrong. Even if zero of the stuff was mine….It’s my space, It’s my home, It’s my domain, It’s my responsibility. So it’s mine to manage no matter whose stuff it is. No one was coming to my rescue to voluntarily clean up what is my responsibility. Even if they had come to my rescue I’d want it done my way anyways. I’ll admit that a lot of my resistance was that it’s just more work. I know that if there’s something I don’t want to do, I will do everything else just not to deal with it. But if I did want to do something I’d figure out a way to do it. You know what I mean right? In this case I didn’t want to clean out the mess….But I did it, while still not wanting to.
I believe spring cleaning can be any season. There’s no wrong time of the year for a good purge. Clean outs and clean ups are like a merry go round. There is no “done”. It’s always going to be a loop of cleaning out and up our space, room, closet, files, bodies, emails, minds, etc. The sooner we can acknowledge that there’s no “once and done” the sooner we take the pressure off and it miraculously will happen sooner.
Let me tell you why I chose to pick the dining room to tackle first and also why pre spring is the best time to do it.
The Dining Room is the easiest to maintain order. It’s a room that gets used then put back together with minimal effort.
The Dining Room being cleaned out is an invitation for family meals. It’s a place for family time and connection during a universal event(eating). No more eating in the living room or at the kitchen counter or heading to the nearest restaurant. Told you I was being real.
The Dining Room being cleaned out during pre spring is the perfect time for me because the wood floors are still contracted from the cold winter temps. That means I can get in the grooves and get out the dirt that otherwise would stay stuck during the warmer months when the wood would be expanded and leave less of a gap between the boards.
Spring and Summer are just too busy on the farm and in the garden to think about “starting” a spring clean. It’s the getting started that’s the hardest. Keeping up the momentum takes less energy once the work has begun.
The Dining Room creates a great opportunity to entertain. When you invite others over by hosting a dinner or meal, you are going get to work making sure the rest of your home is in order before your guests arrive. Sneaky little way to keep up the good work:)
I could have picked another room to start my purging for the year but the dining room for me was the perfect beginning. The cleaning up and out will never be done but at least it’s begun.
I’m taking back the reins of managing my homestead and estate. Just announcing it brings a feeling of control and order. Now that the momentum is started I’m on to tackle my next project.
Where do you start your spring cleaning and why?
