February 1

Welcome to February!  I have to remind myself-- its ACTUALLY February-- because it was over 50 degrees out today.

With the advent of Spring-in-February, and in honor of my new Dyson (which I have yet to order as I made the mistake of asking for advice on Facebook and now I am even more indecisive than I was before...) I announce to you my new Thirty Days challenge:

I will spend 15-30 minutes per day making one small, focused part of my home better.  Cleaner, less cluttered, organized.  Thoroughly improved.  Including the parts no one sees.  And windows.

I am excited about this challenge because I know outer order brings inner order. And I can always use some more of that.  Also, our house is cluttered and generally grimy these days, as if we had two small balls of chaos and one mid-size ball of fur ransacking it day in and day out...

The interior of my dreams is as yet out of reach (mostly because an off-white couch just isn't practical right now, even if it IS Danish modern...).  But, I think I will be happier if it is at least CLEAN.

Tonight I started small, focusing on the area to the right of the kitchen sink.  Coffee station, mug shelf, spice rack, and the walls and floors proximal to those areas.  Time spent: 22 minutes.

It was cathartic, and dare I say, fun.  I threw out 12 jars of ancient spices that would need an ice-pick to remove their contents.  I wiped down each individual jar and lid that remained before putting them back on scrubbed shelves that are now a different color than they were before.  Grout has been whitened, walls have been washed, several nice-sized cobwebs have been relocated to the trash can.  I discovered, in the course of my focused work, that there are a number of areas high up on our walls where patches of green paint show through.  The walls have never been green since we have lived here.  That's two inadequate paint jobs in a row.  Poor house.

In an ideal world my focused work would include a quick, targeted paint touch up.  But, I haven't yet cleaned and organized the paint cupboards, so there would be nothing quick about starting into a paint job just now...

I think the biggest problem with this challenge will not be finding the motivation to do it-- but rather knowing where and when to stop.  I tend to be a wandering cleaner, circulating and doing small tasks as I notice them.  This is different-- and good for me, I think.  Trying to do one small job and do it right.

It was difficult to walk from the kitchen to my computer as I noticed with every step another section of the house just calling out for some attention.  Compared to the gleaming surfaces of the spice rack and counter-to-the-right-of-the-sink, the rest of our home is impossibly grubby.

One day at a time.  30 days (well, 29 this month) is a lot of time and it is my hope that by the time March rolls around, a month of small steps will have made a visible difference.

And because one   challenge just isn't enough... I feel like writing a cleaning blog may not provide quite the writing outlet I might wish for.  Should I continue a daily gratitude post along with?  Or how about, per my lovely poet-friend Donna's suggestion, a daily haiku?

I'll opt to try my hand at the latter tonight.  Do let me know your thoughts, though!

Spray-bottle in hand
Lifting layers of our past
One swipe at a time