Spring Cleaning: House, Body, and Soul

In just the past few days, the world outside my window has burst into bloom. A little tree filled with red blossoms is backed by a host of trees in various shades of green. The little azalea plant the mail carrier trods on when it's snow-covered still has buds. A woodpecker hammers a telephone pole. All is fresh. Now that the earth is renewed, I was motivated to renew my house and yard. The steps I took to accomplish this have parallels with our lives.

First, I realized that I am a hoarder. Every carton, large and small, delivered to me during the past ten years I tossed into the attic for future use. My nephew the fireman would faint if he saw the collection. Large bags were stuffed with styrofoam packing peanuts and other packing material.  And drawers and boxes held reams of half clean paper intended for copying my manuscripts...which nowadays are only on computer files. So the cardboard and paper went into recycling bins, and the peanuts and 50 pieces of cardboard shaped like book covers found a home in a school. The house is streamlined; time to streamline my life. For one thing, my body could shed a few pounds!  Then there are the superfluous activities that fill up my days. Do I really need to read all those novels and watch that many DVDs? In addition, my mind has a store of bad memories like hurts and failures. No need to dwell on them. Throw them out. Click to continue