Daylight Saving Time is upon us, and we’re (theoretically) headed into spring. Personally, I find it hard to welcome spring when there’s still a half a foot of snow on the ground and we had flurries again this morning, but the calendar says it’s almost spring, so we’ll go with that. With the advent of spring comes the truly obnoxious concept of “spring cleaning.” While I understand that some people really want to do some seasonally-appropriate cleaning up, the whole spring cleaning business has gotten totally out of hand.
Case in point: Martha Stewart’s Spring Cleaning Guide. This handy three-page infographic contains a number of tasks that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia™ thinks are necessary for completing once the snow melts and the sun is shining. “Reseal grout lines.” “Dust refrigerator coils.” “Polish metal door and window hardware.” Are you fucking kidding me?
While I’m sure that there are people out there who bust out the screen-patching kits and hand-buffed floor wax once March is upon us, they don’t live in my world. The rest of us are still muddling through basic household maintenance, and frankly, adding in a bunch of graduate-level housekeeping tasks is enough to throw you right off your game. So, in that spirit, I give you The UfYH Guide to Spring Cleaning for Actual People.
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5 replies on “The UfYH Guide to Spring Cleaning for Actual People”
I started my spring cleaning by donating books to the community book sale. Boyfriend was really proud of me until he saw that I was only giving away one box. In my defense, I worked HARD to collect all the books for those hardcover series. If I’m going to get rid of them, I’m going to give them to a good home that has been fully inspected and vetted, and they’re going as a family. I’m not going to let them be sold piecemeal at some kind of book slaughterhouse! Even if it IS a library fundraiser.
And make the bed.
Bwahahaha, I love you.
I’m just glad it’s not warm enough for my least favorite seasonal chore – going through Lexie’s winter clothes to figure out what’ll be too small to keep for next year, then pulling out her spring/summer clothes to figure out what I was overly optimistic about saving in the fall. Because while clothing shopping for her is fun, it’s expensive! (I have already determined that ALL of her short-sleeved pajamas are 4T, which fit just fine a few months ago but not anymore. Fucking growth spurts!!)
This is much needed in the Juniper household. We’re in the midst of clearing out things and it’s so easy to then overlook the other basics. Will be bookmarking this for sure!
I love this advice! I actually love cleaning, but I still can’t handle the pressure of this Spring Cleaning phenomenon. It is too much! In the past I always did the Spring Clean, but I would also get hyper-anxious about keeping everything perfectly clean. I was not fun to live with in the ensuing weeks.
I’m much happier planning one big job every few months, which gives me all the satisfaction of unfucking part of my habitat, but without the self-induced pressure to maintain a perfectly clean living space. That will never happen, and that’s okay!
So far this year, I have:
January – Cleaned out all the cabinets in our bedroom, living room, and kitchen (our apartment is really small, so this isn’t as big as it sounds)
March – Cleaned our oven and refrigerator
May – I am going to wash all the floors (moving the big furniture, etc) and prepare our balcony for summer parties and bbq’s
It works for me!