Good Housekeeping

It's spring; time to sort out the clutter, and do some serious cleaning. And since I don't have a housekeeper nor a 1950s housewife, I have to do everything myself.

I'm a pack rat by nature. I don't like to throw things out because I don't like to be wasteful, and I'm afraid of getting rid of something, only to need it later on. Of course, this means I tend to accumulate a lot of junk. So every few months, I have to go through all my stuff and do some serious purging to clear out the mess and keep things organized. I don't want to end up like those people trapped in their homes with serious hoarding issues.

I don't mind cleaning out the bedrooms and reorganizing the closets. It took me a day to get everything in place, toss out the old stuff for donations or re-purpose them as cleaning rags. The winter clothes are packed away. I threw out those old magazines piling by the bedside and sorted the books on the new shelves I bought on sale a while back.

It took me half a day to go through the kitchen and rearrange the cabinets and appliances. I have a collection of mismatched plates and cups given to me by people who thought I could use them. And even after I bought proper matching dishes, I still kept the old plates, because they still look nice and work well. I threw out those broken items and lids that belonged to broken pots and pans that I got rid off ages ago. I cleaned out the stove and the fridge (after letting it defrost the night before). The linoleum floor smelled good after a thorough mopping with Pine-Sol. Who doesn't love the clean smell of pine?

It took me two hours to scrub down the bathroom and hang up the new shower curtain and mop the floor; less than an hour to vacuum the carpets. And I quite enjoyed doing the laundry. It's my favorite task to do. I like the smell of clean clothes and linen as I fold or iron them and put them away where they belong.

There's nothing like a good house cleaning to free up some space and leave one feeling good and accomplished. It's a very freeing feeling once it's all said and done. However, there is one task that I always find tedious, even with good music playing in the background to motivate me to work. And that burdensome task is sorting out paperwork.

It took me two days to go through all the paperwork that I accumulated over the past few months--receipts, letters, documents, etc. It's a struggle trying to figure out what to keep and what to toss away. At work, it's easy for me to figure out what's important and what goes in the trash. But at home, I find it's a little bit harder sorting the important files from the junk. For sure, all personal correspondences get saved and stored away. It's all the other stuff that takes me a while to figure out what to keep and what to toss away. Do I really need to keep grocery receipts from last year? What about bills I all ready paid on line? Truth be told, I'd rather scrub the toilet than sort out receipts and documents.

But it's finally all done and I can kick back and relax and enjoy the clean, organized, comfortable space. Now if I can only remember not to collect so much crap in the future...