When I was younger I remember my Mother would go through her big Spring cleaning stage.  We cleaned each room from top to bottom, inside and out.  We wiped the walls, baseboards, floors, windows, cleaned curtains, linens, emptied closets, and believe it or not, we aired the furniture outside and polished and cleaned it before we brought it back in!  I remember how the room felt when it was completely empty and then that fresh and clean feeling afterwards.  The exciting part was putting things back.  That’s because we never seemed to put things back in the same place. That was where the fun came in, re-arranging.  Starting fresh, springing forward, and starting over.

As I got older, I don’t remember Spring cleaning being such a big production.  Mom scaled it back.  We still did a lot of main cleaning, you know, like windows, curtains; a wipe down of the molding and baseboards, but the furniture didn’t make it outside for its sunbathing time.  The furniture always seemed to have a re-arrangement time, at least once or twice a year, and that stuck with me.  When I thought about my own Spring cleaning, I thought of Mom’s scaled down version.  You know, minus the sun-bathing furniture.

Fast forward during the time in our marriage when Craig would be traveling and he would never quite be sure if I would have re-arranged the furniture during the day when he came home late at night.  I’d get this itch just to shake things up a bit and move things around.  I think I tried as many combinations as possible there for a while.  I think he bumped into a lot of things too.  (Thanks, dear for putting up with all that.)  🙂

I don’t know if the boys caught the Spring clean itch or not, but it was not for lack of trying when they were young.   Both boys completely changed what rooms they called their bedrooms here in this house three times over the years.  We’d do my own mini-version of Mom’s Spring clean on a bedroom.  Well, the furniture never made it outside, but it did get a good cleaning.

Before we landed here, there was this period of time in our marriage that we moved every year, one year we moved more than  once.  The joke was, it must be time for a Spring cleaning, the movers are coming!  We had moving boxes with different mover’s stickers on them.  When we moved here we thought it would be for just a short time also.  That was over 19 years ago.

Somehow life just caught up, and I just didn’t do the whole deep Spring clean thing like I used to.  Sure, there would be cleaning (duh, please), but not the top to bottom, inside and out, that sent a breath of fresh air stirring inside me.  I’d get the occasional rush (gosh, that makes me sound like an addict) from a mini-Spring clean of a junk drawer or a closet re-do, or one room cleaned, but there would always be something else I would have liked to get done.   There is a feeling that is hard to describe that comes over you when you know that your home is clean from top to bottom, all at once.  I understand my Mom’s change in her Spring cleaning now that I’m older.  Her house grew, and the stuff grew.

My personal taste is not easily defined.  In some areas I would like a modern/minimalist area, and in others I like a “make yourself comfortable-mix it up with family heirlooms”.  I guess that is why the expression “eclectic” came up.  It’s for people like me who don’t know what they are, or who start out with just a little bit of stuff and they and their family accumulate more things they like or have been given them and then just add on.  They say you should surround yourself with only things you love.  Well, often those things “don’t match”.  So eclectic it is.

Like I said, I understand my Mother’s change in her Spring cleaning now that I’m older.

I used to sit and think how nice it would be to have every area of the house gone through from top to bottom and in between.

To sort through the accumulation of things that have been put away for the time “when we get to it”, and to actually have decisions made on things to keep, sell, donate or purge.

The task could seem overwhelming at times.  Where to start, when to start, and then sometimes, even why bother starting?

Over the years we had accumulated enough things that I felt our house was bursting at the seams.   I’m not suggesting anything like the TV show hoarders.  I just felt that we were in a serious need of a thorough Spring cleaning.

After sending items for #2 son’s new apartment, two loads to an auction house, multiple trips to donation facilities, giveaways, and some purging, almost every inch of the house has now been gone through from top to bottom inside and out.

While we finalize the last minute details of things that need to be done, I’ve re-arranged what little furniture and things we have left, for old times’ sake.

The furniture will get its’ sunbathing and fresh air time while being loaded on the truck.

Well, it is Spring.

And the movers are coming.  Yes, the movers are coming.