… a bit of spring. . . (cleaning that is)

We've been having such nice weather for the past week. . . that I new it would hit me. . .


Time to do some big time cleaning.


I'm not sure how the term 'spring cleaning' got started, but around here. . . just having the windows open for a couple of days made me want everything fresh & clean after months of colder temperatures & everything closed up. So once again I opened up all the windows & as the house took a fresh breath of air, & took a deep breath & started. It started in the morning when I was simply wiping down the kitchen counters & stovetop. . . that led to taking things apart on the stovetop &  cleaning under the heating elements & then the entire oven. Then I tackled my bathroom. Seriously, every nook & cranny of it. Cleaned. Spic-&-span'ed. I can actually say that every inch of my bathroom as also fresh & clean.


Ahhhh.

But then, as I was cleaning my the bathroom, I decided to clean off the silk hydrangeas that I have in there. . . & that led me to go & gather all the other silk hydrangeas that I have throughout the house. Which leads to a confession. . .


I have a lot of silk hydrangeas.


Seriously. LOTS of them.


(. . .& to those of you who poo-poo on not having anything but real flowers. . . I forgive you. . . & you obviously don't live in the high desert of the southwest where the ability to even get hydrangeas (& many other flowers) to grow is impossible, & so silk ones are the only reasonable way to be able to enjoy them at home.)


When I moved here to Arizona - I was only planning to stay a couple of years. . . but that wasn't to be & I've now been here for 19 years this summer! When I realized that I might be staying around for a bit longer - I found that hydrangeas (my favorite flower) were really hard to find here & when they could be found - they were outrageously expensive! (Supply & demand, I figure.) That's when I began to 'collect' silk hydrangeas. So now, even though I haven't bought/collected any for the last couple of years - I have, um. . . plenty. 

I was well reminded of this fact as I washed each & every one of the silk  stems & bushes of my hydrangea 'collection'. I washed them all in my bathtub , & the ones that I keep in a tall whitewashed bucket in the bathroom, I hung them to dry in the shower curtain rod (. . . & I kinda like the look!). The rest I took out to the backyard & laid them out on the grass (covering over a third of the lawn!) to dry. After they air dried, I bunched them up - mixing how I had  arranged the colors from what I had before. . . just to switch it up a bit


After I had taken about a third of them back into the house - I caught a glance of the rest of them out on the back porch & it reminded me of the corner flower cart where I used to buy flowers from when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, & in Santa Barbara. They all looked so pretty bunched together - that I actually left them there for the rest of the afternoon. . .


. . . just because!

Today, they are all back in the house - helping making it so much cheerier & definitely adding a touch of spring all over the house!

♥  Bren