The Ritual of Spring Cleaning

Any cleaning that happens during a certain three months could be considered spring cleaning, but we have given such a simple term a much grander meaning. Springtime is when we go through the items in the closets and spend hours cleaning parts of the house we often don't even remember exist. It hits us like an instinctual compulsion, and the more we get done the more rejuvenated we feel.

Spring cleaning gives us an opportunity to get our blood pumping again as we breathe in the air from our opened windows. It is truly rejuvenating to feel that breeze and hear the birds as we're on our hands and knees cleaning the baseboard. Spring cleaning is a spiritual ceremony of lightening ourselves and freeing us from the clutter that builds when we sit still for too long.

Yet even with all the benefits the idea of beginning our spring clean can be quite daunting. Here are a few things to consider:

• Make a list of all things you would like to replace, fix or give to charity, and prepare a budget if necessary.
• Take one room at a time: It does not matter how many rooms you have in your house, you cannot do your house in a single day even if you have only two rooms.
• Open the doors and let the fresh air in: open all the doors, let the fresh air in, start some music and start working in the room.
• Start cleaning from the top. Chandeliers and ceiling fans are hardest to clean so tackle them first.
• Wash the draperies after you have cleaned the room. If you have Venetian blinds, clean those with a wet cloth after you have dusted the room and vacuumed the carpet.
• Sort the useful and useless: In each room, sort the items you wish to keep and get rid of everything you don’t want. Open all the drawers and cupboards, and take out everything that you have not used recently and you are not likely to use, and store it separately for a garage sale or charity.
• Collect all the papers that you have in each room and organize them in two groups/piles. One pile you wish to keep and the other you want to throw away.
• When in doubt, throw it out.
• Recycle it permanently: If you are a firm believer in keeping things for use “just in case” you’ll collect many items that you’ll never need.
• Try to make spring-cleaning fun. If you can involve your family members, it will be just like the outing you are planning during the summer. Well, maybe not, but you can try!

All this work is definitely deserving of some sort of reward. For some of us, just the new openness and feeling of lightness our space provides is a great enough reward. The rest of us want a little something more. It can be good to redecorate a room or two. This allows us to maximize the positive changes we are making to our living environment.