From our founder:

“April feels like it went by REALLY slow. Anyone else? It feels like it dragged on. The weeks went by slow, yet the days went by fast and April now feels like it should have been over a week or two ago. Being inside for long periods of time is quite disorienting…but onto our question for this month:

Spring is here! What spring cleaning could you get done this month – closet, pantry, shoe rack, habits?

(As I read this question, I’m realizing I probably meant “What did you get done this month and/or what could you get done in May?” My apologies!)

I like this idea of “spring cleaning” and I’m not sure where it came from. I didn’t grow up with a spring cleaning ritual and neither did my husben, but something about it sounds nice. It’s a sign of transition, a move towards change, and feels refreshing. To get to reset your home and wardrobe, and lifestyle, in preparation for the season to come.

This past month I spring cleaned my wardrobe (click here for the post). It was more thorough than it has been in the past, partially because I had more time on my hands and also because I knew I just needed to make space in my closet and get rid of things that I’ve been holding onto for too long.

It was refreshing to sort through my clothes, find clothes I semi-forgot about and can now revive, and to make piles of clothes to donate or sell. I enjoyed the process of knowing that everything in my closet has a place and a “reason” to be in my closet. It was refreshing to replace some of the heavy sweaters with lighter spring tops. It got me excited for spring to come!

As I think about the other areas of my home and space, I’m realizing I did a fair amount of cleaning up and sorting, not so much as part of the spring clean ritual, but as part of preparing for quarantine and creating new rhythms for the upcoming season.

In that “spring clean,” it wasn’t so much the home spaces I was cleaning up and out, but also the habits and rhythms I wanted to reset and push the “refresh” button on. WIth having a new schedule and rhythm, came with an opportunity to intentionally build better and healthier rhythms. Despite my best intentions to want to have healthy work-life balance and boundaries, I can easily see how as the semester has rolled on, I have slipped into old habits of pushing beyond the boundaries I originally set. For example, I told myself I would not work on Sundays, but sometimes I would occasionally jump on the business social media saying it wasn’t work, but just a check-in. However, I knew in my heart, it was work and it was crossing that rest boundary I had set for myself.

COVID-19 and quarantine came at a coincidental time in the spring cleaning world as I’ve been given (even if semi-forced) the opportunity to clean up my rhythms and schedule for better. To find more time to rest, to build more time to be (not do), to build sustainability and longevity in the work habits I have. It’s spring cleaning, but with a twist.”

What spring cleaning have you done or aspire to do?