Anyone remember spring cleaning?My mom used to go into serious domestic overdrive when spring arrived. She gave new meaning to the phrase spring cleaning.
Curtains would be taken down and cleaned. Wax would be stripped from floors. Walls would be washed. Oh, my. The list of cleaning tasks that she thought necessary just because the season changed was formidable.
Me? I'm the opposite. When spring comes, I want to work in the garden, pick flowers, and stare up at the blue sky and fluffy clouds from the comfort of a lounge chair on my back deck.
Spring Break & Other Spring Anomalies
I think spring break must have been invented for people like me. Spring is my favorite season. Just smell that sweet aroma of pollinating flowers and trees! Ahchoo! Uh, oh. That's something else that was invented for people like me. Flonase.®
Spring cleaning, spring allergies, spring break, oh, and spring fever. Spring fever has become the namesake for many things including college festivals, triathlons, mixed drinks, perfume, several movies, poems, and books. The spring equinox has figured in human history for thousands of years from pagan rituals to college pagan rituals known as spring break.
Sap Rises
When days grow longer and warmer, primitive people obviously felt a need to celebrate surviving another winter. The sap rose, in more ways than horticultural, if you get my drift.
Human instinct doesn't seem to have changed much since caveman hunted T-Rex. Even today, we look forward to similar pursuits that involve shedding winter wools and slipping on tee shirts, shorts, and sandals.
Spring Fever
My grandfather always said spring fever is when "a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love." I looked up spring fever in the dictionary. It defined spring fever as "a feeling of languor or yearning brought on by the coming of spring."
Hey, I'm a romance author. I write about yearning all the time. In my novels, a man and a woman yearn for each other—often against their better judgment. That's what creates the push-pull in a relationship that can be quite funny.
In my latest book, Cinderella Blue, I read a review for it that talked about that push-pull and how delightful it was. I like to write that kind of thing.
By the way, by this date, I was supposed to have increased the price of Cinderella Blue to $3.99, but this feeling of languor came over me, and the resulting laziness prevented me from doing so. To paraphrase Miss Scarlett, "Tomorrow is another day—I'll do it then."
Cinderella Blue: available at Kindle * All Romance Ebooks * Kobo * ibooks * Nook * Smashwords.
Do you remember spring cleaning or do you indulge in it yourself? Leave a comment with your email address to be entered to win an Audio Book from Audible.com. Giveaway open until 04/22/2015. Open to anyone who has not won a prize from me in the last 90 days. Winner chosen by random draw on or before 04/25/2015.
(Bestselling romance author Joan Reeves lives her happily ever after with her husband in the Lone Star State. Her books, available as ebooks and audiobooks, all have the underlying theme that is her motto: "It's never too late to live happily ever after." Find Joan online: Blog * Website | Subscribe to WordPlay, her mailing list for readers, or Writing Hacks, her free NL for writers.)
My mother-in-law was the only person I knew who actually did spring and fall cleaning. I barely have time to do normal cleaning. And when I do indulge in something, it's something fun or relaxing.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, Alisa. I hate to say it, but I've got to the point in life where I don't have enough hours in the day to do everything. If I don't pay someone to clean my house, it doesn't get cleaned! *LOL* My mother would be ashamed of me.
DeleteI agree with Alisa. My mom did spring cleaning. I still feel the urge to engage in spring cleaning, and gardening.
ReplyDeleteGardening, yes. Cleaning, no. The call of the garden gets me every time. My iris are getting ready to bloom at my house in the Hill Country. Here in Houston, the agapanthas are pregnant--seriously, the blooms have swollen the pods in the shaft that they look pregnant. Roses have been blooming a mouth along with Plum Divine fringe flowers, and the begonias from last summer look like small shrubs despite the COLD winter.
DeleteMy spring cleaning is mainly getting the windows open. I will hang out the heavier linens before packing them away and using lighter bed coverings.
ReplyDeleteAnd checking the camping equipment in case we have chance for a weekend trip. And getting out the comfy lawn chairs to read outside!
p.s. - thank you for lingering on the price change. I one clicked :)
Mother Nature spring cleaned here yesterday, washing all the pollen away with a deluge.
DeleteThank you, LJ, for one-clicking. *g* The older I get; the more I procrastinate.