Spring Rituals

 

My friend Nadine suggested this post, saying maybe I could talk about my spring cleaning methods. After picking myself up off the floor and wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes, I realized she was serious. My style of house cleaning is somewhat…ahem…eclectic. As in, I don’t do it unless someone is coming over.

I do have a sort of ritual that I go through to mark the coming of warmer weather. When I was growing up, we would pack up our winter clothes with mothballs to store in the closet in the shop. We would take out the boxes with the summer clothes and hang them all up on the clothesline to get the smell of mothballs out. When the seasons changed, we would reverse this. I don’t do this now. The out of season clothes get shoved to the back of the closet and the pertinent ones brought forward.

I have a tendency to push the season a bit, though. The first HINT of warmth and the flannel sheets are OFF the bed and the linen ones put on. The flannel jammies are buried in the drawer and the summer ones brought to the surface. There is always the cold snap that comes by to surprise, but by golly, I am NOT going to get the flannel stuff out again!! I will freeze first!

The other part of the season change is I go barefoot more. I put away the winter shoes in their little hanging bag on the closet door and get out the sandals. I shove the heavier socks to the back of the drawer and have the lighter ones forward for when I wear tennis shoes. About the last thing I do is put the jeans in a drawer for occasional use and make sure the capris and shorts are handy.

And that is that. Bring on the BBQ, hotdogs and s’mores!