Spring Cleaning

While I was on vacation around the house last week, I made a big dent in the clutter in my bedroom. The house is getting gradually more organized, bit by bit. Kitchen first since I get annoyed if I can't get at my tools and materials, then the bedroom so I can see visible progress and be encouraged, and so on. I think the key is to set a series of small goals (and also to work on what is behind the accumulation). It sort of doesn't help that I only feel like dealing with the paperwork when it's beautiful and sunny (and I could be, say, doing things in the yard) but the weather is getting nicer. I have been reading the book Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern and it is providing useful tips. I am also at the point (and a more organized friend of mine says it's an important point) where I've realized that I never refer to most of the magazines and papers cluttering the house so they could go OUT, OUT, OUT without lasting harm to my life. The wonderfulness of searching on the web is helpful, as are "Annual Editions" of recipes - a 2' stack of _Cooking Light_ compresses into a 2" volume and is MUCH easier to pull off the shelf and browse through.

I have a collection of favorite spring poetry, but this is one I have printed out and tacked on my bulletin boards right now:

Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!

Come, let us sweep the old streets--like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.

We'll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame--and in its place we'll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing.

Prothalamium
© Aaron Kramer

Now back to cleaning.