Spring Cleaning - Rid Your Life of Clutter
Enlarge Image Chase away the cobwebs and clear the clutter from your life, it's time for spring-cleaning! Spring is a time for new beginnings, a time to reconnect with friends and family. This is a time when we all come out of hibernation rested and recharged, ready to tackle another year of excitement.
In my mind, a thorough spring-cleaning consists of three steps: 1. cleaning, 2. sorting through clutter, and 3. redecorating. A thorough spring-cleaning can make you feel like a whole new person, ready to take on the new year with a fresh perspective. Skip any of these steps and you won't quite get the full effect.
Some people dread spring-cleaning simply because it involves the first step, cleaning. It can be a lot of work, pulling out windows, shampooing rugs and mopping floors. It feels like a lot to manage in a very short period of time. It can also be stressful. First of all, it's difficult to get motivated. Then, by the time many of us actually feel ready to begin our spring-cleaning it's practically May, and time to make our summer plans.
Spring-cleaning is important though, not only for our homes but for our minds as well. Spring-cleaning gives us an opportunity to rid our lives of the clutter we've gathered throughout the year. It is amazing how much 'stuff' we can accumulate in our homes and in our lives in such a short period of time. Pictures, gifts, books, knickknacks, and my biggest space-hog, paper.
I never gave spring-cleaning a lot of thought when I was younger. Sure, I'd clean windows and mop floors, but I never took the time to sort through the clutter, and I never threw anything away, just in case. Then I had to move. It's funny how you never really know how much you have until you have to pack it all up and move it somewhere.
After I moved I began to sort through everything that I owned. I found things that I hadn't seen in over five years, items I forgot I had, and things that made me question what the heck I was thinking when I bought them. It took me about two months to go through everything. Once I did, once I took over 12 bags of 'garbage' to the dump, I felt an incredible weight lift from my shoulders.
The experience was so freeing that now I make a point to repeat the process every spring. I start slowly, tackling one room at a time. I sort through boxes, drawers, closets, the attic and basement, stirring up good memories and closing the doors of those I would rather leave behind. Though sometimes frustrating and definitely time-consuming, by summer I feel like a new person truly ready to start a new year.
Not only does spring-cleaning force you to sort through the clutter in your home, it is also a great excuse to redecorate. By the time winter has passed I'm tired of reds, greens, deep blues and pictures of snowmen. All I want to do is pack up everything that reminds me of winter and start fresh with new decorations filled with inspiring colors. This is the fun part!
We all have our own way of decorating for a particular season. For some it involves exchanging knickknacks of Santa for knickknacks of rabbits. For others it involves accessorizing. You can change the entire feel of a home simply by changing the color of your curtains, the pattern of your bedspread, and placing fresh tulips in every room. Whatever your style, the options are limitless. Brightening your home to reflect a new season is the final step to spring-cleaning. Even though it may take time and patience to get there, the end result can be very rewarding.
If spring is about new beginnings, then spring-cleaning is an opportunity to begin the new year with a fresh perspective. From cleaning, to ridding our lives of clutter, to redecorating, this three-step process is no small project. It can be frustrating, even time-consuming trying to decide what to save and what to throw away. But in the end it's not about what you leave behind or what you choose to keep, it's what you learn about yourself along the way that makes the difference.
