April has given way to May. It has been rainy and cold. I really had hoped for sunny and dry days and this week we had one that wasn’t all day rain. That was the day we actually started to take all the junk to the road. We finished in the rain, but we finished!

Friday was the annual spring clean up day for junk in my neighborhood. We decided this year is the year to continue on our quest for a house with less things. A gentle Swedish death cleaning has been my goal for the past few years. I recommend the book because it is really all about downsizing your belongings so when the day comes that you pass on or, downsize and move, no one else has to deal with your stuff. It has been a journey of sentimental items, a why did we keep this and oh the mice sure had a field day with this! I am happy to announce that my husband and I, with a little help from a friend for one big item, the basement has 75% less items in it that it was. What’s left needs to be looked at, repacked and the unnecessary or not useful will go to the road for spring clean up next year. I think this year is the last of the really large amount of items to go because we have been really working on this process for 4 years. Yes, large items, as in we had an old washing machine that was replaced, yet it was still working. I kept it just in case. Now the old washer is rotted and probably a mouse condo, so it went. A scrapper took it. The stuff is gone yay.

I am on a roll with the cleaning. This weekend is trying to get our cardboard to recycling. It’s a job. I have a lot, and the bins are always overflowing. It may be a drive all over the county to different recycle centers. The cardboard is in the way.

May is here and with it is the fire of getting things done for spring. The yard needs some work because we have tons of small sticks that came down from the trees in last month’s ice storm. A couple trees need to come down. I have a perennial flower garden that needs tending, a basement to clean now its empty, garden centers to shop in, chores in the house that need addressing like the birds living in the soffet, repairs from winter damage like an exterior door that needs replacing and the frame that has damage and so on.

Spring is very short around here and we quickly roll into summer. I have 120 days to do summery fun things, go places, be outside, garden, fix the house, catch some rays, listen to the birds, smell the roses and just be free from ice and snow. Last winter was long, loads of snow and a spring ice storm that was a 100 years storm. It burned me out.

Spring, It’s a fast and furious season. I have loads of things to do and it all began this week with the decluttering. I feel so liberated from the items that we no longer needed. And now they are gone. The synergy of having both my husband and I working on a project in syc makes it get done so much faster. Whew.

I have found decluttering to be way harder than I expected. Even when parting with all of the textbooks and notes from college there was a wave of nostalgia, thinking about those days and how much money I spent on those items, only for them to end up on the curb in a box going to the trash heap was a little sad. I realized that I don’t need those items to remember the past. They are old and ruined. Stinky and musty. Probably visited by mice and no longer serviceable. Old uniforms my husband wore in days gone by, some toys and boxes I moved to this house 24 years ago that we never unpacked. I kept very few things and the rest was a process of releasing them.

I will weekly do small versions of this and continue to streamline closets and porches. I want to have a manageable amount of things not the things managing me. I see there is a Swedish death cleaning show on Peacock. I am going to watch it to see how they approach it.

I feel energized now and a big weight has been lifted as I inch closer and closer to having only the items I want, need and are useful in my house/life. It’s a complicated task this death cleaning. And the best line in the book that is true and has stuck with me. “It doesn’t get any easier the older your get” both physically or emotionally.

Have a great week, I am going to thin a few daylillies today.

Vicki