Cocoons and Wings

We are now securely in the spring season and with warmer weather the thoughts of many turn to shedding the old and making way for the new. Spring cleaning has paved the way for an abundance of garage sales throughout the city and many a yard clearing company has made their rounds, reengaging old customers and finding new ones.

Spring cleaning, that perennial topic, and the subject of many a magazine article and blog, sharing the best way to sterilize a sink, clean out an oven or showcase the most up to date storage solutions.

Recently I had occasion to read a new solution to spring cleaning: never let it get messy in the first place.

Marie Kondo has written a rather fascinating little book called The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up : the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing that takes tidying up and organizing to a whole new level.  The bottom line that I took from this book is that it is important to only keep what you will love and cherish. That means, collecting all your belongings and getting rid of all those items that do not bring you joy any longer.

This should be done in a certain order, according to Ms. Kondo, by category rather than by room.  Collecting all the clothes and sorting through them first.  Then move to the other items in the home.

I think the idea of keeping only what you still enjoy has merit.  Now all one needs is the time to review and look at the belongings collected over months and years.

What is the saying?  We all have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyonce?

Here is to spring cleaning and hoping that it is done before summer arrives….

Winter clothing, extra weight, the cobwebs that have been collecting on the ceiling at the top of the stairs.

It is that time known as spring cleaning.  Taking all that stuff and getting rid of it.

Unfortunately some of the stuff is not our own stuff.  You can really only get rid of your own stuff unless you want an ongoing dialogue (battle) with the owner of said other stuff.