Spring Cleaning Gibberish style

Do you know what actually proves spring is here? It’s not the robins, or the dandelions, or the leaves on the trees. 

It’s all those ambitious people, inside and outside of their homes, up to their elbows in that ritual known as “spring cleaning.”   

Actually to my mind, that’s really a misleading description. It seems to imply that people only scrub out their homesteads four times in an entire year: spring, summer, winter and fall. 

Oh, wait a minute. 

That is how I do it. And I may have inadvertently overlooked winter this year.

However, like everyone else, I do have my cleaning rituals. 

First, I line up all the magazines I have purchased and carefully pull out those cardboard “subscription” inserts either stapled or tucked into them. Then I throw them all out. Task done.

Second, I go through the refrigerator and decide what needs to be cleaned out. I always try to toss those products which have a “best before” date prior to the First Gulf War. I move from those to  containers filled with whatever I was trying to cook last week and also dump those into the garbage. Generally, I can’t identify the remains anyway. Task done.

I do dust. However, I must admit that the messages visitors regularly write on my tables and chairs are usually really amusing, and it seems a shame to use furniture polish to remove them. 

I tried cleaning the oven once. It was not a particularly successful undertaking. I won’t go into a lot of details, but that smell like charred tortoise lingered in the house for days. 

And really, I don’t cook that much anyway. Tasks done.

I painted the spare bedroom one spring in a poorly conceived plan to brighten up the walls. I dropped the gallon of paint, which wouldn’t have been that much of an issue had the can not been open at the time. I also had a little trouble with the ceiling. Seems that paint will splatter if you are using a long handled brush and I soon found myself trying to work through a confetti screen of paint dripping on my face and glasses. Consequently, I may have missed a few spots here and there. But if you put furniture or pictures over them, hardly anyone notices. Task done.

Yes, I think the Canadian ritual of spring cleaning is a wonderful one. 

When I see people scrubbing barbecues and patios, staining decks, beating rugs, painting walls, washing windows,  emptying the garage, weeding and hoeing and planting, I find it truly inspirational.

I go straight to my front porch.  

I find that after two hours in my deck chair, and maybe a drink, that urge to roll up my sleeves and get busy always passes.