Spring Cleaning

Got a bit of a break because of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year and Sunethra and I decided to make the break count. Casting a look around our house that generally resembles a disaster zone, we thought we’ll give the kitchen a good clean up, especially since of late we’ve heard the squeaks of baby mice around there.

So Friday morning saw us busily cleaning away. How ever many articles I may read on clutter control, organizing your home and such stuff, it never quite seems to apply to us. There are loads… and I mean loooaaads of things that have gotten collected in every nook and cranny which on examination can’t be thrown away because… they were weddings gifts my parents had got. Yeah they are cracked and chipped and tarnished and grubby… but well… they were wedding presents and have lived with us for so long that no one dares to get rid of them…. Immediately springs to mind crockery (mostly mismatched, cracked, some with their handles off and so on but supposed to be something like Johnsons??? or something, cutlery (BONE handled!!!!) and so on. They can’t be thrown away due to sentimental value (the person who gave it has since died and gone to Heaven), because my mom wants them (there is no logical purpose for them… but hey … she wants them) and things that we can’t throw away, we can’t do garage sales, we don’t know anyone else who would want them.

So there we find old teapots … yup many of them, and stacks of saucers (where are the cups to them??) soup plates and bottles of various shapes sizes and hues. Among all of this we find jam jars, ice-cream and other plastic containers, sili sili bags, brown paper bags, cardboard……….. gosh the list is endless and we ended up with huge garbage bags filled to the brim and taking up quite a bit of space themselves.

My mom was getting quite jittery when I lay my calculating eyes on two huge monstrosities that squat in the kitchen. One is this large waist sized cupboard which holds the stores (yeah we found bottles of jam, sauces, honey, wine (I didn’t mind finding those) and packs of food like noodles and jelly and flour and cake ingredients well past their expiry dates – yuck! Its an absolute eye-sore (I’m still talking about the cupboard here) because its large and hulking and despite holding lots of stuff also has a large number of mouse-sized holes in them which allows the rats easy access to the cavernous interior. No one really clears it often other than opening it to get at stuff in the front of the cupboard.

That…. decided Sunethra and I… must go! We even decided that it could be donated to the nearby bakery for their fires. Though how to set about it ??? and how to persuade my mom to part with this treasure that can hold all the above stuff ??? and worse yet…. Where to put all the ‘stuff’ if we get rid of the holdall??

The other bit of furniture that I feel needs to ‘go’ is an olden days ‘whatnot’ made of some good wood I’m sure, but one drawer is missing, the handle off the other drawer is gone while the bottom of the little cupboard thing also dips down to the floor. Well.. it probably looked great many, many, years ago. Perhaps its some type of antique… but who on earth will got through the trouble of cleaning and polishing it up? I would give away in a flash ………. but it belongs to my dad sigh!

Even the fridge got a good clearing out. What a load of stuff we discovered in there too…. Kinda like a treasure hunt…. Chocolate, marzipan, jars of cherries, sweets, …. Loads of stuff.

Might try doing a similar spring clean to our room the next time around !