Clean Sweep

Cleaning house by Scott Mullowney

A new year has arrived. Not just another new year, but an extraordinary new year. An historical new year. What better time to clean house, start fresh, clear the air.
The beginning of the 2009 calendar is a great starting point. I have lots (and lots) of projects on the horizon. This year in a shocking departure from my usual schedule, I'm going to start my indoor projects in the winter and save my outdoor projects for the warmer weather. It sounds so simple.
“Simplify” is going to be my motto this year. I've got a major cleaning out mission ahead of me. Got junk? Oh, I've got junk all right. The good stuff is going on eBay. I should be able to make enough money for a new laptop computer. There will be enough items left over for a huge yard sale this spring.
The Salvation Army will be happy. I have several bags of almost new clothing that will never be worn again by anyone in this house. A growing teen-ager has a short window of opportunity when clothes will actually fit before styles change again.
My paper shredder is coming out of hibernation. If you're in the neighborhood and hear strange noises coming from my attic, it's not the roar of a mini-chainsaw. It's me shredding important papers I'll be looking for during tax time.
I’ll be trekking to the Got Books kiosk with the several boxes of books I've amassed over the last couple of years. Books have a way of being pulled into my gravitational field, and once in my orbit they are there forever. How can you throw away a book? At least I've found a solution to my mountains of magazines. Every month I fill the reading rack of the gym I go to with a stack of current periodicals. When I want to refer to an article I’ve read, I just have to hop on an exercise bike and start flipping pages.
The kitchen could use a clean sweep too. The pots-and-pan cabinet is full of things I'll never use. Why don't the stray lids ever fit the pots without tops? I wish I could throw everything away and start over. I always use the same three pots and two frying pans. If I get the nerve to toss everything else in the trash, next week I'll be looking for a double boiler or that hardly used muffin tin, guaranteed.
My kitchen junk drawer has spread like a virus to the top drawer of the buffet server in the dining room, and beyond into the drawers of my china cabinet. I'm going to have to find a new place to put all the duplicate school supplies that were already piling up there.
Next are the two downstairs closets. The one beside my front door is home to my family’s winter outerwear. I have a bin of mismatched gloves, scarves no one will wear and a top shelf of assorted hats for every occasion. There are enough winter coats to keep the entire Von Trapp family warm for years to come. Boots and duck shoes are jumbled on the floor. The top shelf contains obsolete telephone books and assorted rolls of wallpaper from the last time I updated the living room. Toss in the vacuum cleaner, the carpet steamer and a hundred feet of internet wire and you've got enough sorting out for an entire Saturday. Whoopee.
Around the corner, the hall closet is like an "As Seen On TV" storeroom. This small closet houses a George Foreman grill, a Presto griddle, a mini food processor and something called a Braun mini-pimer that was a housewarming gift from our realtor in 1990. I think I used it once to make a milkshake in the early nineties. On the next shelf is a bag of batteries, a bag of light bulbs, assorted extension cords and a couple of non-working flashlights. On the bottom shelf are assorted pet supplies and a bathroom rug collection.
On to my bedroom. The contents of my top bureau drawer could be emptied into a trash bag, put out to the curb on collection day, and never be missed. Not a bad idea. I’d have lots of room to accumulate new stuff to replace the cuff links I’ll never wear and the mismatched sock collection I’m holding onto in hopes of finding a matching collection stashed someplace else in the house. It’s happened before.
I know I’m not the only person using January 2009 as a starting point for change. Out with the old has never sounded so good. This time, I think it’s going to be for real.