Spring Cleaning Because Phil Lied

Phil lied. Or else he can’t count.

Our six more weeks of winter passed over four weeks ago, and still the temperatures freeze your nose, your fingers and your toes. The bright sunshine fools us into thinking it’s warm outside, and we don our light-weight coats hoping to enjoy an early spring walk. We don’t get far before we realize we’ve been had. Back we go, into the warm house, where tonight we will have a blazing fire.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for spring! I’m tired of being cooped up inside. I need my nature fix – a hike in the woods, listening to the birds, and the breeze as it sings through the trees. Capturing deer and other wildlife, trees budding and flowers blooming in all the glorious colors of nature through my camera lens. These are things that fuel my creativity. 

Instead, I’m laying the groundwork for writing days by “spring” cleaning.

I’m starting with my computer. I admit I’m something of a packrat and that includes email. I have about 14 different email addresses I use. I know, I know – who needs that many email addresses? I can justify maybe 8 of them: 

• Work

• Personal

• Author

• Blog

• Writers group

• Hubby (He is technology-challenged but wanted an email for certain things so I monitor it for him.)

• Shopping (I use this one for all online shopping.)

• Writing (Why do I need 4 of these?) 

• Miscellaneous (Why do I need 3 of these?)

Over the years I’ve used the 4 writing and 3 miscellaneous email addresses for different things. These are the ones I need to combine and simplify, especially the writing email addresses. While skimming through them, I realized I have subscribed to some of the same author newsletters from multiple emails, so I created a spreadsheet and listed all of my emails and what I subscribe to under each one. Combining and simplifying might take a while!

The stack of books I’ve been collecting over the winter is up next.  Most of them I’ve snuck into the house two or three at a time in my tote bag, stashing them in my daughter’s old room on the various shelves she left behind when she moved out. Hubby thinks I own too many books already, but I’m still buying, and I’m still accepting books passed on to me by friends. What Hubby doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? The problem is I don’t know what I already have, and a couple times I’ve purchased the same book twice. I can always give the second copy to a fellow reader, but darn it, I could be using that money to buy another book I don’t already have! Sorting them out seems like a good way to continue my spring cleaning…

Once the books are sorted, I’m moving on to my desk. Right now it's located in my son’s old room, which I’m still transitioning into my office. Starting on the office décor was much more fun than the cleaning and sorting part. But the desktop is collecting articles that need filed, pens that need tested to see if they work, and more books that need to be sorted. It makes a nice catch-all but it's covered with so much stuff that I can't use it for writing, and that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I’ve procrastinated long enough. These are all tasks that need done, and since Phil let me down, I am trying to take advantage of the not-so-nice weather to accomplish tasks I won’t want to do once spring really does arrive. 

What spring cleaning do you feel compelled to tackle? Please share!