Saturday, February 26, 2011

Spring Cleaning

It isn't time to open the windows and let the sound of birds and the fresh, clean air drift though our windows. We are ready for that, but Mother Nature and that freaking Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, are in cahoots and have a different idea. It is 9. Yes, 9. As in degrees. It's the worst. I was to be cleaning and purging myself of all the items we have claimed over the years, but I am either too cold to move or I gather these items, but taking them to the trash is an actual life or death situation. I might never make it back from the garage and I'll wind up eating the garbage I just threw out and peeing on myself to stay warm like Bear Grylls inevitably ends up doing on every episode of Man Vs. Wild ( I wonder if his wife is ever like, "Bear! Really? Right now at the super market? Peeing on yourself won't make this line go any faster!").

"Hey, it's either eat this raw fish, or drink my own pee, lady. You choose."

So, as I am fuming about this frigid day, I hop in the shower to warm up and I get a brilliant idea. I am looking around at the five hundred products we have in the shower fully knowing that there are five hundred more in the medicine cabinets and drawers and I decide to use them all. No, not like that minute, in the shower, but until they are gone. The thought of only having the products I actually use and need (which would be like five) is somehow very freeing. Here are the rules:

1. Use all bottles, big and small--yes, even travel-sized and samples.

2. No buying any products just because you don't like something. This means that when that nice bottle of shampoo is gone, we're using Head & Shoulders.

3. We may throw out expired products (nobody wants to use Gold Bond Medicated Lotion when it's past the date. That's more like A Thousand Tiny Fairies Softly Blowing By--With Burning Hot Blister-Causing Daggers in Their Hands).

4. We don't have to use seasonal products like sunscreen and bug spray ("Katy has an interesting oily glow today and smells faintly of the pool and deet.").

5. We have to actually take all the vitamins we have (unless they are expired, of course and even then, I enjoy a good hallucination as much as the next person, so why not?)

6. We don't have to use medicated products unless we need them. I don't want to burn my face off unless I am actually having an acne outbreak--then, bring on the benzoyl peroxide!

This may mean that the next time you see me you might think, "Wow, Katy's scent reminded me of this perfume from the Gap I used to wear in Junior High."

And you would be right.
Because I still have a sample bottle of Dream and a huge one of Om.

So far, it's not looking impossible, but I do have an inordinate amount of Lip Venom to get through (remember that stuff?).

Lisa Rinna remembers Lip Venom!



How can you begin spring cleaning before spring's officially decided to show up?

We have a long way to go

4 comments:

Micros for Mamas said...

HAHAHA love this post- esp the gold bond one... no the sunscreen... no the lip venom, ahh all of it- Katy with a newborn is no more and Katy with sarcastic wit and charm is back!

Tami Hagglund said...

Welp, what worked for me was moving at 34 weeks pregnant. I was not a good earth lover like you--I just threw TONS of crap away. I donated/recycled what I could but I just wanted stuff out and gone and no longer in my life!

sarah.hennagin said...

good work! I love the feeling of using up stuff I've had in storage forever. And seriously, I'm pretty sure expired vitamins are fine. :-) But you could experiment with placebo-hallucination...

Britany said...

Hilarious Katy!I totally have bottles of Gap Dream and Om from high school too! That was 10 years ago for me... Can you believe that JJ and my SHS reunion will be this summer? You guys better be there!
Also, my "spring cleaning" has consisted of sorting and purging the 5 file boxes(from only two years of teaching French) of lesson plans, worksheets, and handouts that I still have even though I haven't been a French teacher for four years and my teaching license expired...