April 10th, 2024

It's Spring!  And 'tis the season for Spring Cleaning, right?  It's tradition!  It is a very very old tradition as it so happens.  As far as reseacherers who look into those sorts of things can tell, it goes back  about 1000 years!  Wow!  It appears to have originated in Iran as Nowruz, a Persian  Festival celebrating their New Year. Which apparently is (or was?) in the Spring.   There are also mentions  in ancient Jewish Tradition connected with the Cleaning of the Home in preparation for Passover which is also in Spring.  Thus was born, the Spring Cleaning Tradition!

In a more practical fashion, it just makes sense that in the times before wonderful modern conveniences such as HVAC systems and vacuum cleaners, when people had very small (and rather dark) homes heated through the long winters by fireplaces that as soon as the temperature outside was warm enough. people would open doors and windows and begin to clean.  Everyone  would be enthusiastic about airing out their homes and scrubbing them thoroughly!  Real wood fireplaces are wonderful, giving off a cozy heat and ambience like mad but they are a filthy business.  If you've never experienced one I'm hear to tell you that the wood, the smoke and the leftover ash is just  plain gross !

Nowadays, most of us are lucky to not have to rely on wood burning fireplaces to survive the winter.  So in modern times, the idea of Spring Cleaning maybe not be actual cleaning but something related to it.  At least that's how it works in our house.

Our home is clean. I clean all the time.  Once a week I do a big clean and before company comes I do a bigger scrubadub clean.  And every single day I find myself doing something cleaning related.  Tim and I are both tidy people so the house is always picked up.  "A place for everything and everything in it's place" isn't just a saying, it's practically my motto!  I have always found the "clean as you go" method works well.  Doesn't take much time and the mess doesn't pile up.

BUT there is always something that needs to be tackled at least once a year.  And for us this year, there were two things.  The first was the Utility Room.  At one time it was a very small garage.  Now it's the place everything goes that we dont' know where else to put.  Which can be an issue.  It's also where the HVAC system is, the big freezer and the washer/dryer.  It's storage for paint cans that we may need to use again at some point, Tim's many tools,  Coolers, folding lawn chairs, luggage and Christmas Decorations.  I keep all my cleaning supplies and tools in that space along with extra light bulbs, work gloves, air filters and other various odds and ends that really have no place in the house.

And it's an easy room to ignore. Nobody sees it but us. So it's easy for things to get stacked up and spread out with the promise to "get to it later".  Well later finally arrived this past weekend.  We put on our grubby clothes, hauled around both garbage can and recycle bin and rolled up our sleeves and got to work.  Oh my!  We threw out soo much crap.  Went through every single bin and box, re-organized, and in the end, vacuumed the entire place.  It looks so much better now.  I wish I had thought to take a "before" shot because you cannot appreciate how good this looks incomparison to how it looked before.  Suffice it to say that it would have been embarrassing!  Here's the "after".

Whew!  A lot of work but a job well done!

The other Spring Cleaning task we took on was sorting out the pantry.  You've all seen photos of my pantry before. I love my pantry.  It's big enough to hold, not only my baking cart, but shelf after shelf of everything that doesn't fit in the kitchen.  Canned goods, baking supplies, spices and oils, cases of water, giant pastry boards, vases and platters and serving dishes, griddles and roasting pans and kitty food!  That's a lot of stuff.

I tried, oh how I tried, to keep is sort of organized.  But life happens. And oddly shaped boxes and cans and containers of many sizes made it hard to keep related stuff all in one section.  To say nothing my shortness being a factor.  If I had my druthers, nothing would be higher than I can reach. But that means the shelves would end about half way up the walls which is a horrible use of space so there is also a step stool in the pantry which I use on a daily basis.

I have found that there are some things which, once opened, and partially used, cannot be stored in their original container.  Things like flour and sugar for example.  Once opened, it needs to be transferred to another container both to stay fresh and not spill.  Humidity here is a real issue with product longevity!  I used a LOT of zippy bags for that.  And while zippy bags do work, they dont' stack well and they are slippery and like to slither off the shelves from time to time, the buggers.

The soltion was Containers. Lots of Containers. Containers of all sorts of sizes and shapes.  I now have those containers!  Labeled Containers!  Airtight containers!  I am so excited about them!  Happy Dance!  These are just some of them.   I do love a good container.  Things to put things in bring me joy.  The labels are the cherry on top of the Sundae.

You cannot really see it here, but there are containers behind the front row of containers and with the smaller ones, I can stack them making excellent use of space!  I love when that happens.

Tim even got me selves that go on the shelves to make more/better use of the shelves!  That's confusing. I'll just show you a photo

I didn't take a photo of it but there is also a stepped shelf for smaller things like spices and herbs.  It is glorious!  

In fact, it's so successful that I've thought of a few other things I could put in containers and we may get more of them!

The bonus, which I didn't think of at the time is that, because the containers are clear,  I can easily see what things we are low on now to put on the grocery list instead of thinking, "I'll make Oatmeal Cookies. I see that we have an oatmeal container in the pantry",  only to begin the cookies and find that there's not nearly enough in the original box!"

I've already added to my next grocery list all of the things I didn't realize we were very low on!  YAY!

Anyway, so that's our version of Spring Cleaning.  If it's not yours, or if you've given up the tradition entirely, well that's just fine.  But this is the way we do things at Casa Humphreys!

We enjoyed doing it and we're glad it's over 'til next year!

​Hugs all 'round