Tag: spring cleaning

Get Organized Month

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New Year’s Eve is approaching quickly. The time to set a resolution that I think should be easy to achieve.

January is Get Organized Month all month. Per Google the focus is: Decluttering physical spaces, optimizing schedules, creating better habits, and boosting overall well-being. The themes are: Often ties into New Year’s resolutions, emphasizing fresh starts, productivity, and managing stress.

What better time than at the beginning of the year to Bring in the New Go out with the Old. I’ll write soon about ideas I have for getting organized in January.

The first article I ever published was in the Women’s Forum of the local newspaper in January 1990. The column I wrote was titled Time to Start Spring Cleaning.

I was the first person back then to make the connection that the beginning of the year was the ideal time to clear out the mental cobwebs in our head as well as the physical clutter in our home.

Clearing out the clutter in January and “cleaning up” our negative thoughts about what we’re capable of are habits that can serve us well at this time of year.

The last sentence of Time to Start Spring Cleaning was: And when you open up a can of chowder you might just discover a whole new you.

Cheers! To having the courage to express ourselves. To having the capacity to let go of what’s no longer serving us. To having a life unencumbered by the stuff weighing us down.

Spring Cleaning in the Fall

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I realized I had written that I would talk about my disenchantment with chasing material goods and mainstream acclaim to feel good.

At the height of COVID I started to fill up donation bags with shoes clothes belts and pocketbooks to donate to the Salvation Army.

In reality 90 percent of what’s donated to this charity a reseller in Africa buys. The items ultimately wind up in a landfill in Accra.

Instead I’ve found a local thrift shop I can donate my like new items to that gives me a tax receipt too.

Since March 2021–over 3 years–I’ve donated a total of 30 bags to charities.

The truth is clear: mindless scrolling on websites can cause us to shop online impulsively. I’ve stopped doing this.

After my tidying spree I have one bag to donate this fall. That should be all. It’s liberating when the only clothes in your closets and drawers are the ones you wear every week.

Gone are the sweaters and other items that I bought because they caught my eye in a store. Today I have strict criteria for what I will buy and when.

This fall I bought two throw pillows and an ivory table runner to spruce up the dining table decor. That’s all.

Who needs 5 different sets of dinnerware? Three complete dinnerware sets were on the chopping block this March.

It can be overwhelming to need to take out and rearrange unused stuff to get to the one thing you need to find. Giving what remains breathing room frees our mind. Clear space clear mind is what I’ve always thought.

As a person who practices Feng Shui I’m convinced that keeping unused items in the same place for years and years causes stagnation.

The year is ending. Spring cleaning year-round is the foolproof way to spark joy.

Spring Cleaning

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Those skeletons dancing around in our closets deserve our attention.

On the cusp of 58 I had the urge to tidy up all over again. Packing up two sets of dinnerware that each was service for four. Who needs three sets of dinnerware.

What remains is service for six in one set that I bought with a gift card I was given for Christmas decades ago.

The older I’ve gotten I’m aware my life is getting shorter. Hence the reckoning with then-and-now. The sifting through the contents of my apartment that brought on memories of the past. Of the Christina who shopped with abandon.

Others have written about Not Buying Anything for a year. About editing out their seasonal wardrobes to 33 items.

As a person who used to buy whatever caught her eye I realize now that retail therapy isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

The authors of the book Happy Money wrote that the fewer items you have the more you’ll enjoy those things. This has proved to be true in my life. People who engage in consumerism have more financial worries and are less happy.

Who has the wherewithal to spend all our time attending to organizing vast collections. Having the Salvation Army truck drivers come again to cart off seven tote bags is Salvation for me. Not just hope and help for the Army’s recipients.

In our fifties it’s wise to let go of the things people and thoughts that are holding us back. Far better to do this today than to turn 60 and be weighed down with “stuff” of any kind.

58 is great. I’ve learned the life lesson that it’s now or not ever to be your authentic self. That who you were ten years ago or five months ago or yesterday can change when you wake up this morning.

I’m not that girl who bought whatever she wanted. I’m two years shy of what I call the “This is It!” decade. The skeletons are here in our lives to tell us something.

Those rattling bones demanded that I change my tune. Does inflation ring a bell as a probable cause for why any of us would want to buy one or two tee shirts instead of twenty-three.

The material objects crowding our homes can be painful reminders of the person we used to be who is not here any longer.

Far better to live in the present moment. To be optimistic that the future can be better.

To know that we are enough. We have enough.

That freeing up the space in our homes can clear our heads to see new possibilities.

Avanti! (Forward.)

Spring Cleaning in the Pandemic

Christina BruniLeave a comment

This is how I define the fancy word self-determination:

The right to choose how you want to live your life.

It’s as simple as that.

After the pandemic ends will you want to remain in a soul-sucking job?

Will you want to continue in an unhealthy relationship?

I say: time’s up on the status quo.

It’s time for each of us to decide for ourselves the kind of life we want to live, who we want to have in our lives, and what ideals we want to carry with us into the future.

I’m going to spring clean my mind with the help of a therapist to get rid of the weedy and overgrown thoughts that held me back.

My goal is to publish 2 books in 2021.

While everything has shut down and our lives have appeared to come to a halt:

It’s the perfect time to do spring cleaning.

“Out with the old–in with the new” rings truer today if you ask me.