Spring, the Time to Declutter by Betsy Ashton

It seems as though spring, that wonderful time of nature's renewal, has become synonymous with cleaning. Decluttering. Getting rid of stuff. Starting afresh.

My spring cleaning this year is necessitated by having a new kitchen installed. We're getting new cabinets and countertops. Sounds easy. Same footprint. Same sized kitchen (smallish). Mostly the same appliances. We hired a contractor and agreed on a schedule. That's when things began to change.

One Thursday afternoon at the beginning of the month, our contractor called. The custom cabinets were arriving earlier than expected, so they'd like to be "demolition" the next day. Okay with us? Um, sure. I rounded up my husband and began dumping stuff out of drawers and cabinets. Every tabletop
in the house, all but one bed, filled to capacity. Where did we get so much stuff? More important, why do we still have it?

We went from this to this in one day. I wasn't sure how I was going to maintain healthy meals. I mean, the microwave and toaster oven were useable, if not in the same places. The stove and fridge worked.

So, I could cook or nuke foods from the freezer, keep milk and veggies cold. My wine cooler held the half and half, and we moved the coffee maker to the basement office.  We did well until we had no sink. That meant washing dishes in a bathroom basin or in the laundry sink in the basement. Laundry sink won out. We thought we were living high off the hog when the sink was reinstalled four days after it wasn't there.

Now, we have cabinets, but we can't use them yet. Shelves still need to be installed; knobs fastened in place. Countertops are due in on Tuesday. Hope so. We are three weeks ahead of schedule, but there are still glitches down the road.

My husband and I have been roaming the house with what we call the "Alzheimer's" stare. The "do you know where the spoons are" stare. The "I know the skillets used to be next to the stove" stare. The "if this doesn't end soon, I'll kill someone" stare. Even with things moving smoothly now, I have to figure out what to dump and what to put where. The stares promise to continue until we get used to the new drawers.

And when we are finished with this, we can complete spring cleaning. From 2013!

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, which is now available in e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.