I’m ready to start my Spring Cleaning. I’d rather do all my heavy cleaning and organizing now while the weather is still bad. That will free me up for sunny spring walks with my dogs in April (in between our rain showers) and lolling with a book on a sunny patch of carpet instead of washing windows and working hard on the house a few weeks from today.
QUICK THINGS TO DO TODAY:
- Pay bills, rent or mortgage. Try to put something into your savings account if you can.
- Look over your list of upcoming birthdays this month. Write cards tonight and mail them in the morning for anybody with a birthday this week. For further-out birthdays, order flowers, and prepare to send gifts if you’re planning to.
- Do you need to make any doctor, dentist, vet, haircut or salon appointments for yourself or family members for this month?
- Is it time to lube and oil your car or take it in for other maintenance tasks?
- Are you attending any plays, musicals, concerts or symphonies this spring? Buy tickets now if you haven’t yet.
- Taking your kids somewhere for Spring Break? If so, do you have your travel planned, tickets purchased, arrangements made? If not, how are you going to entertain your kids for that week? Time to make some plans!
- Take some time to look over your budget for the next month. Need to budget for any birthday parties, spring teas, baby showers, or St. Patrick’s Day festivities? Don’t just do your financial budget (which is very important too) but make your time budget. Do you have time for gardening, homemaking, work, projects – but also time for family, friends, pets, and very importantly, yourself?
TODAY’S PROJECT: Beds
My first Spring Cleaning project involves the beds in my house. I’m going to strip all the sheets and comforters to launder. I’ll even take off the dust ruffles and mattress pads to launder, too. Then I will move the beds, vacuuming under them, vacuuming the mattresses, and flipping the mattresses.
I store some off-season dishes under my bed, so those will have to be moved, inspected for damage, and replaced when I’m done. I’ll try to get rid of anything else under the bed that doesn’t belong there – my flashlight does, but a laptop case shouldn’t have wandered under there, nor should a few magazines.
Tonight my household members will go to sleep on freshly cleaned beds with nothing scary lurking under them!
While you work on your bedding, decide if your mattresses need to be replaced, bed skirts, comforters, sheets, pillows, or other bedding textiles. If your sheets are ripped, stained, frayed or pilled, consider adjusting your budget to allow for a relatively inexpensive purchase of new items for your bed.
Living a lovely life means not wasting money on frivolous elegant luxury linens, but also not sleeping on stained or torn, limp sheets. You’ll sleep better at night on clean, crisp, soft sheets and on mattresses that are not old and creaky.
