Spring Cleaning (and a touch of vanity)

The windows are all flung wide open today and the curtains are gently billowing in the breeze. Afternoon sunlight dapples the wide pine planks making them glow golden, and the red tile of the kitchen floor is cool and smooth underfoot. There is a cold ham, potato salad and grilled vegetables sitting on the oak counters in pretty dishes ready for dinner and two types of pie for dessert on the windowsill next to wilting daffodils and sprouting alyssium. And the kitchen table is empty save for a glorious cream-coloured lily in full bloom.

Freshly laundered linen is folded on the edge of my bed ready to be put away. Every piece of clothing in the entire house is washed, dried, ironed and hung in closets or placed in drawers. Every surface is dusted and the house smells faintly of lemon. Winter gear is stowed away in labelled totes, and soccer cleats are lined up ready for a new season of use. Birdsong filters through the house, trills and whistles and cheery chirping making every room brighter. A line of pots filled with soil and seeds sits next to a trowel by the back door - the promise of fresh herbs, broccoli and tomato and other summer culinary delights.

With the help of my house elves (see house elf #2 at left), we are ready for spring. We decluttered with a vengeance in bedrooms, laundry room, family room and mudroom. Unused, unwanted, unworn clothing was bagged and sent off to the St Vincent de Paul society; we were ruthless about stuff, filling garbage bags with anything broken or unloved, and finding a place for every single piece of paper in the house - filing cabinet, portfolio, or trash; and we stashed movies and books in the library on shelves, with the caveat that when we ran out of space we had to start weeding out the ones we no longer wanted.

It feels good. To be this organized, this uncluttered. It won't last, I know. But for a moment, allow me to bask in the reward of a hard Friday and Saturday morning's laour.

It was a very productive day and a half, and we finished in time to shower and change into pretty easter dresses for a family dinner.

Yes, even me. Mostly delighted because while decluttering my own rather large, horribly disorganized closet (four bags to give away, two bags of junk), I discovered this hidden away from my pre-mom days. And it still fits. Jubilation.