May 20th, 2026

 It's Spring now and in fact it officially turned from Winter to Spring in late March. so I suppose that what I'm currently in the midst of counts as Spring Cleaning.  I have to also add that here in Florida right now it's feeling more like summer than spring but that's not unusual, just doesn't have the same familiar ring...summer cleaning?...spring cleaning?  

No matter, it's not even truly 'spring' cleaning that I'm doing although there is some cleaning involved.  What I'm actually knee deep in is what my Nana used to refer to as 'culling out'.  That is sorting through your belongings and only keeping what you really need and/or want and getting rid of the rest.  The way I was raised, was that when you 'culled out', the stuff in the OUT pile went literally out. We could throw it away, give it away, or sell what we weren't using, but we could not keep it.  Nana had some pretty strict rules!  But she wasn't wrong.  We 'culled out' about every six months probably because, growing up we were always moving and the less you have the cheaper the move!  Makes sense!

While I no longer go through my stuff twice a year, I had the culling out feeling come upon me and decided to take advantage of the mood. I'm finding myself digging into boxes and baskets I haven't thought about in while.  I am climbing up onto step stools to investigate the inhabitants of high up and then even higher up shelves, making decisions, sorting through and then cleaning whatever is left behind including the boxes, baskets and shelves.  Ultimately also myself becoz is the sort of task that, even if I look clean afterwards, I feel gross and dirty.

The decision making part is the hardest part. I suppose that isn't a surprise. Oh some things are no brainers, like the shampoo I bought experimentally that turned out not so good.  My hair didn't feel clean, it wasn't shiny, and the smell was, ummm, let's say, less than desirable.  Which makes the reason why I stopped using it super easy to understand but makes the reason that I didn't immediately throw it away far murkier. I'm not even certain why I tucked it into the far recesses of the cabinet under the sink instead of tossing it into the garbage directly.  Probably guilt.  I spent the money but I didn't get the expected return on the investment.  Leaving me to now, after far too much time has passed, drop kick it into the Out It Goes garbage bag with no remorse.

A decision that was a little harder were the skin care products.  First of all, there is not one single thing wrong with any of these products.  All of them are terrific brands and useful to me.  But I haven't been using them. Why? Because I'm an idiot.  All of them are things I do not normally buy, things  that were lovely, thoughtful gifts.  And I have been "saving them."  And now here I am, much later looking at these lovely gifts and asking myself what exactly it is that I have been saving them for?  I mean they don't have the shelf life of bananas,  but neither do they have the shelf life of gravel.  At some point, they will need to be either used to thrown away.  I decided that as of today, I'm using them all. Every damned one of them and when the bottle or tube is empty, then so be it!  I think that's probably better than eventually throwing away an expired full container of a good product, right?   

Before I began this massive spring clean project, I went around the house sizing up the scale of the thing.  Which shelves need to be investigated, what exactly do I think is in various drawers and baskets, which rooms contain the worst offenders.  That way I could make a mental schedule for completion and be certain that I had everything I needed meaning, plenty of garbage bags for things thrown away, enough boxes to hold the items being donated and the actual cleaning products I'll be hauling from room to room to clean up after myself. 

And while doing that initial walk-through, I noticed this:

That is the top shelf of My side of our closet.  I see a couple of evening bags, that is clutch style purses, both of which I can probably donate as I do not anticipate being invited to any red carpet events any time soon: my green toiletry travel case which I will hold on to at least for now just in case I ever travel anywhere; my kitty ears headband I am keeping just becoz and I don't want to hear any crap from anybody about that; but there are also four shoeboxes.  And that kind of surprised me.

Four shoeboxes?  I could have sworn there were only three shoeboxes.   What is in the 4th box?  No way around it, I had to get out my handydandy step stool, climb up there, haul them all down and figure it out.  

As it turns out the 4th box holds hearing aid supplies which sounded great until, on closer examination I realized that the supplies went with my last pair of hearing aids, not my current ones. Dang!  Useless to me.  BUT I can (and will) donate them via my audiologist to someone else who needs supplies and cannot afford them. ok. That goes in the donate pile so that was easy but what about boxes 1 through 3?

Well those actually do hold shoes.  It's the remainder of my collection of high heels.  Back in the olden days, when I was still working and needed to look professional and put together, I actually put a lot of thought and care into my hair, my nails, my make-up routine and wardrobe including shoes.  Hard to believe I know considering how I look these days but it's true.  I had quite the collection of footwear.  When I retired, I went carefully and thoughtfully through the entirety and donated most of it as I anticipated spending most of my days on the beach and heels on the beach are stupid.

I kept three pair.  Two pair of very high end, excellent quality pumps, one black and one red and one pair of strappy silver sandals. Ooo lalala!  I actually have worn the black and the red heels once or twice since we moved to Florida but it was awhile ago.  Nowadays with my, apparently, permanently broken foot (I say that because I am still having trouble with it and it's now been 7  months since the original injury) my shoe wardrobe consists of 3 pair of lace up sneakers that I have to put an orthotic into before wearing and 3 pair of sandals that I can wear around the house but if I am plan to walk further than from the kitchen to the living room I need to put on the "real" shoes, that is my sneakers.  At this point I'm not positive I could even get my foot INTO the heels let alone attempt walking in them.  I'm very sad to say that all of the heels will have to go ;(    Bye Bye Shoes!

They don't look too bad considering how old they are now, right?  Well, that's because I take good care of my things.  Each shoe was kept wrapped in tissue paper and put in shoe bags and then their original boxes.   Hopefully someone else will love them and care for them as I did.  It is the end of the high heel shoe era for me and for some reason I am finding that to be very sad.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to lately.  How about you?
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