Spring cleaning sweeping out the winter blahs

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By Nikki Jamieson
Taber Times
njamieson@tabertimes.com

After months of a long, dark, cold winter, the bright warmth of spring is here.

Ok, maybe not so much. This past winter has been pretty mild, and lately I’m concerned that someone forgot to tell Mother Nature to turn the sun back on to full power.Not to mention the weather network is calling for snow and freezing temperatures over the next little while.

But I digress, it is spring and I’m going to treat it like spring even if I catch hypothermia while doing so. It’s not that I dislike winter; I just have this thing about being cold.

Granted, -15 degrees Celsius in southern Alberta is quite pleasant when compared to -15 in Nova Scotia. The dry cold and Chinooks of southern Alberta have nothing on the wet cold and wind chill of the Maritimes, which seeps through your many layers and into your soul.

Add trying to wade through two feet of snow on your way to class, knowing that another two feet is being dumped on you in a week, and it can get pretty miserable.

But, the beginning of spring means an end to the ever-lasting nights of winter. I can already be heading home after a Vauxhall council meeting while the sun is still up, and nice looking fruits and vegetables are starting to return to the stores.

I can break out lighter sweaters that I would otherwise freeze in, and finally open up my windows to let fresh air in.

Unfortunately, with the coming of spring also means big spring clean ups.
Most people tend to let house cleaning slide during the winter – that extra layer of dust just makes everything cozier anyway. And if you are like me, you light lots of candles and snuggle into blankets and read comic books while watching the latest crime drama, promising yourself that you will vacuum tomorrow.

Lies. All lies.

I’ll be honest, cleaning is not exactly at the top of my Fun & Exciting thing to do list.

I think I am in the majority of people on this when I say that there are so many things I’d rather do then scrub a toilet. That said, I try my best to stay on top of my chores, especially since I have my own place and pay rent. After all, cat hair isn’t so charming when it’s an inch thick.

I think I did well in keeping up in my cleaning over the winter. But then January hit, and I came down with the Dreaded Epic Cold of Doom, which pretty much knocked me out for that month.

You know the one. Half of you readers agree with me, the other half blocked out that traumatic experience of the bug that went around southern Alberta.
Cleaning tends to fall to the side when your eyes water, you can’t breathe out of your nose and sound like Froggy McCroakenson.

To be fair, you do have little energy for anything else but blowing your nose and falling into a comatose state that can almost pass as sleep.

After a month I recovered, and spent several days catching up on said neglected chores, such as fetching the cat toys out from under the fridge and windexing.

But, knowing that spring has come and it’s real and out there, I need to prepare to do a good, deep cleaning, in order to make my life springtime fresh.

At this time last year, I was packing boxes and scrubbing the kitchen to get my damage deposit back before I went out to Calgary for an internship.

The year before I was studying and couldn’t care less about the dust on my windows because I had an economic exam coming up.

Dirty clothes aren’t a concern when you’re trying to remember how to find the equilibrium or the difference between GDP and nominal GDP when it’s worth 50 per cent of your final grade.

But I am a working, responsible adult now. I pay bills, take care of a pet, can look at a gas meter without flinching and scored 87 per cent on a ‘How Much Do You Adult’ quiz.

I can handle the traditional deep clean of spring. Whether or not I have enough paper towels to do so is another matter entirely.

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