I start Spring Cleaning a little early because when it gets the least bit warm, I'm going to be outside. Spring Fever is a physical, mental and emotional phenomenon and a thorough cleaning of your house can help your body prepare for more activity and can even help give you the mental boost you need to start a diet or any other healing regimine you might want to try. So, here is how I undertake the whole "cleansing" of home and self....

First, I create even more chaos than already exists. I let my eating habits go for a few days....finish up all those Valentine chocolates, fancy cheeses left over from the holidays, eat anything junkie--and I let myself enjoy it. Then, I choose an upstairs room and begin to pull everything out into piles, clean empty drawers and shelves and toss uneeded stuff, put things back and then do an herbal smudge of the room, using primarily, Rosemary as it is associated with bringing calm to family relationships, not to mention it is a cleansing, anti-bacterial. Then, on to another room, giving myself 2-3 days to complete each room.

To me, winter is dark, lazy and the dreaming is wild. nothing concrete, just cozy chaos. A final indulgence in that, by deliberately making a bigger mess or an even fattier diet--briefly--gets it out of our systems and then the re-order  is more welcome.... and such a relief! After the last junk food morsel is gone and bags of recyclables/donations/trash are out of the house and not one dust bunny rears its head, I can relax for a few weeks before turning to the rigors of garden work and the joy of being/working/eating/playing outside.

Spring Fever is a feeling of anxiousness and the best way to deal with it is to eat well--drink a spring tonic daily and start eating emerging shoots of spring greens and to order your personal universe so that you can focus on new tasks at hand instead of being bogged down by the past.

Spring Cleaning  Pt .2, 3 and 4 will deal with what to eat and drink, natural cleaning products and what to do with leftover stuff