Posts Tagged ‘rituals’

Binge and Purge

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Today I’ve launched into spring cleaning mode. I purchased new cleaners yesterday, stacks of storage and organizational tools and today commenced my cleaning. I began with the kitchen, wiping down cupboards and window sills, cleaning off the many pieces of paper stuck to the fridge, cleaning under things that hadn’t been moved in some time and deciding to toss others.

I noticed yesterday that others had been purging as well. Cardboard boxes littered the lawns of many of the homes near us, the boxes typically featuring the word FREE on the side in black Sharpie and containing an assortment of junk that could possibly be considered treasure to someone else but was likely destined for the landfill.

I spent the afternoon cleaning various closets, purging items and packaging other items into storage bins to prepare them for storage in the basement. Other items that were too good to throw away, but no longer wanted by our family I sat down and posted on Freecycle. I’ve mentioned Freecycle before in other posts and I still swear it’s a wonderful way to encourage recycling and keep things out of the landfill until they’ve received their maximum amount of use. I’ve never received anything via Freecycle, but I’ve used it often to eliminate items from my home including a large storefront awning that was abandoned in our backyard when we purchased our home, and various bits of baby and kid stuff. If you haven’t yet tried Freecycle I really recommend it, especially during the spring cleaning season.

What do your spring cleaning rituals look like? Do you purge? Scrub down the house? Focus on the outdoor tasks? Or all of the above?

An End of Year Tradition

Friday, June 20th, 2008

I’ve long been a believer in the importance of traditions and ceremony to both celebrate the new and put to rest the old. While I’ve been careful to incorporate my own traditions, however subtle they may be into my life, since becoming a parent I’ve yet to really figure out which activities done together will become tradition, and which are merely single opportunities, here and gone in an instant.

The Not Quite Crunchy Parent a blog that I regularly enjoy reading, posted the idea of creating an end of school year tradition with your child and gives several examples of how to choose an activity that both fits the need of your family but will also grow with your child.

I don’t recall any traditions growing up that were specifically tied to school. My mother and I did have some fabulous fall traditions though and we really took the time to share the same activities together each year while my father went away on an excursion with his friends to the woods. I looked forward to those times as a child, and miss them as an adult.

What traditions do you share with your children? Did you have any as you were growing up that you’ve passed on to your children?