A Break in the Weather

After a long siege of unusually cold weather, we're now enjoying above average temperatures for the last few days. It's such a treat to be able to get out for walks again. Jim has started seeding pansies, as afternoons in the greenhouse are very warm and make it a pleasant place to do that work.

I had planned to clean the little basement room today, since that is where he puts the seed trays under lights to bring about germination. So I got started about 10 a.m., vacuuming up the dirt accumulated from last year's growing season. Washed all the grow lights, even some of the plastic under the trays to protect the benches. Took all my canning jars off the shelves, washed those shelves and sorted bottles. Put 15 pint canning jars into a box to give away; there are still 30 pint jars left, more than I need.

Then it was time to make the stir fry for dinner, chicken, rice and oodles of veggies. The sun was shining so enticingly through the windows that I couldn't resist doing a quick window wash. I was plenty warm working on the balcony wearing just jeans and a denim shirt. First I shovelled off the little remaining snow on the balcony, and then attacked the windows. In no time they were clean, and I pulled down the icicle lights from the peak of the house.

The washing water was still clean and sudsy, so I washed the insides of the windows and then went around to the back of the house and cleaned those windows. They didn't dry so well, as it was considerably colder in the shade. But by 4:30 this afternoon all the upstairs windows had been washed. Since I had moved my sewing table to get at the window it faces, I did a yearly cleaning behind the table before putting it back.

So now I have four rooms partially deep cleaned. I've decided to skip all my quilting meetings this month, 6 regular meetings and two days of retreats, in order to get a load of cleaning and organizing done. Things have been postponed and put off long enough!