I love Spring. It’s my favorite time of year. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, the days are longer, and the promise of a lazy summer (I can dream, can’t I?) is just around the corner.
All that sunshine and fresh air, energizes me and puts me in the mood for a good spring cleaning (and a deep exfoliation). It makes me want to feng shui my life. One closet at a time.
I start with something easy: my kids’ closets. I set up camp in each kid’s closet and with their help, or in spite of it (Mini-Me can’t let go of anything, don’t know, ahem, who she gets that from), go through their clothes and shoes. We make a huge giveaway pile, for what no longer fits or is too worn out. She’s delighted, because to her, it means time to replenish.
I can’t begin to express the thrill of seeing a huge bag of clothes to be given away and a closet that isn’t a tangled mess. The thought of dropping off this bundle at Goodwill, leaves me weak at the knees. My house “feels” lighter already. One of the bonuses of cleaning out your closet is finding stuff you didn’t even know you had. We call it “Buried treasure.”
Clearly, the biggest hurdle is working my way through my own closet. For this I call in a professional: Mini-me, my teenage daughter. For as much as she can’t part with her own things, she is merciless when it comes to my stuff. My goal is to give up nothing. Her goal is to get rid of everything.
She has a keen eye for style and insists I dress like a “soccer mom.” For the most part, this is true. Staying on task becomes difficult, because clearly a “mommy makeover” becomes the priority.
I have to be mentally and emotionally prepared to handle this kind of help. “What were you thinking?” she laughs, as she raises each piece of clothing in the air and away from her, as if my boring taste was contagious.
I should be flattered that my teenage daughter still thinks there’s a chance I could still look hip. When I’ve had about all I can take from my enthusiastic “stylist,” I call a cease fire and make a promise to myself to workout more. This time, maybe even sweat.
Question is, how do I distract her, to sneak back that “soccer mom” cardigan?
How do you survive spring cleaning?
We might actually be the same person! I decided to start small this year bc once I get going I just can’t stop. So I’m doing one messy drawer at a time. But my closet? Impossible! I fear what it would like if I really went for it…empty!
Well, you are on it! I, on the other hand have to get with it… good inspiration!
Love how your daughter will toss your stuff, but not her own:) Still, if you can get her opinion, why not! I just a style make-over from a stylist and it was the BEST.
Spring cleaning is NOT easy. Nice to read a humorous perspective on it all.
I love purging closets, so much that I do it more than once a year! While my son isn’t old enough to direct what I keep and toss, he does pick out my shoes. And funny enough, he hates when I clean out his closet and wants to keep everything (perhaps he’s influenced by the toddler “mine” stage).
So funny! My children definitely have an opinion on what’s in my closet and if my daughter had her choice everything I owned would be a flouncy pink dress. But then, she’s 5. 🙂 It’s actually my husband who has a hard time parting with anything. Not clothes, but every scrap of paper and little trinket. He is so sentimental, which is sweet, but it’s like an episode of “Hoarders” in some of our closets!
Oh! I’m so jealous you have your own personal stylist. I wish I had one of those, but my daughter is only 6! Maybe in a few years I will receive some closet assistance too. Very funny post!
I’m actually thinking about video taping the cleaning out of my attic above my garage. There is SO much stuff up there, the nails in the room below it are popping through the sheetrock!!! It should be pretty funny to see who, how and why we need to part with certain things. We’re a bunch of sentimental fools. Should be interesting!
Oohhh I SO get this. There’s nothing like the feeling of a well organized home. I’m all for creating a false sense of control. So uplifting!