You Pinspire Me
Life is changing once again in our house! It seems like just yesterday that we were staging our house to sell it in preparation for selling. My husband had given his notice in to work and was gearing up for a year and a half of grad school, and we had no idea what our life would look like when he graduated.
And now, in the snap of a finger, my husband’s program is finished, he has a job in town (so we don’t have to move far away, and he doesn’t have to commute into the City! Hurray!) and we’re starting to figure out what life is going to look like for the next year or two. Part of that is moving again! Yay!
Well, not “Yay!” for moving, all that work and leaving our absolutely wonderful community behind. Yay! for leaving our house on this busy street and leaving the window-rattling motorcycles behind. Yay! for the kids being able to have their of rooms again so they won’t keep each other up at night or wake each other up in the morning. Yay! for my husband being able to walk to work in 10 minutes! And, strange as it may seem, YAY! for having an excuse for some serious spring cleaning and decluttering!
If we didn’t move, who knows how long I’d let this disaster go on?!
I joined the #40Bagsin40Days challenge to help me declutter, because someone told me that if you’re spending all of your Spring Cleaning time re-organizing, you have too much stuff. Technically the challenge started at the beginning of Lent, but this is something you could start at any time! Ann Marie over at White House Black Shutters has a free printable that you can use to help you keep track of your progress. I’m going through EVERY room in the house with two bags – one for the thrift store and one for the garbage / recycling.
So now that my surfaces are getting decluttered, they can get a good cleaning. Have you ever noticed how gross kitchen cupboards get under all those cereal boxes and bottles of oil and vinegar? Crumbs – so many crumbs! and dusty sticky grease. SO GROSS. This year when cleaning out any shelf space I’ve had 2 things handy: the Dyson and the Pine-Sol.
These two cleaning friends are pretty much all I need for the task – they take care of the crumbs and grease and everything else on the shelves, the cupboard doors, the flooring – the Dyson clears the debris, the Pine-Sol clears the grease, the food splatter, the paw prints, and leaves everything sparkling clean – not to mention spring-fresh!
Full disclosure, I was sent this bottle of Spring Blossom Pine-Sol to try out during my spring cleaning this month, and to be honest, I hadn’t used Pine-Sol since the days of doing chores at my mom’s house. In my head, I picture this big yellow bottle of cleaning solution that I assumed was just for floors – but this Spring Blossom Pine-Sol is not your mother’s Pine-Sol. It has a fresh, floral scent and because it’s a multi-surface cleaner it removes the need to have extra cleaners in your cupboard, resulting in less clutter! Ta-da, everyone’s happy!
Warning to those who have sensitivities to perfumes, this one might not be your best bet. While it cuts grease like a pro, the scent is really strong and lingers for a little while.
So how about you? Do you declutter as you spring clean? Are you as ruthless with your excess stuff as Pine-Sol is with the dirt & grime it cleans?
Disclaimer: we received product and payment in exchange for our thoughts on spring cleaning and Pine-Sol’s newest scent, Spring Blossom. All work & opinions are our own, of course! (Though I wouldn’t have objected if Pine-Sol sent someone into my house to do the spring cleaning for me!)
Jenn vanOosten
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I’m going to de-clutter a pile this spring. I still have my prom dress! ACK