Spring Cleaning

We need to move.


Tom and I are approaching our ninth anniversary, and up until now, we have moved every three years. It's amazing how periodic moves help you evaluate your stuff and weigh what's worth lugging hundreds of miles and what's not. For the foreseeable future, however, we are settled. After weeks of one or both of us being sick, I finally looked around and realized the stuff was taking over again.


I'm not saying I would really want to sell a house in this market, or try to develop a community all over again somewhere far away. But it would be nice to have some motivation to sort and clean--and a deadline. It would be nice to start again somewhere empty.


Instead, we'll just have to do our best reorganizing here. I have sold Ben on the idea of "spring cleaning," and this morning he helped me sort through all the junk on the coffee table. (When I asked him to choose some artwork to send to the grandparents, though, he declared that every piece was his favorite and he couldn't bear to part with any of them.) If I feel really brave later, we'll tackle the basement. At some point, we may even dust and wash the windows. It helps that today is filled with gorgeous sunlight, and I want to let it into the house as much as possible.