House cleaning is one of those jobs that no one likes. Either you have a day set for it, or you do it randomly, as the mood strikes, but I bet anything you're not keen on it. (Or you pay someone to do it. Lucky you. I have always thought that money saved from not paying for cleaning could then be used for travel. You make your choices.)
Ed and I do not have the same attitude toward house neatness and most of the time -- like for all the huge differences that make Ed Ed and Nina Nina -- we find a way to wiggle to the end of the day without any trouble. In fact, we both tend to be amused at how different we are in our approach to our surroundings.
Sometimes, however, either he or I toss out a caustic comment about a cluttered space (never our own cluttered space of course) and then the race is on to see who can throw out more snide remarks in the space of an hour about the other one's personal habits.
This morning was like that. I can't even remember who started it. Was it me, about his pile of junk next to the couch, or him, pointing a nasty finger at my pile of papers on the counter of the kitchen. Before long, we had escalated to me saying things like "if only you had finished the writers shed, I would have had a place to put those papers," and him waving his accusing finger beyond the papers, like to the spices accumulating next to the stove, and the stack of kid books next to the orange couch. Luckily, he did not go so far as to point a finger to the sun room where I let the kids leave their toy "arrangements" way past a time that other people would regard as reasonable. It may have degenerated into me going after the sheep shed, where feathers still remain from a bird unfortunately brought in by one of the cats some time ago.
We are breakfast together, but it was a quiet meal, each of us probably harboring some thoughts about how unreasonable the other person at the table was being.
By mid morning, he vacuumed and I scrubbed and the sun came in, first from the east windows, then from the south and we put away our cleaning utensils, and the house looked great, and we hugged in our happiness at getting the house cleaning behind us.
And now came the time to trim the young orchard.
Talk about a complicated job! We only sort of know what we are doing. Take out most anything that grows toward the inside. Okay, I get that. But most our fruit trees grew in weird and unconventional ways and working around branches that are oddly shaped and definitely not something you'd find in a magazine presentation of a great orchard is a challenge.
Nonetheless, the weather is brilliant. It's as if that Spring Forward really did push us into the spring season. It feels like we made it! Like winter is history!
I do some modest yard clean up too. I attend to the pruning of lavender bushes and I rake a little here, a little there. And as I begin the task of creating this year's "splendid garden," I wonder to myself -- will I work as hard at it now, when I am both older and the pandemic isn't keeping us locked into our personal spaces so much? Ed and I have one large gardening project set for this year and two moderate ones to supplement what we started last summer. After that, will I slow down? And read a book on the porch with a glass of lemonade more often than I did last summer?
I didn't say I came to any conclusions about any of it. I just thought about it.
And in the evening, the young family is here for dinner. It's light when they come, it's even still light when they leave. I put away my winter placemats and brought out my flowery-berry ones and oh, did that feel good! Before you know it, we'll be eating on the porch.
Well, maybe not that soon, but we are on our way!
(We're also toasting my daughter's recent job promotion...)
(No picture of Sparrow! Snowdrop and I were charged with giving him a haircut and he was feeling not in the best spirits during and after! Here's Snowdrop, waiting with her ribbon rewards for good haircut behavior. None were awarded.)
All this and spring days before us. We are lucky and grateful.
With love...
