A SECOND OPINION: SPRING CLEANING!

Since winter has yet to quite end, and you have to spend time indoors anyway, it seems to be a
good time to take advantage of it and putter around the house

.

by Mary Foran

A project that never seems to end

A project that seems never-ending: bending down to clean the dust off the baseboards, getting that inevitable dirt in the corners and under the furniture that the heavy plastic vacuum cleaners never seem to quite reach, getting the dust off each slat in the beautiful wooden blinds that you lovingly bought, getting those pesky cobwebs off the chandeliers and the ceiling corners from those nasty spiders that seem to only come out at night…and the list of chores goes on and on.

However, since winter has yet to quite end, and you have to spend time indoors anyway, it seems to be a good time to take advantage of it and putter around the house.

There is the onerous task of dusting: each and every knickknack must be removed and the furniture polished with the proper oil and/or cleaner, and then each item dusted completely and replaced in the exact same place to avoid confusion. Some rearranging might be appropriate under some circumstances, but it all depends on who you are dusting for: yourself or someone else!

Nasty spider!

Then there is the filing of papers that have piled up that have to be gone through one by one. Some people have their shredding machines going non-stop during this endeavor. The noise is worse than the vacuum cleaner and the paper shreds and accumulated dust still has to be either recycled or dumped in the garbage which has to be taken out and put in containers that have to be taken out to the street at the right time and put in the right place! Oh, the joys of non-apartment living!

Then there’s the attic that we really haven’t tackled at all, cobwebs and boxes of who-knows-what! The basement has to be attended to as well, so much so that it is almost a horror story! Basements tend to be the place where odds and ends are stored, extra food supplies for disasters, tools and other equipment such as a ladder long enough to reach the roof to clean the leaves out of the gutters in the FALL!

Baskets of flowers for the porch

While Spring is just around the corner, and flakes of snow fall in March, the rhythm of the passing traffic can still be heard and seen out the windows, which need attention too! But I can see the buds on the Rhododendrons right out front, and my tire tred in the muddy grass alongside the driveway where I missed backing up the car! OH, THE GARDENING THAT AWAITS!

The house itself needs new siding and a new paint job, hopefully, another color! And the moss on the garage roof needs to be removed AGAIN!

The roses have been cut down so much that I don’t suppose they’ll bloom this year. And I forgot to plant daffodil bulbs once again! But I will get a hanging basket of flowers when the weather permits for the porch. Luckily, a metal roof was put on the old house with a 50-year guarantee!

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Images
Featured Image/The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
Woman holding potted plant/Neringa Sidlauskaite, Unsplash
Nasty spider/Jeroen Bosch, Unsplah
Plants in baskets/KyleNieber,Unsplash