No. 32: The "Spring Clean Special" Part One | The Set Up

Grab some gloves, friends-we're about to dig.

---

I’ve shared many times before that I have always had a natural bend toward loving all things home. I watched Martha Stewart and Ina Garten and aspired to be just like them at a super young age. I’d read my mom’s Veranda magazines and try to make my room feel like the “oasis” they were trying to convince every adult their space should be. Sure, Bath & Body Works cucumber melon candles and fake daises with gluey faux-water might not have been what they had in mind, but what can I say? I was learning.

The other thing I have a natural bend toward, unfortunately, is clutter. I’m the worst kind of contradiction, though, because I can’t stand clutter and always want things to look neat and tidy without proper systems to do just that. I keep things most people would have no problem throwing away— fabric samples, magazine tear sheets, vitamins I stopped taking months ago, kids’ clothes we’ll likely never use again—and then wonder why we have SO. MUCH. STUFF. This means most of the time, I find myself putting things we don’t need where they don’t actually go to avoid the seemingly overwhelming task of actually de-cluttering.

This is one of my worst traits.
I’m owning it.
I’m my own worst enemy and if my organization loving husband could change one thing about me this very second, this flaw would be tippity top of the list.

I find that Spring Cleaning is less about the mopping and the scrubbing and the dusting of it all and more about the decluttering. We accumulate so much excess in the winter months. The busy chaos of the Holidays followed by the natural hibernation due to colder weather means we’ve all just been squirrels stockpiling and burrowing for months on end-or maybe it’s just me? I can confidently say that it’s not a lack of cleanliness I’m faced with come mid-March every year, it’s the feeling that our stuff is caving in on me.