Battle Cry

Today is what I like to call "Pick It Up, Clean It Up, Put It Up Day, Part 1".

It is the day in which every surface of every piece of furniture, every counter, all floors, will be cleared of their debris and detritus. Every surface will then be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. All the insides of every window will be washed free of fingerprints, along with doors, molding, walls, television screens. All floors will be scrubbed clean of any hidden sticky spots. All decorative items will get cleaned. All books will be dry-dusted and put away. Any items that do not belong in that particular room will be put where they belong, be it another room's shelf or drawer, or the trash/recyling or donate bins. At the end of this day, one entire floor of my house will be spotlessly clean.

I call it "Part 1" because I know that tomorrow will be Part 2, in which the upstairs and the basement playroom will undergo the same treatment.

Next week, we embark on "Operation Re-Discover Organization in the Basement". It looks daunting, it will be dirty, hard work. I'll be frustrated. I'll fill countless bags with garbage and make numerous trips to my recycling bin. I'll spend hours scrubbing and dusting and vacuuming. But, at the end of the week, just in time for Spring Break, the whole house will be ready for exterior spring cleaning, in which, I'll use my hose, and some bottles of Windex House Wash & Window Cleaner to wash away the winter's dirt and grime without disturbing the birds' nest that occupies that funny little space between the down-spout and the underside of my roof eave.

Spring Break will bring times of fun, coupled with times of hard work, excursions as weather permits us to the library, the park, perhaps even our local museum.

April will bring with it the time to get all my yard in order - clearing any of last years' growth away, tilling my garden boxes, laying down extra soil as needed, sorting and purchasing seeds for our veggies, starting my herbs, my tomatoes...anxiously awaiting and preparing for May Day, in which I'll head to my favorite store and pick out seedlings for a few items that I don't have space to start in doors...and then...we plant!

And while my calendar will still tell me it is only Spring, it will feel like summer...I must have my garden boxes established, and we must fix the manifold on our sprinkler system, which will entail digging part of our yard, and repairing junctions, joints, perhaps, replacing an entire section of pipe...but once finished, we will lay down fertilizer, pre-ermergent crab grass preventative...I'll spray our fence line to keep our neighbors raspberry bushes from overtaking our yard, to keep the bind-weed from snaking its way silently around my rose bushes and peach trees...we'll spray blossom set to keep our apple and peach trees healthy and to promote a bumper crop of both peaches and apples.

And then, soon, quietly, before I even know it, the trees will be covered in that soft green haze, full of buds, then tiny new leaves...and the birds will wake me at dawn each morning, I'll spend my quiet hour outside on my deck sipping coffee or tea, enjoying the sounds of the wakening neighborhood, communing with my God in the world He created for just such a purpose...

Winter begone! I am ready for Spring, and March 21st means nothing to me as I eagerly await the arrival of days when I can open all my doors and windows consistently!