Spring-cleaning

The sunny days and blooming of flowers here in Texas always remind me of the fresh start of spring, and it always puts me in the mood to purge the old and make more beauty bloom in my home. This year, I decided to start with the worst tasks of all: the refrigerator and the bathroom. I just do a room every few days so I don't become over-exhausted. What a relief to have them finished so the rest of the house will now be a breeze to clean.

Earlier this week, I first tackled deep cleaning both the bathrooms and won that battle alone in less than two hours. The weekly cleaning only takes about 20 minutes, so this seemed like a lot of work. The shower curtains took the longest even with my trusty squirt bottle. Such a sense of accomplishment to have it finished after I put the freshly laundered blue rugs back in place.

Last night I found some free time to clean the dreaded fridge, and I could hardly believe that my two youngest boys were begging to help me do the back and bottom of the fridge, until I realized it mainly meant that they could stay up late. I do a regular cleaning and wiping every two weeks usually, but some spills that go behind and under the shelves are harder to get to, hence the need to take everything out, including the drawers and shelves, just to reach that. To get the drawers out, we had to pull the fridge all the way out, so Dad and the older two boys did that for me.

After getting the shelves out, even when the boys saw the mess of hardened strawberry juice and picante sauce, they were eager to help. So we spelled each other in reaching in and softening the mess with the squirt bottle and then scrubbing. Even found the missing Twix bar unopened that one son was missing since his birthday(threw that out!). Now, it looks so very clean and they were well rewarded by me for their efforts to help old mom reach and scrub. I was more tired from that workout this morning than they!

Next week, it looks like the laundry room and organizing kitchen shelves and pantry will take priority after school and chores. This job of organizing is more fun. I also need to start yard sale boxes at the same time as well as decide on my homeschooling needs for next year because the used book sale is just weeks away here.

Doing the boys room always proves interesting , too, if time permits. Organizing it is worth the challenge though. Since they "faithfully" do their beds and floor and no food is allowed in there, their room is never really dirty, just gets massively cluttered to me. It is always nice to have neater closets and shelves and dressers. Plus,when I do it, they want to try rearranging soon, but I have to think out how it would work best before starting.

Hope all of you are eagerly enjoying the added exercise of making your rooms pretty and neat.

Joyfully,

Melanie