Tuesday Coffee Chat

Spring Clean! What do you do to prepare for the new Season?

What a timely post after the weekend we just had. Almost four years ago, when we moved to Missouri, we absolutely did not have the energy to sort through all of the boxes we had in storage at our house there before we moved to our house here. Those boxes have been sitting in our garage since our move. Our garage is detached and leaky. It's had neighborhood cats taking up residency there so it stinks. So to say that we have been putting off purging and cleaning out the garage would be an extreme understatement.

Our small town has a city-wide clean up week twice per year where you can haul pretty much anything to provided dumpsters. We decided it was time to tackle the garage so we can utilize this free service.

We made it through half the garage this past weekend resulting in about 10 boxes/tubs of items to donate to the Historical Society garage sale and a huge pile of garbage bags of trash for the dump day. We plan to finish the other half in two weeks.

It's not fun, but it does feel good to have some of that junk gone!

Otherwise it's just been regular cleaning happening around here. I had already switched out all of our winter and summer clothes a few weeks ago in preparation for our recent vacation down south.

I have been doing a little exterior sprucing up, though. After enjoying the outside space at my parents' house in Florida, I decided I needed a space at my own house where I could enjoy my mornings. So I cleaned off our worn wicker patio furniture chairs and table, added new cushions and a rug, planted some flowers, and added a neat little arrangement I bought at a garage sale this past weekend.

I love this space! And so do the dogs. I've been sitting in my space in the mornings doing my crossword puzzle or reading and enjoying my coffee. I have really enjoyed it so far!

I also did a bit of rearranging and spruced up my garden entrance.

I still have tons of flowers to plant, mulch to spread, a house to power wash, and a garden to plant. I will be working on that over the next few weeks.

For me it's not all about sprucing up the house, but is also a time for me to begin to spruce up myself. I always feel reenergized in the Spring to get into a good morning routine (lazy winters always seem to get the best of my good intentions), to have my quiet time, to eat healthier, and to get back into a regular exercise routine.

I have been getting out of bed about an hour and a half before the kids to accomplish those things, and have started doing 21 Day Fix again. I have also dusted off my MyFitnessPal app (my user name is NicoleTaulman so you can add me as a friend if you'd like) to start keeping track of my eating and exercise. Rick and I are going to Puerto Vallarta at the end of May and I need to do a tad bit of work before I put on a bikini.

Spring is definitely in the air.