"Someday I'll Do Spring Cleaning"
Part One: Purging the Obvious
I’ve never been much of a spring cleaner; instead, I avoid housekeeping tasks as much as I can. I’ve hated cleaning since I was a kid, because my sister and I did all of it, plus the dishes and laundry for our family of four, starting around age ten. I can still hear my dad saying, “The key to a clean floor is a well-swept floor.” He said I swept like an old lady, whatever that means. I can’t stand the smell of Pine-Sol to this day, and it gives me an immediate stomachache. I’ll never forget when I got the pay increase after earning my second master’s degree, and could finally afford to pay someone to clean my house. What an upgrade!
Now that I’ve got more time on my hands in retirement, and I’ve been living in this house for almost 17 years, there seem to be a lot of longer-term spring cleaning activities that need doing, so here we go. Before we can begin to clean, we need to clear the old junk and clutter out of the way first. In the name of getting things done sooner than “someday,” we’re going to start simple, with a very low bar, clear parameters, and only five categories. Feel free to pick one, more if you’re feeling inspired to build on that momentum.
What is EXPIRED?
Food/Pantry: Check the dates on all of your spices, baking stuff, whatever gets shoved into the corners. My mom once found a jar of jam, unopened, in the back of a cabinet, that was 10 years past its expiration date. A very stubborn friend of mine insisted on eating it, over the course of the next year or two, sending me a photo each time of his toast slathered in raspberry jam that was brown instead of red. He said it tasted “fine,” and he never got sick, so in a way, I guess he was right? (Hi, Moose! 😁)
If you haven’t checked dates (or back corners) in your fridge and freezer, do this first. It’s one thing I’m pretty good at doing weekly. Please clap.
Yes, it’s OLD, and has moved many times, but it’s just the container.
Medicines/Supplements: This is embarrassing, but I let these stack up starting from when I moved into this house. They went from an unused shelf in a medicine cabinet, to a small box in a closet, to a doubled paper grocery bag in the garage. By the time I retired, it was full, and I needed both arms to carry it. I wish I could tell you what motivated me to FINALLY drive to the one drugstore in the area that recycled medicines. I guess I ran out of reasons to say “someday,” or at least got sick of hearing it from myself. It only took about 22 minutes to get there, then almost as long to feed all of the bottles, one by one, into the large metal mailbox-like contraption that was located next to the pharmacy. As luck would have it, there was a long line of customers waiting as I was making my deposits, each bottle clanging its way down the tube to land at the bottom of the box, the handle squeaking each time in between. It seemed to take forever, and I was sweating the whole time. It felt sketchy to be handling this amount of drugs, but clearly, I was no criminal, because here I was legally disposing of them. Sketchy people don’t have leftover Xanax and Ambien. Just sayin’.
Paper: I got rid of so many magazines that if you stacked them up, they’d be almost as tall as I am. They were mostly a collection of old Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers, but there were a few Backpacker, Sea Kayaking, and assorted travel magazines. In 2020, I subscribed to the print edition of The New Yorker, so I also had a year’s worth of those. They were all recycled eventually, but I did flip through a lot of the writing ones first and tear some things out. I do have an issue, pun intended! As for documents, I found a free local shredding event last fall, got everything together, and was so excited when the day came to dump off years of paperwork. But nature did not cooperate, and since the volunteers were collecting boxes in an open parking lot, a thunderstorm with lightning canceled the event. There’s another one on the calendar for October, but I may try to find something sooner. That box is haunting me from a closet until it’s gone, I swear.
Holiday Decorations: If you still have Christmas decorations up, STOP READING AND TAKE THEM DOWN NOW! Yes, I’m considering them expired at this point. If you are normal and they’re all neatly packed away, make a note to see what you can downsize next year, if that’s something you want to do. In my opinion, everyone could do with fewer decorations. Less is more. I can’t stand an overcrowded, mismatched display, but maybe that’s just me. ***The exception to this is snowman decorations, which may remain out until it stops snowing, or May 1st, whichever comes first. I have completely made this rule up, so take it or leave it.
Paint (is this just me?): When I moved into this house, the previous owners left behind all of the paint they’d ever bought in a corner of the basement. I’ve done some painting since then and added a few cans to the pile, but other than that, I’ve managed to ignore this particular mess for almost 17 years. After a while, things just blend into the background, you know? I did a Google search a few times over the years on how to recycle paint, but it always involved mixing it with kitty litter and seemed complicated. But now I have a Substack about not putting things off, so I had to figure this out. It was pretty easy thanks to a new program that’s offered in only 13 states. Here’s a link to see if you’re lucky enough to use this option. On Monday, I called two stores near me, one of which said they’d accept more than the usual 5 gallons, so I dropped off 17 cans of paint in two trips. What a relief!
What’s ONE thing you can get out of your house today or tomorrow? Can you get THREE things done in the next week or so? Tell me in the comments what things you’ve been meaning to get rid of, but especially tell me when you’ve crossed one off your list! Let’s motivate and celebrate each other! Someday is today!
There’s plenty more to do, and plenty more spring to do it in, so I’ll be back with Spring Cleaning: Part Two soon.
Happy Spring Cleaning!
More to come on this topic…
I LOVE this, Lisa! And you lit a fire under my butt to deal with the gezillions of paint cans in our house, from our years here (16) AND the former owners!!! Thankfully, Maine participates in the program you linked to! Also, I have to admit, if it was not for Passover every year, which encourages/urges/directs me to do a major cleaning sweep all through the house, I probably would NEVER do spring cleaning either. Oh, but it does feel sooooo godd once we are done. Exhausting, but good!
I love a good purge. Just went through shelves of Pyrex cookware, some have never been used, some have, but not since I moved into this apartment 18 years ago. What's the likelihood I'm going to start making pies out of the blue. There isn't any one...give away pile. This is why I love the Buy Nothing Groups on Facebook. One persons clutter is another's treasure.