Spring Means Scrub !

Spring Cleaning is happening! Lucy and I are spending this week taking the house apart in a good old fashioned Seasonal Scrub. I love the booklet my bloggy friend Alison offers on her blog. All the specifics and details in one place. I printed and bound my copy at Kinkos this year for easier reference.



Today we finally busted out the sponges and the soap after a lot of dusting and sweeping yesterday.

I am so thirsty!!! I keep pouring big glasses of ice water and downing them every time I end up in the kitchen again. Lemon wedges and lime slices are my best friend at the moment. Wonder if it's all the dust in the job, the hard work and sweating or the just spring coming on that's making me thirsty.







Yesterday we rough swept each room, put the rugs into a big pile and vacuumed cobwebs down off the ceiling.




Today we stripped the beds and cleaned and flipped the mattresses, then cleaned the microwave and upstairs refrigerator. I am almost done washing all the pillows and blankets and throws.





I am purging things as I go, heaping up big piles of things to take to the kids consignment shop, to sell online and to just pack off to Goodwill. Feeling giddy over the lightening!

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This Week, We....

 

Had the biggest snowstorm of the winter...

 

(Here's our patio garden under wraps...turn your head sideways for correct perspective. Sorry! *wince*)

 

 And so we took the kids to a local estate-cum-extensive park for a little late afternoon/evening sledding...

  

 (Cute man in snowstorm)

  

Three cute men, sledding...

  

 The snowman we built just before hustling off the car in the dark.

  

 Aunt Sheila came by and saved the day. Elbow grease, homey homemade lunch, listening ear and much anticipated playmate about covers it. (and doesn't she have a chic haircut?)

 

My house got very clean. *grin*

 

 

See?

 

 We made hearts and painted them.

  

 We wore out one little valentine.

 

We met the newest calf at our local dairy farm.

And we made it more than halfway through The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. He's riveted and every time we have to stop there are tears. Makes his mommy's heart go pitter pat.

Just another fabulous week here at the the homestead. Looking forward to another!

The Scrubbing Begins

Well all, I am not vanquished yet but, I'm to the really mirey stage of The Big Clean. This is the part where I get weepy and almost quit five times a day. Things really slow down here. I was clipping merrily along yesterday but today I got to the jobs that are really grubby (scrubbing down the toilets, really, really well....cleaning the oven within an inch of its life...etc.) and they take a lot of time.

I spent all morning on just the refrigerator and by lunchtime I think everyone was on the verge of crying between the buckets and buckets of murky water I kept dumping out and refilling and the hunger level of various toddlers. Whew. Some things are nice to have over.

The hard news is that tomorrow is another hard day. After tomorrow (assuming I get tomorrow's stuff done tomorrow) I will be down to the fluffier finishing up tasks. Today, I began scrubbing with the kitchen appliances and bathrooms, and tomorrow I do glass (windows, mirrors, picture fronts and the like) and then hit the floors, walls, light plates, and skirting boards. Am trying not to think about that as I head to bed. Must just focus on rest at the moment. In the morning my aunt arrives to bolster the forces and fill our tummies with comforting food.

I will survive!

In the vein of distracting oneself...I thought you'd like to see the pictures I never posted from Dee's second birthday celebration.

Fruit and Scrub Brushes

Meet one of my new favorite fruits. It looks like an orange (until you see them next to each other) but its not orange...its a minneola! Also known as a tangelo, also known as a Honeybell, also known as a cross between the Duncan grapefruit and the Dancy tangerine.

I'm not a big fan of tangerines...they have this strong, tangeriney flavor that I don't really dig and I dunno, they always have a lot of seeds. I do like grapefruit although I wouldn't imagine it to be the genetic remedy for what I dislike in the tangerine. Seems like you'd get an off flavored, giant, slightly bitter fruit with a hearty tang. Instead...you get a really juicy, sweet, sweet fruit with a thin peel and delicate membranes separating the slices which makes them really tender and yes, again, extra juicy.

I love how rich red the orange is, I love how easily they slice, how briskly they disappear off the serving plate. And seriously, how could you not find that outie bump on the end appealingly cute? They are my new favorite fruit...right up there with the leaf and stem satsumas.

 

Here's a minneola and a regular naval orange, side by side.

And here's a shot of my rubber cleaning gloves and my new scrub brush, my little motivating gift to myself to spur on my cleaning. As I told a friend on facebook yesterday, I feel like quitting the scrub about four times a day BUT...I'm not to be defeated. I've done it all before so I know I can do it now. I'm halfway through! Today the actual scrubbing starts...I dusted high places this morning and have just begun vacuuming all the light fixtures, lampshades and blinds. Whew! See you all on the other side of sneezy!

 

Sunshine Day

I really like Jason Mraz' big hit song, I'm Yours, a lot, (its in my spring cleaning iTunes mix after all) but, I almost like this Sesame Street version more. Special props to Jane who introduced me to the original in the first place! Check it out though, really. Made me smile this morning when I opened the kitchen shutters to blinding sunlinght and I keep humming it as I check the cleaning list spread out on top of the piano.



If you don't know the original, just haven't seen the music video or can't get enough and want to see it one more time....here's it is.



Yesterday, I got all the beds stripped down to the mattresses and started washing pilllows, mattress covers, duvets...etc. I vac'd and flipped all the mattresses and have started putting them back together. I got rid of all the trash in the house, sorted through our food cupboards and fridge, and have sorted most of the drawers in the house. Today I get rid of the rest of the clutter in prep for real scrubbing. Purge the bookcases, sort the toiletry collection, and put away anything that's sitting out as well as collecting items with no home on the landing. Then we bust out the rubber gloves and the scrub brush!

Spring Cleaning Begins!

This is going to be a quiet week around the blog. I'm spring cleaning the house along with one of my favorite bloggy friends, Alison, from Brocante Home. If you're interested in joining in, either this week (as I clean or later at your own pace) then check out her fabulous Seasonal Scrub directions. I try to do this twice a year and when I get it done the house glitters in a very encouraging way and I feel very accomplished.