Is it too early for spring cleaning?
So, when I get bored, I automatically default to cooking or cleaning (or, given enough notice or slow cooker, both). This morning (OK, this afternoon), I woke up and just wanted to clean.
After taking care of wiping off the counters and vacuuming, it was time for the fridge. I signed up for The Kitchn Cure, and while the fridge was fairly decent, it was good to go through it. Before:
After:
It doesn’t look like a lot, but believe me, there was. Threw out an old gallon of milk, moldy jam, mustard best by 2008, beets I pickled last summer, etc… Honestly, I forgot about my cabinets, but they’re in fairly decent shape. I need to figure out what to do with all of my pints of pickled peaches, since I’ve got about 6 pints of them.
I also have IKEA SLOM bottles, which I cannot recommend enough. They’re cheap and awesome! I woke up wanting to fill one with pink lemonade iced tea, a great caffeine free, chemical free tasty drink. Unfortunately, my dishwasher loves to spew stuff into them and I had some stuff in there at the bottom that wouldn’t scrub off. After consulting the internet, I put some raw rice at the bottome and shook it until kingdom come. It worked! And I got a cool picture out of it.
The other thing that I am over the freaking moon about, is that I finally did the mending!
I’ve had 6 tank tops and a ripped nighty sitting on my desk since probably September and yet I’ve never actually gotten around to shortening them. In my head, sewing requires so much prep work and set up… plugging in and threading a machine seems too time consuming compared to picking up knitting and going. But these days I have a fabulous, easy to use, easy to thread, impossile to horribly snarl the bobbin sewing machine. I keep forgetting that I’m no longer using my mom’s old machine and that I have a fabulous machine I bought a few years ago. It works, it works weel and I can make pretty things with it! Like an apron I finished last week (pics forthcoming, I still need to iron it, which requires about as much psyching up for as setting up the sewing machine). I’ve got a bunch of dress patterns and fabric and I need to actually use it.
Anyway, rather than just laundry listing my accomplishments, I thought I’d talk about why. I think I default to cleaning, cooking and organizing because putting my surroundings in order means I’m putting myself in order, somehow. It’s hard to be unhappy in your surroundings when they’re clean and organized. It’s a never-ending process and I always feel like I’m behind somehow, so it’s nice to feel like I’ve caught up.
